Win XP/W2K and IRQ sharing

[speedlever]

Mobo: Asus A7V BIOS 1011
5 PCI slots... all populated:
Slot 1: USR modem
Slot 2: noname USB2.0/firewire combo
Slot 3: NIC
Slot 4: Adaptec 2906
Slot 5: SBLive value

Problem: fresh install of XP/sp1 on old BIOS (1003) boots up, but gives random reboots when a firewire CF reader is connected to the combo card in slot 2. After flashing the BIOS to 1011, the PC won't boot past a message that says: "PCI card plugged in slot 2 share IRQ with Promise IDE controller. Make sure the card support IRQ sharing." Sure enough, Device Mgr shows lots of shared devices on IRQ 9 (as did my W2k/sp3 installation).

Since W2k and XP dynamically manage the IRQ assignments, I am stumped as to how to get around this issue.

1) How would I determine if this PCI card supports IRQ sharing?

2) Given the above, it would not appear to make sense to swap cards around in the slots, or would it?

3) Is this an OS issue, a BIOS issue, or a hardware issue? (all of the above?!!) Sometimes it's hard to know what forum to post a question like this.

I have a request in to Asus for help. Their first suggestion was to upgrade the BIOS (which I have already done).

 

[NokiaDude]

Yeah, I have this same problem we all have to cope with. I have my NIC and Sound Card on the same IRQ and I really want the NIC on a dedicated IRQ all by itself. Windows XP won't let me do that. Major bummer.

 

[AndyHui]

Leave the IRQ assignments alone.

Please read the FAQ: Why are all my devices using one IRQ in Win2K/WinXP?

 

[speedlever]

The only way I could get slot 2 to work was to go back to BIOS 1003. I tried a couple of other BIOS levels (1007, 1010, 1010a) but none of them worked for the slot 2 problem. I would be curious to know what was up with slot 2 and the BIOS revs.

In the end, I replaced the A7V mobo with an Asus P4S533/P4 1.8 @ 2.4 Gigs/512 Mb PC2700 DDR. No more problems with the slots!

Thanks for the link to the IRQ sharing info.