I apologize in advance if this is in the wrong forum.

I bought a wireless PCI adapter yesterday, and it didn't work. However I do not know if the card itself was damaged, or if the PCI slot is damaged. Is there a way to tell if my PCI slot is working or not? Besides buying a PCI card and testing it out?

Ok firstly check it is seated correctly and tightly,Then have you installed the software that came with it?floppy/cd?Or try it in another slot.Then reinstall software.

Oh, I already returned it and bought a USB Adapter.

I'm just worried that my PCI slot is broken, in case I ever use it in the future. I just bought this computer, and I don't want to start using it, and then realize a few months down the line that the PCI slot was broken.

But anyway, it was in there tight. And I had it install the software before I plugged in the PCI card.

But I just want to know if there's some test I could run to see if the slot is broken or not.

EDIT: And I only had one available PCI slot.

MMMM,not sue but is the PCI card working?Does it show up in device manger or internet connections?If it does it works.
Also you install PCI card first then install the software.

Like I said, I returned it and bought a USB Adapter instead.

When I had it, it wasn't working. The green light on the back of the adapter would not light up, which indicated to me that no connection was being made. However it did show up in the device manager, but it said it was not functioning properly and said "(Code 10)". So I returned it, and bought the USB adapter instead, which works fine.

However, now I'm worried if the PCI Card was broken, or if my slot itself is broken. And I wanted a way to figure out if my slot was working or not, without having to go out and buy a card to test on it.

CODE 10 - Device Failed to start.
Update driver, you may also be able to resolve this issue by removing the device in device manager, and going through the Add New Hardware Wizard.

If you installed software first then inserted PCI card that was wrong way around.It is PCI first rebbot pc and then install software.As the light did not come on it may of just been a faulty PCI card.If it showed in device manager then you did not install drive properly.
The light not coming on at back means it was proberly a faulty PCI card.
Maybe another tech may know some how of testing the slot?
But I think it was proberly software not installed properly.

Hmm. The directions clearly told me to install the software before plugging in the card. Even the tech support phone-line told me to do that.

But you're right, the drivers weren't installed properly. After I rebooted my computer, it said "Found New Hardware," but then it said that it didn't install properly. And when I tried to run the driver setup, nothing popped up. I think it was a problem with Vista. I hadn't run Windows Update yet (I couldn't--no internet, lol), so a lot of applications crashed.

Locate the driver and uninstall it.