Is there a Linux limitation for a single chipset?

[007osint]

I am testing several setups with MANY WiFi cards in Linux (debian). I have not tried to push past 8 WiFi cards of a single chipset prior to today. In the past hour I have tried to exceed 8 cards for a single WiFi chipset and I have noticed that the system will not acknowledge the existence of any cards past the 8th of a given chipset.

I am curious if anyone else has had this happen to them.

Thank you in advance for any information.

My limitation, specifically, is with USB devices with the same chipset.
The system has internal miniPCI cards, too, but I haven't tried to take that number past 8 due to hardware limitation of the motherboard I am using.

[themacuser]

What chipset is that? Possibly a driver issue with that chipset...

[dagaroth]

I'm a windows guy mostly, and a linux user, but not super experienced. I'm not sure about how linux handles PnP, but IIR, in windows, even with PnP on, you have a limited number of addresses you can use for hardware without resorting to add on multiplexer cards (like rocketports for serial ports)

It seems to me that this would be the case under linux. I do know that when I built my webserver, I attempted to install 8 harddrives, a Cdrom and a JAZZ drive for backups. I ended up cutting it down to 6 drives and 1 Cdrom because the motherboard just seemed to not like anything past 8 IDE channels even WITH add in controllers.

Are you able to put in say 6 of one type and 6 of another and have the PC see all 12 cards?