How do I actually change IRQ's?

[Willie2]

I have an IRO conflict and I want to disable serial ports 1 and 2. They are not in use.Next I want to use one of the freed IRQ for Sound Blaster pci 512 and any other device I want to bave it's own IRQ. Also do I have to change the corresponding I/O addresses? Any help would be greatly appreciated. It would save me $75.00 for a house call.

<< It is unequal to treat a bunch of unequals equal. >>

 

[Ben]

You would disable the two serial ports in the system BIOS setup.

Your BIOS and/or Windows should reshuffle the IRQ's accordingly.

Start by disabling the com ports, and then tell us what happened so we can go from there.

 

[lowtech1]

Del the offending device IRQ that is causing the conflict then reboot to let the system reconfig it to a free IRQ.

 

[Willie2]

OK Ben and Lowtek I have disabled the two serial ports. Rebooted and now have IRQ's 2&amp;3 free. I ran my DVD and again it crashed just as the disk was detected.The conflicting device ,accordind to the DM ,is ACPI IRQ Holder for PCI IRQ steering. What should I do?Put the SB card in an empty IRQ and the decoder card in the other one.OR as Lwtek says delete the offender and put it in an empty IRQ.Just how do I do that?


A7V MB
750mhz Athlon
138 100 ram
SB pci 512
Hollywood magic Plus decoder
Diamond stealth 530 with 32 meg r

 

[Rifter]

try moving the SB to a differnt PCI slot if possible, i had the same problem with my decoder card and my SB live conflicting, i moved the live around and it works now.

 

[Rifter]

try moving the SB to a differnt PCI slot if possible, i had the same problem with my decoder card and my SB live conflicting, i moved the live around and it works now.

 

[Ben]

Which OS are you using?

The &quot;ACPI IRQ Holder for PCI IRQ steering&quot; is not neccesarily the problem.

If your SBLive! and your decoder card are sharing IRQ's, that could be the problem. You would have to shuffle your PCI cards in the slots. Most motherboards have two or more PCI slots that share an IRQ. Just pick one of the two cards and move it one slot up or down. Then reboot and check your IRQ's again.

I know that the A7V has two PCI slots that share an IRQ but I don't remember which two. It's been about 6 months since I had my A7V. I think it's slot 4 and 5. Maybe it's 3 and 5?

Note that some PCI cards can share IRQ's peacefully, but the SBLive! is generally not one of them.

Could you put up a list of all your IRQ's from DM and a list of your PCI cards and their slot number?

 

[Willie2]

IRQ 0 System timer OK
IRQ 1 Standard 101/102-Key or Microsoft Natural Keyboard OK
IRQ 2 Programmable interrupt controller OK
IRQ 4 ACPI IRQ Holder for PCI IRQ Steering OK
IRQ 4 VIA Tech 3038 PCI to USB Universal Host Controller OK
IRQ 4 VIA Tech 3038 PCI to USB Universal Host Controller OK
IRQ 4 ESS Modem Device Manager OK
IRQ 4 ESS ES56T-PI Data Fax Voice Modem OK
IRQ 6 Standard Floppy Disk Controller OK
IRQ 7 ECP Printer Port (LPT1) OK
IRQ 8 System CMOS/real time clock OK
IRQ 9 SCI IRQ used by ACPI bus OK
IRQ 10 ACPI IRQ Holder for PCI IRQ Steering OK
IRQ 10 REALmagic Hollywood Plus OK
IRQ 10 Win95-98 Promise Ultra100 (tm) IDE Controller (PDC20265) OK
IRQ 11 ACPI IRQ Holder for PCI IRQ Steering OK
IRQ 11 Diamond Stealth III S540 for Windows 98 OK
IRQ 11 Creative SB PCI512 OK
IRQ 12 PS/2 Compatible Mouse Port OK
IRQ 13 Numeric data processor OK
IRQ 14 VIA Bus Master PCI IDE Controller OK
IRQ 14 Primary IDE controller (dual fifo) OK
IRQ 15 VIA Bus Master PCI IDE Controller OK
IRQ 15 Secondary IDE controller (dual fifo) OK

Here is a list of my IRQ's Ben.
I am running winme.
I tried to reset SB to a different IRQ and the OS would not let me.
I am about readt to give up and go to the shop. I can try moving the cards around in the morning.to see if it helps.There must be some way to sort this out.

 

[Ben]

Interesting. You have a lot of hardware in there.
Seriously though, you may have a hard time getting all this to co-exist peacefully.

