disabling IRQ sharing in win XP/2k?!?!

[agnusdei]

i was told that in order to disable IRQ sharing in win XP/2k, i must re-install windows and press F6 in setup when it asks something about setting up 3rd party scsi drivers. i just needed someone to clarify this because although my sound card is in the second pci slot and not the first (which is free by the way), the sound is still going out in games. im also having some stability problems which is weird. ive updated the drivers for everything expect my sound card (diamond monster sound mx300 / aureal vortex 2) which is hard to find drivers for being that it's discontinued and not to mention the crap that happened with diamond. anyway, i was wondering if disabling IRQ sharing would solve this problem. thanks everyone! -davo ?

mobo: msi k7t266 pro2-ru (via kt266a)
graphics: geforce 2 ultra
sound: diamond monster sound mx300 (aureal vortex 2)

 

[sanz]

Well it could be ACPI problem or not..

Before you reinstall your windows, you could test it out. This method is for Win2K.. not sure about XP since I don't have it. If disabling ACPI solves your problem, I suggest you reinstall your OS without it. Btw, you have to press F5, not F6 during install to disable ACPI.

Good luck.


*** Disabling ACPI in Windows 2000 ***

Go to Control panel / System / Hardware.
Click on "Device Manager".
Double click "Computer", then right click "Advanced Configuration".
Go to Driver, then click on "update driver".
Click next.
Select "Display a list".
Wait.
Click on "Show all hardware...".
Select Standard PC.
Now just follow the steps. After you reboot, all your hardware will be re-scanned and and assigned separate IRQ?s.

Changing to a Standard PC in control panel will give you the ?It is now safe to turn-off your computer? and the PC won't shut down automatically anymore. So here is how you fix that.

Open up Device manager...
Go to view... show hidden devices.
Open up Non-Plug and Play Devices... Find Microsoft acpi Driver... DON?T disable or uninstall because that doesn?t work.
Go into Properties... then driver....
there is a pull down menu to tell windows when to start this driver...
Set it Disabled.... and then reboot
Now go back into it.... the driver will still be there and that?s ok... go back into properties and where it says status make sure it says Unavailable.
After that you need to install a new driver... manually by using ?Add/Remove Hardware?.
Go in and add NT APM/Legacy Support...
It will install something called NT APM/Legacy Interface Node....
Reboot and everything should be all good.

BTW you cannot install the NT APM/Legacy if the Microsoft APCI driver is running.

 

[NesuD]

before doing all that read the anandtech faq dealing with irq sharing in 2000/xp. It gives a very good description of what it does and why. It also gives you a couple of methods for switching back to a standard pc configuration. I really don't think that will cure your problem though. My guess would be the sound card drivers. Another thing i have found is that even though the os says everything is on the same irq the board sets irqs for each device independantly of the os. My guess is the os just does a sort of redirect with virtual irqs. You can view the bios irq settings for your devices after the post screen just hit the pause key to stop it there so that you can read them before it disappears. I found that by rearranging my cards slots i could reduce or eliminate devices on the same irq in the bios and that seemed to help with several irritating little problems in spite of theos redirecting everything through virtual irq sharing.