Assigning IRQ:s problem

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toka

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Hey!

I have some problems with assigning IRQ:s for my cards. I have a ASUS A7V133 VIA KT133 MOBO.
I have 5 PCI slots in my pc. Here is my slots:

AGP SLOT: Diamond viper 550 graphic card
PCI SLOT 1: Network Card
PCI SLOT 2: Empty/Shared
PCI SLOT 3: Audiowerk 2 soundcard
PCI SLOT 4: Soundblaster PCI 128 soundcard
PCI SLOT 5: Empty/Shared


This is my IRQ settings in my PC:

00 System-timer
01 101/102-button Microsoft keyboard
02 Programmable controller setting
03 Micronet SP200R Network card
03 Diamond Viper V550 Graphic card
03 ACPI IRQ-holder for PCI IRQ-control
05 Audiowerk 2 Soundcard
05 ACPI IRQ-holder for PCI-control
06 Floppy Drive
08 System CMOS/timer
09 SCI IRQ used by ACPI-buss
10 Soundblaster PCI 128 Soundcard
10 VIA Tech 3038 PCI to USB Universal Host Controller
10 VIA Tech 3038 PCI to USB Universal Host Controller
10 ACPI IRQ-holder for PCI IRQ-control
11 ACPI IRQ-holder for PCI IRQ-control
12 PS/2 compatible mouse
13 Mathematicprocessor
14 VIA Bus Master PCI IDE Controller
14 Primary IDE Controller
15 VIA Bus Master PCI IDE Controller
15 Secondary IDE Controller

What should i change in the IRQ settings and how?

As i understand, the Soundcards need to be as far away from the graphic card as possible. Does
it matter if i have the Soundblaster card next to the Audiowerk 2 card?

How should i change the IRQ adresses so it dont cause any trouble with qlitches or pops with audio recording?

Can anyone give any good suggestions on how to assign different IRQ adresses for the cards?

Regards

Toomas
 
There really is no hard and fast rule regarding what IRQs should be used for what. In the old days IRQ 5 was pretty much standard for Sound Blaster cards (or Sound Blaster compatibility mode) but that really dosnt apply any more.

A couple of things to be aware of:

1) Virtually every computer BIOS has a feature "plug and Play OS? YES or NO. This indicates whether you want the motherboard to allocate the resources (including IRQs) or let the Operating System (OS) to do it. Windows NT does not have plug and play. Windows 95 and Windows 2000 have limited plug and play. Windows 98 and ME have functional plug and play. However in most cases you are better off setting this to NO. This will prevent you from playing IRQ roulette if you remove a card - where the OS suddenly change all resources on all cards.

2) On many motherboards the AGP and PCI slots share some IRQs. What I mean is that one of your PCI slots will share and IRQ with your AGP slot; another PCI slot may share resources with a different PCI slot. This should be laid out in the motherboard manual. If not, you may need to do some research on the web and find out more.
 
My first question is...

Are you having a problem now? If not... then do nothing.

Don't fix it if it ain't broke.

Looking at your IRQ assignments, there's nothing glaringly wrong about them. Your Audio Werks card has it's own IRQ, and your Soundblaster is sharing with the USB bus. If you have any audio hardware that accesses the USB bus while you're recording it may be problematic with the sound blaster, but IRQ 11 is open and you can assign the SB to that (I know the old SBs only used 5 or 10 but I'm pretty sure that's no longer the case.

But like I said before, I wouldn't change IRQs until noticing a performance problem. See how it runs as is.

Steve
 
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