KT7 IRQ madness - I need help outta this frustration

[Microbman]

I have a new KT7/1 G system just put together including a new Santa Cruz sound card. I had another post about what I thought was a sound card compatability prob. Turns out to be IRQ overload. The sound card insists on settling on IRQ 10 along with my modem. Listed below are the current IRQ posts.

I have uninstalled and removed both the sound and modem at least a half dozen times trying to force them into different residences but no luck. I install the modem before the sc each time. I have the sc in PCI slot 3 and the modem in slot 6.

What do I have to do to force these two cards, or one or the other, into a different IRQ. This KT7 seems to have sightly different IRQ setup than I've seen before. What are the steps necessary to make the proper set up. I am getting quite frustrated and I'm out of options I know of.

I loose my sound and blue screen after about five minutes of game play, on line or off. Runs smooth otherwise. My sound card indicates that the setup is correct & operating properly...for about five minutes that is!

Heeere's my IRQ's:
IRQ#1 = Keyboard
2 = Prog interr cont
3 = Com2
4 = Com1
5 = Santa Cruz (sound card)Game device
6 = Floppy cont
7 = LPT1
8 = CMOS
9 = SCI IRQ ACPI Bus
10 = Santa Cruz PCI Audio cont
US Robotics 56 K voice INT modem
VIA tech 3038 PCI to USB uni host cont
ACI IRQ hosder for PCI steering
11 = TNT2 U
12 = Mouse
13 = Numeric proc
14 = VIA Bus Master PCI IDE cont
15 = Secondary Bus Master PCI IDE cont

My system: 1 G tbird, KT7, 256K Vitalic Mosel RAM, TNT2 U, Santa Cruz sc, US Rob. 56 K voice mod., Ricoh 7060 burner, 250 zip ext., Epson 750,
Alpha PAL6035/Sunon 60 mm fan, 300 W PS, Altec Lansing quad spkrs.,flppy,CD-R.

Could someone pls detail out my next move so I can begin to enjoy my new system?!

 

[Heretik]

Do you use your serial (COM) ports or parallel port? If not, disable them to free up those IRQ's for other hardware to use.......

 

[Microbman]

Hmmm, this sounds promising. I have my scanner piggybacked onto my zip in the parallel port and my printer is USB. Com 1 is the modem.

 

[Heretik]

So...your modem is an external plugged into COM port 1? If it is, leave it enabled, but disable COM2 in BIOS to free up IRQ

 

[Microbman]

I got it wrong...srry, looong day at the rock pile today. My modem is internal PCI on Com 5, PCI slot 3 on the KT7.

 

[Microbman]

OK, if I go into BIOS and disable Com port 2 then what do I do? Do I take the modem out, restart, shut down, install modem and hope it hooks onto that IRQ (#4)?? Is this the correct method? I'm not sure how this works?!?!

 

[2ndDawn]

Hello there, this is Microbman's son, I'm here trying to help him figure things out with his motherboard, as well as learn it myself. We are rather sketchy as to what this thing is in the BIOS called PIRQ. What is it and what exactly does it do. I think I understand that it controlls certain PCI slots, but why do certain ones take care of more than one slot if it only allows you to manually assign one IRQ setting. Anything will be helpful. ^_^

 

[grendelkhan]

Those settings for the disabling onboard ports that aren't being used (sounds like pretty much all your serial/COM ports have nothing on them), it's under the "Integrated Peripherals" heading in the BIOS.

Just double check that you aren't using them (check and see what's plugged into what), and then diable them. That was crucial for me with my last system when trying to get my interal modem to work. Went through about 2 hours of frustrating time before I finally got it naild down and turned off the stupid onboard serial port.

 

[Microbman]

Thanks for the reply Grendle. Well, I switched out the modem a coupla more times into other PCI slots and it's now back into #6. Also the IRQ's have radically changed so that the Santa Cruz sc game device is now on IRQ 10. The Santa cruz pci audio accelerator , tnt2 u, and pci steering are all on 11. I disabled com 2 and forced the modem onto that IRQ(#3). I am still blue screening after about 5 min of gameplay tho.

Something else too. It seems that the IRQ settings change randomly, at least in the system information window under hardware resources. Is it this crazy mobo or what? I have the BIOS set to auto for IRQ settings. Has anyone else had these problems???