Here's what I would fix:


<< IRQ 11 ACPI IRQ Holder for PCI IRQ Steering OK
IRQ 11 Diamond Stealth III S540 for Windows 98 OK
IRQ 11 Creative SB PCI512 OK >>



Assuming you video card is AGP, it looks like you have you SBLive! in PCI slot 1. The first slot always shares and IRQ with the AGP port. I would move around that SBLive! first and try to find a spot that gives it it's own IRQ.

If you get the SBLive! on it's own IRQ, and you still have problems then work on this area:


<< IRQ 10 ACPI IRQ Holder for PCI IRQ Steering OK
IRQ 10 REALmagic Hollywood Plus OK
IRQ 10 Win95-98 Promise Ultra100 (tm) IDE Controller (PDC20265) OK
>>


Maybe your REALmagic Hollywood Plus doesn't like sharing with your Ultra 100 Controller? Since your Ultra 100 controller is wired on the board, you'll have to move the decoder card.

This might be a pain in the rear.
If I remember correctly, there is only two PCI slots that don't share an IRQ with some onboard device such as the Ultra 100 Controller, the USB controller, the AGP port, etc.

Maybe someone with a similar setup can post what worked the best for them?

Keep us updated.

Ben

 

[Ben]

Remember, you don't have to boot into windows to see your IRQ's. Right after your hard drives are detected, before Windows loads, your BIOS will display a list of your hardware. At the top it usually list the CPU speed, cache, RAM, etc. But at the bottom it should list your hardware and their IRQ numbers.

Sometimes this screen just flashes for a second or two. In order to read the list you'll have to hit the &quot;pause&quot; key real quick when this screen pops up. To resume the boot, just hit &quot;enter&quot;. If you read the list and you see that you need to shuffle some more, you can just power down the system without waiting for Windows to boot.

 

[Willie2]

Ben.

I just shuffled around the SB card and decoder card.Decoder first.
DVD played for abouy 20 seconds with video and sound. Then crashed.
Next moved SB leaving decoder alone. The DVD crashed as soon as the card was detected.The screen went black abd the comp. restarted.Oh well!
I enabled com1 1&amp; 2.
When I tried to changr the IRQ settings for SB manually. I unchecked AUTO
and did the rest. The OS would not let me make changes.Can I set all IRQs manually?Is it recommended?

 

[Ben]

Whoa horse.

Let's take this one step at a time. First of all, turn off the com ports again, unless you need them.

Next, the reason for moving the cards is to get them one their own IRQ, in other words, not sharing with something else. This is a logical step by step process since most motherboard manufacturers don't disclose this information in te manual.

On motherboards, some PCI slots share IRQ numbers. For example, slot 4 and 5 might share an IRQ. So if you plug in a modem in slot 4 and a sound card in slot 5, their going to use the same IRQ. You will be able to change the number, say from 9 to 11 or 7, but the two cards will always be the same number. In other words, they will both be 9, or they will both be 11.

Another sharing problem is that some PCI slots share IRQ's with onboard devices. For example PCI slot 2 might share an IRQ with an onboard Ultra 100 controller, and PCI slot 3 might share and IRQ with an onboard USB controller. The same goes for these. You can change the number that they use, 9, 7, 11, but they will always share the same number.

Luckily, the motherboard gods always give you at least one PCI slot that doesn't share an IRQ. Most of the time you get more than one. Since you don't know which one(s) it is, you have to use trial and error by plugging your cards into each slot one by one and then booting the computer to see which IRQ it grabs.

So...

I would try to find a PCI slot for your decoder card that doesn't share an IRQ.

You can also try and update all your software, video card drivers, DVD drivers, etc. I'm not so sure the problem is IRQ related. It might be, it might not be.

Now that you described the symptoms a little more, it reminds me of the time when a certain release of drivers for my video card wouldn't play DVD movies. Sometimes my computer would restart too. When NVidia released new drivers, the problem went away.

 

[cirrus1]

Try putting your SB live in pci slot 3 and assign it to irq 5 from Bios that helped me out. I will post my irq configuration later.

PS I don't have as many devices as you. I have NIC, soundcard and video only

 

[Ben]

I guess he gave up...

It seemed like he was getting impatient, he must have forked out the $75 for the house call.

 

[Willie2]

Ben and others.
Thanks for your help. I have not given up yet.Ben's idea to manually set IRQ is a good one since I have tried every one suggested.The OS will not allow manual setting of IRQ's even when I select the manual setting. How does one actually do that? The other option I have is to use soft DVD of which I have a copy that came with the A7V brd.What do you suggest?