ACPI Disable & Win2K

[boggsie]

In my latest installation of Win2K on my IWill KK266, I disabled ACIP as I got SO SICK AND TIRED of Win2K assigning ALL OF my PCI cards to the same IRQ, when I had four unassigned IRQ's available!!!

What I didn't realize is that by disabling ACPI, Win2K will not be able to power down the PC, when I select shut-down.

Is it possible to disable the part of ACPI that screws up the IRQ assignments, but keep part of ACPI that permits the shut down/power off feature?

 

[Tseng]

Win2K doesn't shut down your PC because APM is not installed. As you finish installing Win2K w/o ACPI, go to Control Panel, then choose Power Options, click on APM tab.

Check Enable Advanced Power Management support

It will take approx. 10 seconds and then you are set.

 

[boggsie]

WOO HOO ... I will give it a try, tonight !!!

Thank you

 

[rbV5]

FYI, ACPI doesn't actually assign your cards to the same IRQ, ACPI assigns them to virtual IRQ's thereby eliminating IRQ conflicts, its supposed to work that way. IMHO, its one of the best features of win2k and allows you to have far fewer conflicts with more hardware. Its been blamed for a lot of problems (unjustly) but if your hardware is compliant, its a real bonus.

 

[boggsie]

Interesting ... obviously I am ignorant on what it does and how it works. Thanks for the information.

What I observed were system pauses, more like freezes. I really didn't know what to make of it, as I knew I had plenty of available system resources. DVD was choppy, HD access when opening up Explorer took a couple of seconds and the window would then paint slowly. I was baffled, then I opened up system properties and discovered the IRQ assignment debacle I described above.

Even after the reinstall without ACPI, everything has it's own IRQ and I still have one or two available. IMHO, on this bare bones system, there is no excuse for what I saw. However, I wouldn't have cared less if the system behavior wouldn't have been so poor. Of course, this could have more to do with the capabilities of my cards (non-compliant) than the virtues of Win2K's implementation of ACPI.

 

[Jhhnn]

More reading, if you're interested:

link#1

link#2

One of the more interesting bits is that adding cards one at a time isn't a good idea when doing a fresh install with ACPI. Just put in all the cards, let Windows figure it out... It also does not seem to be a good option for people who like to switch hardware around.

 

[rkoenn]

Another note about ACPI as well. If you enable it now, you will have to do a complete reinstall of Win2K or the OS won't run. That is the only way to convert Win2K to ACPI if it wasn't during the installation. One thing to look at for as far as the DVD choppiness is to make sure the DMA settings for the drive are enabled. On my MSI K7T Turbo I initially did not have them enabled for the Via chipset and my DVD was broken. Enabling it completely changed that.

 

[boggsie]

Thanks for the links/info and for the help.

The system is all SCSI.
Disabled both IDE channels to free 2 IRQ's
Disabled both serial ports to free 2 IRQ's
Disabled printer port to free 1 IRQ
Disable USB to free 1 IRQ

Had installed under Win2k:
1 Radeon 64
1 Tekram SCSI-160 card
1 3Com 10/100 ethernet card
1 SBLive card

Under device manager, they were all installed to (i think) IRQ 11. :Q I noticed this after experiencing the behavior that I described. I just thought that it was interesting and perhaps a bit bogus :disgust: to have 5 free IRQ's and these four devices assigned to ONE.

Anyway, thanks so much for the Advanced Power Management tip. It did exactly as you described and I am very pleased with my setup, even without ACPI.