What is the deal with ACPI

[supergenius74]

I've been building systems and coming here for a long time (since the the begining of oc.com) and everyone here has always been so helpful so thanks in advance. What is the deal with ACPI anyway? I still use 98SE with most of my system builds and usually have no problems but lately this ACPI has become my worst enemy. I am building a system right now using the ABIT SL6 wich just happens to have the enable/disable function removed from it's bios..(new thing according to abit tech assistance)...since i can't disable ACPI in bios then it auto loads in win98SE and of course as usual runs very buggy with high CPU usage at idle and problems with drivers and generally just IRQ sharing problems, I'm sure you all have seen before. How do fix this can anyone help me? I hope so cuz i don't have much hair left after this...hehe.....anyway i'm sure there is a way to either config win98 to use it properly or to disable it so any advice will be appreciated. thanks:confused:

[Tbone1]

I don;t know if this will help but I found this on a site.
It might help ya out(I don't know)


In order to use the nifty ACPI features in Windows 98, you first must have an ACPI-compatible BIOS. If you have it, upon boot up the BIOS description usually will say "ACPI BIOS". Once you know you have it, then proceed to disable APM in the BIOS to prevent possible conflicts. Next, you have to enable ACPI in Windows 98. For some reason or another, Win98 does not appear to support ACPI by default- you must force the OS to detect your ACPI BIOS. This can be done one of two ways:



1) When you are upgrading to Windows 98, run setup in a DOS prompt with the /pj option (i.e. type setup /pj).

2) Run regedit and find the following string in the registry: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curr ent Version\Detect. Create a new string value called ACPIOption and set it equal to 1.



2)con't Then go to the Control Panel and run Add New Hardware. Let Windows 98 do an automatic detection. After the process is finished, click on details and you should see the following:


After rebooting, the Device Manager should show the ACPI BIOS installed:


Now go to the Power Management under Control Panel, and you should see how well you computer supports ACPI. Unfortunately the BIOS for our Asus P2B currently does not support the hibernate feature, and so the hibernation tab, which is supposed to appear between Power Schemes and Advanced, was not there.


Despite this, Windows 98 was able to fully control the action of the power button:


Although our test system did not support hibernation, your computer might- especially if it is very new. We would love to hear about your experience with the hibernation feature of OnNow if you get it to work!
***UPDATE September 9, 1999: Observations, Side Effects and Quirks That You Should Be Aware of After Enabling ACPI: The following are compiled from the responses I've received since the article's publication:

ACPI requires an IRQ, and seems to have an amazing affinity for IRQ 5; people who have Sound Blaster Live! cards probably need to disable the Creative SB16 Emulation after enabling ACPI; people with a Sound Blaster AWE32 may have to disable a COM port; people with a Sound Blaster PCI64 may have to disable Legacy Device for DOS
After enabling ACPI and rebooting for the first time, Windows will redetect all Plug-and-Play devices, which can be a bit annoying as you may have to supply diskettes; make sure you have Win98 CAB files on your HARD DRIVE in case they are needed since the CD-ROM drive will likely be unavailable during the re-detection
Standby is very quirky- your system will probably successfully enter Standby the first time and you can wake up the system from it, but the second time it likely will fail to enter Standby or will but does not wake up
If after installing ACPI you decide that you dislike it and remove it from Device Manager, APM will be re-installed for you by Windows, but I have received emails complaining that systems with APM that used to be able to turn off automatically after Windows shuts down are not able to any more... probably a registry entry preventing that....
Also a few readers have reported the above shutdown problem but using ACPI
Some people have reported that Method 2 to enable ACPI does not work, but Method 1 (setup /pj) enables ACPI perfectly

