Help: what's causing my instability?

[TuffGuy]

i added a couple of cards and now my system is unstable and the screen 'flickers' occasionally. short of taking out the cards and putting them in one at a time, does anyone know what could be the cause?

100% Stable With:
Abit KT7 - NO RAID
Tbird-700@1133
3D Prophet II GTS - det6.34
3com modem
WinME

Unstable With the Addition Of:
Soundblaster Live! Value - Liveware 3.0
3Com NIC 3C900B - Combo
Creative Encore Dxr3

 

[Compellor]

The ABIT KT7 FAQ page says it could be a problem. One person wrote:

"DO NOT EVER EVER EVER LET YOUR SOUNDBLASTER LIVE AND YOUR NIC SHARE IRQ'S. In other words, do not put the soundcard in slot 2 and your NIC in slot 3. This will not only cause stability problems, but also kills your system performance without you even knowing it. Windows shows no conflict, but there is definately a hardware conflict. Basically, after I rearranged the slots, my HD performance went from 40 MB/s to 50 MB/s and CPU use dropped from 13% to 5%. Also, mouse movement is smoother, even on ps/2. (I'm wondering how many of those PS/2 problems were caused by this, or something like it). If you put your soundcard in slot 2, which is very tempting, put your NIC in 5 and watch your problems disappear. There was no need to disable PCI Delay Transaction with this configuration."

Here's the link:
KT7 FAQ page

 

[TuffGuy]

thanks. if i remember right, my soundcard is in slot 1 and my nic is in slot 4. i'll try moving the nic to another slot. btw, thanks for the link.

 

[TuffGuy]

i just checked and the irqs are different. i'll try removing the nic card. i'm fairly sure it's the item causing my problems.

 

[TuffGuy]

it looks like the sound card is conflicting with my video card.

 

[Compellor]

Yeah, if you put any card in slot 1, it will share an IRQ with the video card -- not good! I have my Diamond Monster MX300 in slot 5 and my WinTV card in slot 3. The sound card uses IRQ 5 and the TV card uses IRQ 10. If ACPI is enabled, it may cause problems. I had to format my HD, and then install the OS using the "setup /p i" switch so it wouldn't be enabled. Every card wanted to use IRQ 11! It was a nightmare...

 

[TuffGuy]

it's stable so far... (knock on wood)