Asus A8R32-MVP Deluxe severe IRQ assignment problems

[knox1711]

Purchased a new system:

Asus A8R32-MVP Deluxe
AMD FX-60
4 GB (4 sticks) DDR400 (3200) OCZ 1024mb EL Dual Channel Platinum
Crossfire 1900 mothercard
1900xtx daughtercard
Creative X-Fi Fatal1ty soundcard
TV Wonder Elite PCI Card
WinXP SP2
Enermax 600w

System immediately had severe problems in 3d apps. All Bios/drivers/software up to date and patched. Started changing out hardware...replaced power supply, soundcard, mother video card, and motherboard. Same problems - no stability in 3d apps, wouldnt even run 3DMark06 with crossfire enabled...

Started looking at IRQ's...here is where the insanity begins...IRQ's 1, 2, 3, 7, 10, 11, 12, & 16 are OPEN...meanwhile, IRQ 17 has three devices on it, IRQ 18 has three devices on it, including the mother video card, and IRQ 19 had FOUR devices on it...including the sound card and the daughter xtx card. I can find no way to alter these assignments, short of moving the two PCI cards, which I did. I also disabled the primary gigabyte controller and am using the secondary (secondary uses irq 21 instead of primary's irq 19) This situation is a huge failure for asus IMO. It is an unstable product. There is NO way to use the last PCI slot without having it conflict on IRQ19 with the xtx daugthercard. Both the X-FI card and the ATI tuner card cause 3d app stability problems when placed in the last slot.

IRQ's atm:

17: Creative X-FI, ALi PCI to USB controller
18: Radeon 1900 Crossfire edition, ALi PCI to USB controller
19: Radeon X1900 series, ULi SATA RAID Controller

and of course IRQ's 1,2,3,5,10,11,12,& 16 are OPEN...

Would like to get the RAID controller off of 19 if I can, but at least crossfire is stable, kindof, at this point for me...would appreciate an insight into this problem, ty.

 

[doc2345]

Purchased a new system: From where?

 

[Remedy]

Are you using the Latest BIOS?

 

[knox1711]

yes, 0404. On BOTH mobos that have been in the system...lol

 

[RyanVM]

I think that's normal on APIC-supporting boards

 

[knox1711]

Originally posted by: RyanVM
I think that's normal on APIC-supporting boards

Huh? how can it be normal when it causes the board/system to function improperly? And why leave all those other IRQ's unassigned and overload 17, 18 and 19? Ill try reading up on APICs to see if that makes any sense...

 

[Remedy]

Does all this happen after reconstructing your system components, 1 by 1 from scratch?

 

[knox1711]

Originally posted by: Remedy
Does all this happen after reconstructing your system components, 1 by 1 from scratch?

Not sure what you mean by "reconstructing" - the components arent the problem. The problem is the IRQ assignments made by the motherboard and the fact that I cant change them in the BIOS or in windows, short of disabling or removing devices.

 

[canadianpsycho]

Last time I checked IRQs are pretty much shared all the time nowadays. I'd be more concerned about the fact that you have 4 DIMMs.

Run the board with 1 set of DIMMs, 1 vidcard and work your way up, IMHO. Maybe that will isolate the issue.

 

[knox1711]

Originally posted by: canadianpsycho
Last time I checked IRQs are pretty much shared all the time nowadays. I'd be more concerned about the fact that you have 4 DIMMs.

Run the board with 1 set of DIMMs, 1 vidcard and work your way up, IMHO. Maybe that will isolate the issue.

Ive already isolated the issue. The question is, how do I get the stupid board to stop sharing IRQs when it doesnt need to...

Ive tried all the simple stuff. The memory is fine. Ive run with 1 dimm, two dimms, rotated out dimms, etc. No difference. Also run memtest. Also tested with just about every bios option, especially the plug and play stuff. Crossfire and the soundcard work as long as 1) the sound card isnt sharing an IRQ with either of the videocards and 2) another PCI card isnt in the last PCI slot (because it gets stuck on IRQ19 with the daughterXTX card). All I have to do is disable the last slot PCI device, taking it off IRQ19, or physically remove the card - either way, stability returns to crossfire in 3d apps.

So the key is to not have another PCI card on IRQ 19. Ive worked on this for a week, going through all the permutations. THe system also works fine with only one video card in the 1st PCI-E slot. But that isnt what I paid for. I bought a board that was supposed to handle crossfire and two other PCI cards. Not one, but two of these asus boards are unable to do that, because of the IRQ settings. What I am looking for is some way to change them.

Sharing IRQ's...ok, maybe if I dont have 5 or 6 or more empty IRQ's just sitting there...

 

[ChiPCGuy]

You are absolutely correct that this board shares IRQ's to an incredible extent, leaving a number of them unused for inexplicable reasons. For example, in my system, I have IRQ 17 with two devices (X-Fi and USB controller), IRQ 18 (X1900XTX, Gig-E Lan, USB controller) and IRQ 19 (USB controller, SATA controller).

I am not suffering instability or issues due to this, but it is very disconcerting that if you disable certain devices it does NOT release the IRQ for use to the system. I confirmed this across the last three BIOSes and multiple reinstalls and CMOS resets just to be sure the board is literally hard-wired, and it appears to be. It refuses to re-allocate IRQs no matter what you do.

My main concern is that there are a number of peripherals out there that just refuse to share an IRQ--like the HDA Digital X-Mystique/X-Plosion sound cards as well as some A/V editing cards.

Anyone else think this is an issue, or could be one going forward?

 

[mechBgon]

Why are all my devices using one IRQ in Win2K or WinXP? As the FAQ says, you can force a non-ACPI HAL if you really, really want to try manually configuring all that stuff yourself.

When you say "unstable," what precisely occurs? BSOD, or what? Have you tried the system without the PCI cards as a fact-finding step? What memory voltage are you giving it? Yeah, you ran Memtest... Memtest doesn't simultaneously put the system under 200W+ of video-card-induced power load, though.

 

[knox1711]

Originally posted by: mechBgon
Why are all my devices using one IRQ in Win2K or WinXP? As the FAQ says, you can force a non-ACPI HAL if you really, really want to try manually configuring all that stuff yourself.

When you say "unstable," what precisely occurs? BSOD, or what? Have you tried the system without the PCI cards as a fact-finding step? What memory voltage are you giving it? Yeah, you ran Memtest... Memtest doesn't simultaneously put the system under 200W+ of video-card-induced power load, though.

Will check out the faq.

It appears that if I follow the faq and change from ACPI, I will be unable to assign IRQ's over 15? If that is correct, I believe I will run out of IRQ's...so that is a no go.

What precisely occured? 3dmark06 could not initialize, received an error, repeatedly, consistently. Oblivion crashed immediately, repeatedly. I am doing NO overclocking. I am running the board with the default voltage settings. As I said, the system works (runs oblivion, runs 3dmark06, etc.)when there isnt another PCI device in the last PCI slot (where it is forced on IRQ 19 with the daughter XTX card). It is that simple.