Pulsar and Graphics card sharing IRQ

Nisse · Post by **Nisse** » Sun May 09, 2004 7:09 am

Hello Scopelings!

I have two pulsar II cards, one is on its own IRQ and the other I recently discovered is sharing irq with the graphics card. I suspect thi is the reason my system starts acting up on me the more windows I have open.
Is there any way to manually shift the IRQ? When I tried to remove the pulsar card and put it in any other PCI slot I got the "instal new hardware" assistant thing popping up and causing trouble.

My motherboard is ASUS A7N8X E-Deluxe in Standard mode.

Post by **Guest** » Sun May 09, 2004 7:24 am

hello,

have a go at this. it should work!?

- remove the device driver for pulsar cards in the control panel.

- remove the startup reference for sfp.exe in the registry (to prevent sfp loading on next bootup), write it down a piece of paper.

- shutdown pc, change the pulsar card to a new pci slot. (generally the pci slot directly under the agp port is shared and the last pci slot of the motherboard is shared with usb.)

- power up pc, install the drivers during auto detect sequence.

- re-instate the command in the registry for the startup sfp.exe

fingers crossed

symbiote · Post by **symbiote** » Sun May 09, 2004 2:12 pm

if you are using windows xp, you need to turn off irq steering, otherwise xp ignores bios settings and wont let you change irqs manually in the device manager. its in control panel -> system -> hardware, click on device manager, click on computer, right click on "standard pc" (or acpi or whatever its called on your system) and go to the irq steering tab. untick the "use irq steering" box and you're set!

Submarine · Post by **Submarine** » Sun May 09, 2004 3:07 pm

Cant he change the IRQ in the bios?

Herr Voigt · Post by **Herr Voigt** » Sun May 09, 2004 5:06 pm

Yes, he can, but this f***ing Windows doesn't care about these settings. It's always a piece of hazard. I had to try many settings until the IRQs were set properly. (win98se)

Plato · Post by **Plato** » Mon May 10, 2004 9:17 am

The setup new hardware wizard will always appear if you move cards around - the computer has to know what hardware is where afterall, so the fact that it's 'causing trouble' is a bit strange....do you mean it's just there, or is there actually a problem ?
Physically moving the card is probably the easiest way of changing IRQ settings, depending on your motherboard- even disabling steering doesn't guarantee you'll be able to successfully change IRQs sometimes.
I'd say definitely move it away from the slot next to the graphics card for a start...the rest is down to pure experimentation: every mobo seems to have its own idiosyncrasies.

Nisse · Post by **Nisse** » Mon May 10, 2004 1:31 pm

Yes, moving the card is what I finally did and I managed to get it away from the graphics cards IRQ. After trying all pci slots I found that the only other IRQ I could get it on was IRQ 11. . . which is shared with the SATARaid controller. Hope that works better.

Thanks guys.

bassdude · Post by **bassdude** » Mon May 10, 2004 6:11 pm

You need to get the pulsar cards away from any other devices IRQ's or you may have problems. IRQ11 is usually the agp video card!!?? It's wierd that it's been assigned to the SATA interface. Do you have SATA drives? If you do this will be a problem because both pulsar and the sata interface are accessed regulary and there will be conflicts. If you have to share one IRQ between two devices, you need to pick a device that is least likely to be accessed at the same time as you are using pulsar.

braincell · Post by **braincell** » Tue May 11, 2004 8:53 am

I think I may have a similar problem. I wish I could put all 3 CW cards on the same IRQ like it says to do in the manual but Windows won't let me change the IRQ settings. Does anyone know how to do this? I think another other option is to fiddle with jumpers on the motherboard but this would require taking my computer apart and I don't want to do this.

BingoTheClowno · Post by **BingoTheClowno** » Tue May 11, 2004 10:42 am

The manual refered to Windows 98 where you were free to screw up your PC

I'm not sure there is a way.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: BingoTheClowno on 2004-05-11 11:42 ]</font>

Nisse · Post by **Nisse** » Tue May 11, 2004 11:47 am

Bah, this IRQ business is crazy. There should be a way of assigning a PCI slot to a specific IRQ.

Sometimes I regret switching to a PC.

BingoTheClowno · Post by **BingoTheClowno** » Tue May 11, 2004 12:00 pm

I think you could do it in BIOS, not sure, maybe later model motherboards.

Post by **Guest** » Tue May 11, 2004 2:57 pm

Some bios will allow you to do so. depending on the mobo

I have 3 boards sitting on IRQ9 (running XP in Standard mode

bassdude · Post by **bassdude** » Tue May 11, 2004 5:56 pm

That's right, depending on the motherboard, it can be done in bios. The trade off is windows cannot manage IRQ's so no ACPI and windows xp is installed in "standard pc" mode. So you can't load your system with lots of other pci cards because you are limited to 15 IRQ's all up. On my system I have Slot 1,2,5 forced to IRQ10 for the pulsar cards. A dedicated pc is recommended.

Post by **hubird** » Tue May 11, 2004 7:12 pm

On 2004-05-11 12:47, Nisse wrote:
Bah, this IRQ business is crazy. There should be a way of assigning a PCI slot to a specific IRQ.

Sometimes I regret switching to a PC.

Ok Nisse, should I do it now? that green one?

(but feeling compassion)

Nisse · Post by **Nisse** » Tue May 11, 2004 8:43 pm

Haha Hubird, you would dare

Bassdude, this is a dedicated pc for music only. The ASUS A7N8X E-Deluxe mobo is a pretty good one. I just didnt forsee this.

There are a bunch of IRQ PCI settings in BIOS though, I just havent figured them out yet, hehe.

bassdude · Post by **bassdude** » Wed May 12, 2004 4:01 am

Well good luck then! Make sure you finish off any projects before you head down the road of bios tweaks.

braincell · Post by **braincell** » Wed May 12, 2004 8:32 am

In my PC there are only CW cards. I tried removing ACPI and it was a disaster. I might try to switch the slots or perhaps try to remove ACPI again.

For the record even if your BIOS lets you assign the IRQ settings, this will not take effect if you have ACPI installed.

braincell · Post by **braincell** » Wed May 12, 2004 6:47 pm

You can assign it in the BIOS

On 2004-05-11 12:47, Nisse wrote:
Bah, this IRQ business is crazy. There should be a way of assigning a PCI slot to a specific IRQ.

Sometimes I regret switching to a PC.