I've spent tow nights trying to figure this out and I still have no resolution. Is there a problem with with this santa cruz card or is it mostly an IRQ problem? Any input is greatly appreciated!!!

 

[Quaggoth]

seems like an IRQ prob to me. Yank the modem. Get everything set up using it's own IRQ at first (Play a game for a while too, mostly to take a break, and also to make sure it all work sWITHOUT the modem). Then go into your bios, and make sure your com ports that you are not using are disabled, make sure USB is disabled if you have no USB devices. enable the reset configuration data setting. This will force everything to grab new (Or the same) memory and IRQ settings. Shut down, install the modem, boot. BTW, the bottom slot is used by the RAID card on a KT7-RAID, you can only put a card that doesn't mind IRQ sharing there (I still don't recommend it though). If this doesn't work, IM me. I love puzzles.

From your original post, I am pretty certain that disabling you com's and resetting config data and installing modem will work.

Hope that helps.

 

[Heretik]

Yeah, disable BOTH COM ports if nothing is plugged into them. If you aren't using any USB devices, you can disable those as well. Also, most boards I have seen...the first PCI slot is shared with the AGP slot. Try leaving PCI slot #1 empty and see if that gives your AGP video card an IRQ of it's own.

 

[Microbman]

I appreciate your input Quog, you've put a lot on the plate but it's a start (again). I will do all the steps that you recommended. What PCI slot do you recommend me putting the modem into? BTW, this is a KT7 mobo WITHOUT RAID so I would,nt think placing the modem into slot 6 would be prob with the raid issues, or would it?! I very well may be e-mailing you as this readily appeares to be a pretty deep prob. Thanks for the help. I may not get this all accomlished as I must break away for a coupla hours soon and I'll get back to you later if not sooner. TX!

 

[Microbman]

To update you on my sys, I have my printer on USB and a USB joystick. Com 1 is used for my zip/scanner parrallel.

 

[Vamp Armand]

ABIT boards have terrible PnP bios...... if you want to fill up your slots get an Asus. I bought a KT7 a while ago I had the following:

Promise Raid
Geforce 2 MX
NIC
Video Editing Card
Sb Live

I couldn't get better than having 3 devices share IRQ's. And that was by setting the first 4 device IRQ's in bios. For some reason Abit boards will not let you use the IDE controller IRQ's even if you disable the IDE controller in bios..... or at least that is what happened to me. I ended up buying an A7V and everything worked on the first try.

 

[Microbman]

Is there a BIOS flash that will help this IRQ stuff out?

 

[Microbman]

Welll..I removed the modem and sc, removed appropriate drivers and reset BIOS config settings and diabled the comm ports 1&2 (this freed up IRQ 3, 4). I reinstalled the sc + drivers, played sombat flight sim 2 and same prob came up + lost sound this time after about 15 min of play then the ol familiar blue scr of death=Fatal OE exception in vxd TBCSPUD.

SO NOW WHAT ARE MY OPTIONS??? i'M BOUT READY TO USE THIS MOBO AS A COUNTERWEIGHT FOR A WEATHER BALOON. I have spent nearly a week setting up this system, a new loooong record for me. This is rediculous!!
Here's my new IRQ's :
3 - sci irq acpi bus
4 - free
5 -acpi pci steering
6 - flpy
7 - lpt1
8 - cmos
9 - santa cruz game device
10 - santa cruz pci audio acc
10 - pci steering
12,13 - ps/2,data pric
14 - prim ide
14 - via bus master cont
15 - second ide cont
15 - via bus master cont
Anyone have any ideas??

 

[JustStarting]

Set IRQ#10 to legacy. This will stop Sound card from sharing resources with anything else. I've got SBLive! and had the same problem- I've got raid though.

 

[Microbman]

I will take out the sc for the fiftieth time etc., reset the BIOS config data setting, set IRQ #10 to Legacy, reinstall the sc and see what we see. I yanked alout all of the cards, disabled com1 & 2, reset the BIOS config and reinstalled the sc after the tnt, and the IRQ's were identical to my last post on th settins. I am still blue screening while playing games evewn when i reduce the video settings. I'll post my findings on the #10 Legacy change.

 

[grendelkhan]

Quick question, are you overclocked? If so, try turning things down a notch and see if that's it.

Also, have you looked into heat being an issue? What are the timings set for your RAM?

