Sharing an IRQ

  • Thread starter Thread starter rpe
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rpe

rpe

NM - Land of Excrement
My SB Audigy Platinum soundcard shares an IRQ with my modem. Could this be why 30 minutes into an n-Track or Cakewalk session it crashes?

rpe
 
Sure could. I'd try disabling the modem and see if you still get the same crash.

If so, obviously you want the modem... one solution is to create a separate hardware profile for use when recording, with the modem disabled. When you boot you select which profile to boot into. It's a bit of a pain because you have to reboot to switch from "I want to record" to "I want to do email and browse the net," but it's better than having to dedicate a PC to just recording or other more expensive or inflexible solutions.
 
If you have available PCI slots, you could move one of those cards and force the system to assign a different IRQ. You also may able to do this from your BIOS.
 
heh,..........

.....I think I do have another PCI slot. I love multiple options!!!

thanks elevate.

rpe
 
For a simple solution, you can go to your bios, find IRQ settings and go to the PCI slot the card is installed in and change the setting to not share with any IRQ, then wallah ! it's fixed.

I've done this within my bios, but it may vary from PC to PC

WIN XP Pro, ASUS Mobo
 
Whenever I have IRQ conflicts in Win98 the trick seems to be to completely uninstall and remove both cards. Then install them again one by one. It will usually resolve the problem.

Within your bios disable any serial, parallel, USB, or anything else that you are not using and may be tying up a valuable IRQ.
 
thanks Tex, for a while there I thought you were pulling a sonusman on me.
 
I was ;)

Those damn IRQ's. You'd think in 10 years of PC's they would have gotten around the 16 IRQ limitation. Whenever my IT friends are bitching about a problem our inside joke is always "check the IRQ's." Sadly it is often the actual problem.
 
The 16 IRQ limitation was surpassed long ago. Most newer systems have additional "virtual" IRQ's. My previous job involved some IT work where I worked with Compaqs. Devices were assigned to IRQ 24 and higher.

IRQ's really didn't mean much after the PCI bus became widely used either. Most PCI devices allow IRQ sharing (yes, I know this is not desirable for DAW - but nevertheless, it is possible).
 
Well, PCI steering is widely used now, which can be both good and bad.
I have Windows 2000. With PCI steering my AGP video card is set to use the same IRQ as Delta soundcard. Whatever I do to force one of those two cards to grab a different IRQ, the other one follows. Although there are a couple of IRQs avalable, the system just wants to put them on the same IRQ no matter what. They both work, but video is kinda sluggish, which I don't like at all.
So now I need to disable PCI steering by setting the system to use a different HAL, which means reinstallation. Windows 2000 can not rebalance resources like 98 could.
 
update.............

Last night I disabled the modem and was able to play around in n-Track for a full 40 minutes without any sniff of a crash. However, once I tried to open Cubase Wavelite I got an error alert and n-Track crashed.

Following the crash, the system log said the following:

While validating that \Device\Serial 2 was really a serial port, the contents of the division latch register was identical to the interrupt enable and the receive registers. The device is assumed not to be a serial port and will be deleted. Source: Serial; Event ID: 39.

and the application log said:

WMI ADAP was unable to process the performance libraries: 0x80041001. Source: Serial; Event ID: 60

WMI ADAP was unable to create the Win32_Perf base class in \\.\root\cimv2: 0x80041002

I guess tonight I'll try the changing PCI slot option.

Any other suggestions???!!!!!!!

rpe
 
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