Changing irqs so 2 boards match

Kymeia · Post by **Kymeia** » Sat Feb 05, 2005 6:14 am

If you need boards to share irqs how do you do this? - my Luna and Pulsar 2 boards seem to be on 21 and 17 (according to the properties tabs in device manager) and I'm wondering if this is causing problems (occasional crackles and a couple of blue screens) - how do I make them both use the same setting?

Kymeia · Post by **Kymeia** » Sat Feb 05, 2005 7:11 am

If its automatic how do people ever change it so they match and what's the point of recommending it? On my mobo (which is an ASUS P5AD2 deluxe) I can't seem to find a place in the bios for changing irq's - it jus gives you the option of asiging them to PCI or legacy (whatever that means) but no numbers for each irq (unless its somewhere else).

fidox · Post by **fidox** » Sat Feb 05, 2005 8:09 am

check in manual for mobo, which pci slots are shared, for example, agp and pci 5 has the same irq, or pci 3+5 the same and so on...
in my case i have 3 cw cards, 2 have the same irq...
my setup;
asus p4c800de
P4 2.8HT
1gb dual ram
winxp sp2
acpi multiprocessor enable (more than 20irq's)

but never had problems with different irq's

have nice time !

matej

Post by **garyb** » Sat Feb 05, 2005 1:54 pm

they don't have to share with each other to work well. they must not share with anyone else.

symbiote · Post by **symbiote** » Sat Feb 05, 2005 3:38 pm

Actually, XP ignores your BIOS settings if IRQ Steering is turned on. If your XP is running in standard PC mode, you can easily do this in the control panel -> system -> device manager -> my computer (right click, properties) -> irq steering tab. Once it's turned off, it'll respect your BIOS settings, and the settings you provide within the device manager.

There should be a place in the BIOS to set/reserve IRQ, on my older Asus board (CUSL2), its a sub-menu on the PCI/Legacy thing page.

But yeah, if the cards don't share IRQs with other devices it should be fine.

Jngaelin · Post by **Jngaelin** » Sat Feb 05, 2005 8:01 pm

Have you checked if your boards are sharing IRQ'a with something else in your system. Like LAN board or modem, USB etc etc...

This will in many cases cause blue screens of death and additional glitches...gremlins i call them. Like garyb said : "they don't have to share with each other to work well. they must not share with anyone else."

Before i really understood how important this might be i had alot of problems. I couldn't even use USB devices on my DAW without it blacking out. I had to rearrange my boards and turn of devices wich were incorporated on my MOBO and finally i had a stable system. And now i can use USB on my DAW without any issues at all.

And yeah...my boards arent sharing IRQ's either. To make this happen i would actually have to tear connections and other stuff OF my MOBO to make room so the boards will fit. MOBO's aren't getting any bigger and now they're trying to put more sh*t on them. Making it hard to fit any board on them.
_________________
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<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Jngaelin on 2005-02-05 20:09 ]</font>

Kymeia · Post by **Kymeia** » Sun Feb 06, 2005 4:31 am

Cheers for the answers. Again, going by the properties tab in device manager it says no conflicts - should I go by that though if it's unreliable. However in the mobo manual there is a table that appears (if I'm reading it right) to say that all 3 PCI slots are shared - the first with PCI SATA RAID, the second with onboard PCI 1394b (whatever that is) and the third with usb controller 2, the SATA port and onboard LAN1 so I'll check inside to see which slot the cards are using - maybe I should change that last one. If anyone has this mobo I'd appreciate if they could confirm this - seems a bit strange to make them all shared (but none with each other)

I checked the bios again - there is a place where you can set the irq's to "PCI" or "reserved" and they are all set for PCI.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Kymeia on 2005-02-06 04:39 ]</font>

Kymeia · Post by **Kymeia** » Sun Feb 06, 2005 4:43 am

Just checked - I see the problem now I think. The first PCI slot is unuseable as its right next to the PCI Express 16 slot which is used by my graphics card so there's physically no room. So the two Creamware carsd are in the other 2 slots. Doesn't look like there's anything I can do about this then - unless disabling the LAN and USB controllers would help?? I have plenty of other USB ports and only use one of the onboard LAN controllers (would I need to do that in device manager of the bios?)

Post by **garyb** » Sun Feb 06, 2005 5:49 am

yeah, you can disable unneeded devices in the device manager, if you can disable in the bios that is better, however. check what is in the bios. also, multiple lan ports? this probably isn't nessessary.

as to checking for irq sharing, you must check in programsaccessoriessystem toolssystem information. the device manager can say "no conflicts" and you can still have sharing. changing slots may help, but there are a limited number of irqs available, so it is a must to disable anything on the motherboard that is not used.