Win2k SMP and IRQ's

[vwilly 0]

System Specs

 

Tyan Tiger 133 (1834)

2 P3-933

786 mb Ram

 

V5-5500 AGP

3Com 3C905TX NIC

AHA-2940u/UW Scsi Card

SBLive

 

When I load up Win2k (Computer Management)I look at the IRQ settings and the Periperhals listed above take on an IRQ:

 

Nic = IRQ 68

SBLive = 71

V5 = 76

Scsi = 73

 

These are not valid IRQ's. However, they look fine during the BIOS post with no conflicts and there is no IRQ sharing going on. I have ACPI turned on in the BIOS and the numbers change to the late teens.

 

Nic = 19

 

and so on. Is there anything that anyone knows of that can help me out?

 

The reason for this is that when I play online games I notice alot of spikes in my connection which were never there before I switched to a 133 FSB machine. I am speculating that since the NIC has a valid IRQ in the post screen and not in Win2k that the IRQ assignment could be the culprit. Any ideas??

 

Thanks!

[CUViper 0]

just FYI, if it was really an "invalid" IRQ, the NIC wouldn't work at all....

[Intlharvester 0]

Intel SMP machines support up to 255 IRQs - I see something similiar even though I only have 1 CPU installed on my 2-way BX machine.

 

I've never heard a real good explaination of when the AT-style IRQ controller was replaced (back in the PPro days?) and why it was only in MP machines and not UP. ACPI also makes a difference somehow, esp on W2K. So, if anyone can shed light on the issue...

 

Suffice it to say that it usually works fine. I've seen some pretty high load servers with 'high' IRQ NICs and there never has been a throughput problem.

[vwilly 0]

Thanks for the response! I have since worked out the issues. One thing that I found interesting is that during the post the devices that had the high IRQ number were really the device numbers listed in the post screen. Win2k looks at the device Numbers and thinks that they are the IRQ's. hehehe took me awhile but I think that this is a pretty safe assumption.

 

Thanks again!!