[supergenius74]

unfortunately, I have tried all of the things listed above, with no success. Maybe it is an abit motherboard problem, or maybe I don't understand ACPI, what exactly does it do anyway? what benifit does it have and why do they make it a standard. The things I have noticed are that with ACPI enabled in a bios it causes there to be IRQ sharing like crazy. if look under system tools, system information, hardware resourses, IRQ's almost all IRQ's are sharing with ACPI wich in turn causes my cpu usage to hove around 50-80% at idle !!! and then causes certain drivers and devices not to function properly. This is no new thing with me, I have built alot of computers in the last couple years and used alot of abit motherboards, to get around it I always just disabled ACPI in the bios and went about my buisness. MY PROBLEM is that they are now taking the enable/disable funtion out of the bios. If you go to the abit website it talks about them removing as something they had to do to be microsoft WHQL certiefied. meaning to me that mircosoft has made them do it so I guess this is all microsoft's fault. I guess I'm just looking for someone to give me a answer like win98 does not work well with ACPI or you have to this and this or download this in order for it to work properly. anyhow thanks for the response. :mad:

[Maddman]

Originally posted by supergenius74
unfortunately, I have tried all of the things listed above, with no success. Maybe it is an abit motherboard problem, or maybe I don't understand ACPI, what exactly does it do anyway? what benifit does it have and why do they make it a standard. The things I have noticed are that with ACPI enabled in a bios it causes there to be IRQ sharing like crazy. if look under system tools, system information, hardware resourses, IRQ's almost all IRQ's are sharing with ACPI wich in turn causes my cpu usage to hove around 50-80% at idle !!! and then causes certain drivers and devices not to function properly. This is no new thing with me, I have built alot of computers in the last couple years and used alot of abit motherboards, to get around it I always just disabled ACPI in the bios and went about my buisness. MY PROBLEM is that they are now taking the enable/disable funtion out of the bios. If you go to the abit website it talks about them removing as something they had to do to be microsoft WHQL certiefied. meaning to me that mircosoft has made them do it so I guess this is all microsoft's fault. I guess I'm just looking for someone to give me a answer like win98 does not work well with ACPI or you have to this and this or download this in order for it to work properly. anyhow thanks for the response. :mad:

In device manager upgrade ACPI driver to a plug and play driver. You can always use the M$ failsafe PnP driver then install the motherboadr drivers normally.

[supergenius74]

I appreciate the response but i do not understand what you mean, which ACPI driver are you talking about? and upgrade to what MS PNP driver? sorry could you be more specific? thanks

[redduc900]

When you install Win98SE, you can prevent Windows from installing ACPI by using the following switches...

setup /p i

If you want to remove ACPI after Windows is installed, the following site gives instructions on how to do it...

http://www.d-sheppard.f2s.com/acpi.html

[Maddman]

Originally posted by supergenius74
I appreciate the response but i do not understand what you mean, which ACPI driver are you talking about? and upgrade to what MS PNP driver? sorry could you be more specific? thanks

In device manager under system devices acpi bios. Do an update driver. Choose from list. Show all hardware. Under microsoft is a listing for PnP bios (fail safe). When it restarts it will re detect system devices similar to the win2k trick.

[sick]

I am currenntly running 98 right know (which I hate) just because Everquest is ginving probelms on windows 2000. I even called tech support and they asked me to do the things I have already tryed (like new monitor, new video card) So I am gussing it is something else in my box. But as soon as I build my new computer, which should be in about two weeks, I will be running win2000 ADV on my new one and Linux mandrake 7.2 on my other one. I really new to make a serious attempt at learning UNIX. I have dabbled in it in the past past but's it's time to get hardcore. I see alot of people are using XP. Me personally, I am scard to use something so early in development

Sick

[supergenius74]

I tried EVERYTHING!!!! but your setup/p i WORKED!!!!! No more nasty ol' ACPI. No more shared IRQ's. No more high CPU usage! no more unstable devices!!!!!
thank you SO much! I can always count on you guys, and this time you really saved me from going crazy. I couldn't even find this info on microsoft's knowledge base or from ABIT technical support. Thanks!:D