John (and all),
I recently dealt with IRQ problems with some new boards. Specifically, the
vendor of my graphics board (an nVidia-based board from Abit) recommended it
use its own, separate IRQ. under automatic configuration, some PCI boards
were sharing the same IRQ, so I tried to get them to change. On *some*
motherboards, one can do the following:
1. First, simply try shutting down and changing the PCI slot into which a
given board is inserted. Many motherboards assign IRQs based on the physical
slot in which the board is installed (which is why the boards have no
jumpers and seem to "insist" on a specific IRQ). Beware of the first PCI
slot (that nearest the AGP slot), which often shares an interrupt with the
AGP slot. Reboot the machine and check the IRQ settings on the start-up
screens (many machines report them) and see if you've had some luck.
2. Failing finding any joy with the above: Turn OFF automatic PCI
configuration in the BIOS. BIOS settings for this vary, but most have it in
some form. Set all interrupts to be configured for "ISA/PCI," if such a
choice exists in your BIOS. Manually assign the desired IRQ settings for all
the PCI slots (again assuming such a choice exists). Save the changes and
allow the machine to re-boot. You should definitely have different IRQ
assignments now, although some experimentation may be required to get what
you want. You may have to try swapping what slot a given board is in to get
the desired results.
If all this works out (as it did for me) you will probably get a bunch of
"new hardware found" messages in Windows when it comes up, and have to do
some reinstallation of the drivers (which should be a snap as they're
already present) but have much better distribution of use of IRQs, with much
LESS IRQ sharing under Win2K, for example. I started with my system
assigning most IRQs as "shared" on either 15 or 9, and ignoring many that
were available (3, 5, 7, 10, 11) without sharing. End result was having the
video board solely on 15, sound card solely on 11, and IDE solely on 14. All
had been mostly shared IRQs, previously.
What I do NOT understand at this point is why most system's BIOSes don't
seem to implement a hierarchical selection of IRQs during automatic
configuration, based first on availability of the IRQ *without* sharing,
then on a shared basis with some intelligence regarding the use of different
cards.
---
Scott Gomez
-----Original Message-----
From: John Pendley [mailto:jpendley@xxxxxxxxxx]
Subject: Re: [OM] OT: Computers
Hi Bernd,
I must have a different Acer card. There is no jumper. I called Acer tech
support, and the fellow said that the card insists on IRQ 11. He also
volunteered the information that his job would be a lot easier if the IRQ
*could* be changed. I even bought an Adaptec card: no jumper there,
either. Believe me, I'd be very happy if this fix would work for
me. Thanks for the idea.
John
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