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Hello Creamwarriors

I recently encountered that my shitty Mobo A7V133 is sharing the USB IRQ with the Creamware Cards. Logically this is correct as the PCI 4/5 usually share IRQ with the USB on my mobo. BUT if I change the IRQ for the creamware cards by reserving another IRQ for them the damn USB IRQ just goes with them, too. So it alway STICKS to the creamware cards. Is there any way to seperete the USB IRQ from them???..I tried a lot but didnt come to an end and solution.

For the moment I have to find a "nearly" good solution as I am FED UP with the Athlons forever somehow (Temperature problems, VIA´s +&/%$&)

Maybe the nForce will finally do it in my setup.

Please help me (A7V) users out there.

Regards

If you're not using USB disable it in the BIOS.
Check your mobo manual, ASUS generally comes with a chart that shows which PCI slots share with which resources. Put the Creamware cards in slots that share only with each other, not with anything else.

You might have to force an IRQ for these "shared slots" in the BIOS (you can do this on CUSL2, for example)

Remember "TweakBIOS" and "PowerTweak" to adjust the PCI Latency Timer to 64 or 128, and the PCI Arbitration Scheme should maybe be set to PCI instead of CPU (try it, at your own risk of course

Do a seach on the tweak/power programs on google to find them, PCI latency is probably in your bios already since you have asus, arbitration will only be in those programs.

Hí Subhuman,

thank you for your response.
Unfortunately I have to use USB because my Mouse is attached (ok PS2 would do it) but I have also Steinbergs USB2Midi and a Emagic EMI 2-6 attached. So my main worries are that if I push my Pulsar1+2 to its limits (which I havent done yet, as I didnt use them in a project up to now since I got em) that the heavy load of the USB will sooner or later stress the PCI Bandwith.

Ok here is my setup to give you a detailed scheme:

AGP Slot = Geforce 2MX DH
PCI 1=Adaptec 2940AU
PCI 2=3COM 905B NIC
PCI 3=free
PCI 4=Pulsar 1
PCI 5=Pulsar XTC

PCI 1 (and I think 2) share AGP
PCI 3 shares the disabled onboard Audio
PCI 4 and 5 shares USB

So the only slots which share both each other are 4/5. I thought already about plugging them to 3 and 4 but I think it will end up in a mess if they are not shared each other.

Concerning the forcing:
Yes I did force IRQ 5 to PCI 4/5 but what happens is that the USB IRQ sticks somehow also with it. If I force 4/5 to be IRQ 5 then the USB is also 5 although there are left many IRQs in the system like 3,9 and 15.

PCI Latency is set to 128 with no problems. This BIOS Read ahead feature is also enabled.
Arbitration scheme is untouched yet (but will try it)

All in all a very tricky thing going on here.

"May the nForce be with me"

Regards

On 2001-11-06 12:54, subhuman wrote:
If you're not using USB disable it in the BIOS.
Check your mobo manual, ASUS generally comes with a chart that shows which PCI slots share with which resources. Put the Creamware cards in slots that share only with each other, not with anything else.

You might have to force an IRQ for these "shared slots" in the BIOS (you can do this on CUSL2, for example)

Remember "TweakBIOS" and "PowerTweak" to adjust the PCI Latency Timer to 64 or 128, and the PCI Arbitration Scheme should maybe be set to PCI instead of CPU (try it, at your own risk of course

Do a seach on the tweak/power programs on google to find them, PCI latency is probably in your bios already since you have asus, arbitration will only be in those programs.

Try
AGP Slot = Geforce 2MX DH
PCI 1=Adaptec 2940AU
PCI 2=Pulsar 1 (board1)
PCI 3=Pulsar XTC (board0)
PCI 4=free
PCI 5=3COM 905B NIC

and try to assign same IRQ in BIOS.
Good luck!
Happy pulsaring
Micha

Hi Micha,

wow fine. Thank you. I also thought about this. It seems I have to go for this as a try. Hope I wont have a Winblow after that. But my thoughts are verified from you,so I´ll go for this setup.

Very appreciated. Thanks guys.

I´ll come back and tell you what happened.

Hello fellows,

I just wanted to let you know that Michas suggestions works like a charm. Plugging the cards to 2 and 3 and assigning IRQ 5 to both worked right away. Now the cards have their freedom from the USB bus. Now I will go on using the cards intensively before they start to get dust .

THANX for your suppport. Once again the community here showed its competent knowledge.

Regards