Via usb host controllers sharing irq11 with agp

[filmore crashcart]

I recently flashed my MSI Pro 2A to 2.1 and installed lastest Via 4.28's (except busmaster drivers) on my Win98 first edition system. My USB host controllers went from irq 3 to sharing irq 11 with my prophet 2 gts. I can't force the usb back to where they belong.
Does anyone know a fix for this? I believe it's responsible for some recent problems with my usb dsl modem and periodic hangs and blue screens when online.
I just can't seem to leave well enough alone. When a system is running too stable I always got to find ways to "improve" it!

 

[Mem]

I read this is what the new Bios does & you cannot change it so you may have to wait for another Bios update to correct this or go back to your old one.

 

[holdencommodore]

My system is also sharing IRQ 11 with the video card. Notice how IRQ 3,5 and 9 are free??!! I can't change them. I have had no problems so far.
I also have the 2.10 BIOS...

0 System timer
1 Standard 101/102-Key or Microsoft Natural Keyboard
2 Programmable interrupt controller
3 (free)
4 Communications Port (COM1)
5 (free)
6 Standard Floppy Disk Controller
7 Printer Port (LPT1)
8 System CMOS/real time clock
9 (free)
10 SwannSmart SM56 Speakerphone Modem
10 Aztech PCI 368DSP Audio
10 ACPI IRQ Holder for PCI IRQ Steering
11 VIA Tech 3038 PCI to USB Universal Host Controller
11 VIA Tech 3038 PCI to USB Universal Host Controller
11 NVIDIA RIVA TNT2 Model 64/Model 64 Pro
11 ACPI IRQ Holder for PCI IRQ Steering
12 SCI IRQ used by ACPI bus
13 Numeric data processor
14 Primary Bus Master IDE controller (dual fifo)
14 VIA Bus Master PCI IDE Controller
15 Secondary Bus Master IDE controller (dual fifo)
15 VIA Bus Master PCI IDE Controller

 

[Peter]

PCI and AGP stuff may share IRQ with each other. Both PCI and AGP are designed to work that way. Only poorly written drivers can screw that up - normally, systems work just fine like this.

Regards, Peter

 

[filmore crashcart]

I had Zone Alarm installed and went ahead and removed it to see if that might have been causing some conflicts (periodically windows would not fully load into the desktop necessitating a reboot.) The system so far has been acting fine and if there are no problems with this arrangement, I won't worry about it. I had always read that the Geforce cards do not like sharing an IRQ, but maybe this is an exception to the rule.

 

[Mem]

filmore crashcart,I`m using Zone Alarm with my MSI K7T Pro board & Geforce2 MX,anyway no problems with the 2.1 Bios(also have a SBlive)they are working great together,btw using Win98 OS1 as well.

 

[holdencommodore]

Why would it share IRQ's if 3, 5 and 9 are reported as 'free'??

 

[filmore crashcart]

Mem-
You maybe right... I realized after I posted that I forgot to mention that I had gone into safe mode and found multiple listings for my cd burner and dvd drive along with multiple listings of my hard drive. Undoubtedly a result of too many installations of busmaster drivers.
If my system continues to run stable then, as I said, I won't worry about IRQ sharing the video card and the USB controllers.
I do wonder, like holdencommodore, why it won't utilize the free IRQ slots, though.

 

[Peter]

Most overlooked point here is, PCI and AGP are designed such that they can grab a maximum total of four system IRQs for hookup to the PCI/AGP interrupt lines INTA to INTD.

Depending on how your mainboard was designed, and where on it you stick your cards, not all of those four will be in use. So your PCI/AGP system may grab somewhere between one and four system IRQs, having more available is of no use.

Regards, Peter

 

[holdencommodore]

I have just sent an e-mail to msi about this. I will let you know when the reply comes.

 

[Peter]

Hopefully the answer from MSI will get you the interrupt routing scheme for that board.

Else, I guess it would be about time someone write a simple DOS program that decodes the output from PCI BIOS "Get Interrupt routing information" call into something human readable. That API call returns a table of device numbers and interrupt assignments along with slot numbering information. Really useful, but I've never seen a diagnostic program that _decodes_ it yet.

(Background: Mainboards with PCI BIOS level 2.1 allow inquiring their PCI INT line routing. OSes that do their own PnP do so to learn about the board's properties - as can be seen in Windows 9x/ME Device Manager "PCI bus" device, tab "IRQ routing".)

Regards, Peter

 

[UKnowWhat]

I have 866Mhz P3 on a D6VAA board using VIA 694X chipset and only when I play CounterStrike I noticed the problem of sharing IRQs. My system currently have IRQ 9 free and no matter what I tried, the 10/100 Ethernet card & the onboard sound VIA chips keep sharing IRQ 11. It is used to be the M400 & Linksys & VIA audio sharing IRQ 11 & causing tremendous lag in action game playing. Once I disabled COM2 to free up IRQ5, my display gets its own IRQ & starts working better and I can get 60fps for CS (used to be 30). The sound is still a problem & created a lagging sound (meaning sound is delayed few seconds after action been generated). I think this is a bug in IRQ routing in VIA drivers but I didn't received any response from their tech support neither Elite crap mb group. I can get away by disable parallel port because I used Barricade router to share network printer but the problem is still remained.

 

[filmore crashcart]

That particular problem with my Pro2A was solved with the new beta overclocker bios put out by MSI. No longer does irq 11 contain the agp and the usb controllers together. After flashing, the agp took irq 10 and the nic card ended up sharing 11 with the usb controller. My system is very stable and both memory and hard drive performance improved after flashing.