What's wrong with this picture?

[ahearnb 0]

http://ahearnb.i8.com/irq.jpg

 

HINT: IRQ 10 is occupied by Video card and soundcard.

 

Is this a problem? How can I change it?

 

Obviously, I don't know much about this...just heard that your video card should not share an IRQ with anything...

 

Thanks.

 

Brad

[Palos 0]

Man..if it works then LEAVE IT ALONE, lol

[BladeRunner 0]

If I had a pound for each time this question was asked, I reckon I'd have about £12

What you are experiencing is ACPI.

A smark and clever way Microsoft & Intel have managed to break past the old 16 IRQ limit.

By placing all of your devices on a single hardware ICQ and then using virtual IRQ's, all worries about system resources have been removed.

No more worrying if you have enough IRQ's for that next piece of hardware.

For ACPI to correctly function you need:

An fully ACPI complient OS, Win2k or WinXP will do nicely.

A fully ACPI complient motherboard BIOS - check the manufacturers website

Add-in Cards that don't mind sharing physical addresses 0 Most AGP/PCI cards from the past few years seem fine.

 

Pop along to www.microsoft.com & www.intel.com and see if you can read the White Papers on ACPI, it's all quite interesting really.

[ahearnb 0]

Ha, good point Palos.

 

BladeRunner (terrible movie, btw), I figured it had something to do with ACPI. I was actually looking for a reason as to why my 3DMark2001 score was lower than most with similar hardware. Could this be the reason (at least the primary one)?

 

To get the video card on one IRQ, would I have to reformat to a "standard PC" configuration? Or is there some way (reformatting or not) to achieve this configuration with ACPI?

 

Thanks for your help!

 

Brad

[BladeRunner 0]

Well I was going to post some more ideas for you, but after calling my favourite movie of all time 'terrible' I don't think I will :-P

[ahearnb 0]

HAHA! I have to watch it in my film class after Thanksgiving break, so maybe I'll have a different take on it after that.

 

Boilin' Oranges.

 

Brad

[OLEerror 0]

To get the video card on its own IRQ, just move the sound card to a different PCI slot (since you can't exactly move an AGP card.) This will change the IRQ assigned to the sound card. I doubt it will improve your scores, but ya never know.

[ahearnb 0]

Good idea. I'll try it.

 

Thanks OLE.

 

Brad

[BladeRunner 0]

Rule of thumb seems to be don't use PCI slot1 (First one under the AGP slot) as this will probably share.

But, you've installed the OS in ACPI mode, so they only way you will get all of your devices on totally seperate (old fashioned) IRQ's would be a re-installation and this time doing an F5 - Standard PC.

I'll try and put you off this by saying computers have been a lot easier since the end of 16 physical IRQ's. Also benchmarks like 3DMark2001 aren't everything!

[ahearnb 0]

Cool, thanks Blade.

 

Yeah, I don't think I'm going to reformat, but I'm sure it is the ACPI thing. And I don't think I have the soundcard in the first PCI slot, but I'd have to check (I'm not at my PC currently).

 

But if I ever reformat, I'm going to be torn...ACPI allows me to shutdown the PC without hitting the power button!

 

Thanks for the help....time to go to class!

 

Brad