Help with IRQ's

Homer99 · 08-26-2006, 08:31 PM

I need to know if these IRQ's are fine and if there is conflict. I have no idea how the IRQ's work and what they do. All I know is there can be conflicting ones if they have the same. Someone experienced please help :)

**manic** · 08-27-2006, 05:27 AM

Are you having a specific problem? You can share Irqs, for certain
things. If you are not having any problems, I would not mess with them.
I could not make out your pic, might be my resolution on my end. With
win 98 in bios you always set plug and play bios to yes. But with winxp
you change that setting to no. Xp controls that rather then mobo.
From what I understand of it anyway....

Homer99 · 08-27-2006, 04:26 PM

OK, I just have the occassional crash here and there, but ill change the bios setting...

Zazula · 08-28-2006, 10:43 AM

Windows XP do not work the same way Win98 used to do when it came to assinging IRQs to PCI devices. A brief explanation can be found in A general description of IRQ sharing in Windows XP, for where I'm citing:

Quote:

Windows XP cannot rebalance resources in the same way that Microsoft Windows 98 does. After PCI resources are set, they generally cannot be changed. If you change to an incorrect IRQ setting or I/O range for the bus that a device is on, Windows XP cannot compensate by rebalancing the resource that was assigned to that bus.
[...]
The Plug and Play operating system settings in the computer BIOS do not generally affect how Windows XP handles the hardware. However, Microsoft recommends that you set the Plug and Play operating system setting to No or Disabled in the computer BIOS.
[...]
Manually assigning IRQs to PCI slots in the system BIOS as a troubleshooting method may work on some non-ACPI systems that use a standard PC hardware abstraction layer (HAL), but these settings are ignored by Plug and Play in Windows if ACPI support is enabled. If you must manually assign IRQ addresses through the BIOS to a device on an ACPI motherboard, you must reinstall Windows to force the installation to use a Standard PC HAL.

And here is How to force a Hardware Abstraction Layer during an upgrade or an installation of Windows XP. CAREFUL, THOUGH! This is referenced here only as an additional resource, and it is NOT my recommendation for users to force a Standard PC HAL when they ignore if their system is ACPI or not, and when they do not experience problems that cannot be alleviated in any other way.

My suggestion is, following Microsoft's recommendation, to make sure that the BIOS setting for PnP/PCI Configurations is Disabled ; e.g. in the image below it's set to Auto(ESCD) and it would require being changed.

**Cellus** · 09-01-2006, 02:53 AM

If there is an IRQ conflict you will find a yellow exclamation mark beside the conflicting entry in the Device Manager.

IRQ conflicts are not really a problem anymore with modern computers as Windows and the PCI bus on your motherboard behave quite well.

08-27-2006, 05:27 AM	#2 (permalink)
manic Mod Hardware Team Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: Florida Posts: 4,859 OS: xp	Are you having a specific problem? You can share Irqs, for certain things. If you are not having any problems, I would not mess with them. I could not make out your pic, might be my resolution on my end. With win 98 in bios you always set plug and play bios to yes. But with winxp you change that setting to no. Xp controls that rather then mobo. From what I understand of it anyway.... __________________

08-27-2006, 04:26 PM	#3 (permalink)
Homer99 Registered User Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: Canada Posts: 308 OS: Windows 7, Vista, XP SP3, Server 2003, Ubuntu 8, OSX My System	OK, I just have the occassional crash here and there, but ill change the bios setting... __________________ When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all.

09-01-2006, 02:53 AM	#5 (permalink)
Cellus Moderator Networking Team Join Date: Aug 2006 Location: Canada Posts: 2,664 OS: Windows Vista Business SP1, Windows XP Professional SP3 My System	If there is an IRQ conflict you will find a yellow exclamation mark beside the conflicting entry in the Device Manager. IRQ conflicts are not really a problem anymore with modern computers as Windows and the PCI bus on your motherboard behave quite well.