Just throwing stuff out here that may be related to your BSOD's. If this is happening at about the same time, after all the stuff you've been doing with IRQ's, maybe it's something else entirely. I *JUST* got my KT7A-RAID up and running solid and sweet and it turns out my problem was ACPI creating IRQ havoc the whole time. Not having a RAID board, this *SHOULDN'T* be a problem for you, but one can't sure of anything.

Honestly, don't give up yet. I spent the better part of seven hours screaming in frustration trying to run a RAID config on this board, until I finally got it right. Now, I wouldn't trade this board for anything.

 

[Quaggoth]

Yeah, what he said. It's a good board. Does this PC run fine when NOT running games? if you run just, say, winamp and Internet Explorer, does it still crash? If so, it is most likely heat. If not, it sounds like maybe the video drivers or the instalation routine has a human error (No offence). Do you install dx8 before or after the video drivers? do you instal 4n1 428's FIRST? What video drivers? After you do a clean install with only the video, install 428's an dreboot. Install DX8, reboot (Not that you have a choice). Install the 7.52 9x drivers for the gforce, reboot. Do whatever else you think I may have forgot. Try a game.

If it crashes, try winamp for a while (I am pretty sure this works the processor pretty good, but I haven't actually checked I hear that RC5 works well too). If it crashes, it almost has to be heat. If it doesn't, I would blame a BIOS setting. Do you have the setting labeled like "Enhance chip performance", or "fast CPU command decode"(Not sure about wording on second one) enabled? Thes should be disabled I believe (At least on my Duron if I enable both of them I lock after about 3-15 seconds in D3D apps(Games)).

Please update.

 

[Microbman]

Next morning update..
Before I crashed llast night I fooled around and chdcked out the bios set up according to the icrontic.com site; KT7 BIOS guide (apushardware.com) but looked OK. Still is mucked up bios. I will recheck this again per ur suggests.
I have a TNT2 Ultra video card NOT gforce. I installed the 4.28 final v of the 4 in 1 drivers immediately after I installed win98se.
My chip is running idle at 26 to 28 C. On load (combat flight sim 2) temp is 30 to 40 C (this is on-line play or internal off line). I have an Alpha PAL6035 heatsink with a sunon 26 cfm fan, also a 80mm case fan - LOTS of air blowin around in there and the case is full open cuz i'm still screwin around with card stuff. I have not insrtalled dx8. I have nVidia's detonator drivers installed for the tnt2 u - worked great before i upgraded. I do not have winamp installed as this is a new system. The only game i have installed is combat flight sim 2 and that runs terrific for the first 5 to 15 min after which the sound cuts out but allows me to play for a few more minutes until it blue screens. I checked the temp several times during gameplay so i knewhow hot it was runnng. I have a new Maxtor 30 G 7200 hdd, new santa cruz sc, old tnt2 u, old us robotics voicemodem, and all other peripherals are old (say two years max, like a teac 32x cd-rom etc. listed in first post).
I also predownloaded drivers for IDE Busmaster 3.11, latest teac drivers, IRQ routing driver NIRQ 1.3a, AGP GART 4.04,USB serial driver to bring the mobo drivers up to date. I first loaded win 98se, then the 4 in 1, then I loaded all other drivers i just listed. After all thos e wereloaded i installed the tnt2 u card with the drivers that came with the card. The detonator update followed immediately. Then I loaded the modem and finally the sc and it's drivers. I do not recall each time i rebooted betweeen driver set up unless i was prompted to do so then i did.
Do u see a poblem with this method? Perhaps i should go back and format my c drive where win98se and all the drivers are located and freshly download all those drivers i listed and do a fresh install. what a lot a work...again!..!

Pls get back to me with any suggestions. I'm at ur mercy now as i'm outa ideas. TX.

 

[grendelkhan]

Hurm....

Wait! Did you disable AGP4X?? I couldn't complete a round of 3dMark2k withou crashing before I did that. The setting is enabled in the BIOS by default. Canx that if you have it running and see if that helps.

 

[Microbman]

Actaully i dumped that that night before my last round of crashes playing cfs2,

 

[Heretik]

What BIOS version are you using on your MB?? I heard one or two people say the new 2.2 revison helped them clear up some IRQ problems and I just updated to 2.2 on my other system (it had no IRQ issues) but did notice it changed the IRQ configurations slightly....

 

[Microbman]

I'm usin ABIT BIOS v1.01. Are ya really thinkin that a bios flash could relieve this pain in my life?