IRQ sharing

[Barry]

I haven't been getting the performance I should be and checked IRQ sharing to find that my Creamware Pulsar 2, Wireless network card and Creative soundblaster card & USB controllers are all on IRQ 9. Would this be causing the problem, and how to I change this situation, is it just by moving the Creamware card? Thanks

[Barry]

Running Win XP

[King of Snake]

this is very likely to cause problems yeah. First of all: get rid of that Soundblaster! What do you need that for anyway?
Then you can try moving the card around to a different slot.
Also, you can try freeing up some additional irq's by going into the BIOS and disabling stuff you don't use, like COM and serial ports and things like onboard sound and network controllers.

also, if you use the search funtion with terms like "irq sharing" you'd probably see quite a few posts about such problems.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: King of Snake on 2005-02-07 07:09 ]</font>

[cm sounddesign]

Hi, try a different PCI SLot and if not working at first try --> try another always check IRQ'S!
Find out what USB has which IRQ and then divide every Unit from each other which are working at the same time.
Just deactivate all USB Controllers in the Device manager and activate one after the other after every activation look which port is physically aktive now and don't use MIDI Interfaces or Controllers on the USB which has the same IRQ like the Pulsar card.
Check It!!!!
Good luck.

[at0m]

Hoi,

If all devices are set to IRQ9, it means ACPI mode is enabled.
Only 'Standard PC' mode lets you set IRQ's from in the BIOS, and well remarked by another member here last week, XP will use the BIOS settings only if IRQ Steering is disabled in Device Manager>Computer properties.

Still, some PCI slots share more hardware busses, and the IRQ options in the BIOS can give you a good idea of which slots that share. For example, you'll (almost always) see that the top PCI slot shares resources with the AGP slot, the bottom slot with some onboard PCI device etc.

Some guru tips:
- Don't fix what is not broken.
- When you first setup a motherboard/CW assembly, move some PCI cards through all the slots, monitor the boot sequence and write down which slots share. Now you can evaluate where to put what.
- CW cards should not share with any other devices than other CW cards. Putting them in sharing slots has 2 benefits: more slots remain for other cards, and it's unlikely these slots will share with the ones that hold CW cards.

For the rest, both ACPI and Standard PCI mode seem to work good for most people - if the setup's properly prepared as I explained above. So your XP seeing all cards at IRQ 9 is not a problem, but most probably will be if the slot is sharing hardware resources with AGP for example.

Oh, and before you think of switching XP between ACPI/Standard PC mode, you may want to google how to


Open for corrections, additions and questions,

at0m.

[garyb]

also, if you disable unneded ports and devices in the bios, you will have more irqs available and you will be less likely to see sharing.