View Full Version : IRQ headaches.
OK, I've been helping people with Win2K and IRQ sharing for a long time...ever since the sharing was noticed. Kill ACPI, use Standard PC, yadda, yadda...
I do this myself but with my VIA chipsets, I'm seeing some weird stuff I never really noticed before.
My video cards are being assigned IRQs at 128, RAID controllers are like 51, sound card at 33, etc. All PCI devices have these ungodly IRQ numbers. Is this just something VIA does or Win2K or what? Sandra reports I have no IRQ assigned to 3 of my systems for the video card (one is NT so I know it doesn't support AGP)!
I reinstalled Win2K, this time with ACPI on as I figured out how to , control the IRQs being all dumped on 7, 11 or 10 and now I have my vid card on IRQ 18, sound and NIC on 17, etc...
WTF is going on here? I think I missed something somewhere when this chipset hit the street.
This happening on my VP6 and my ECS D6VAA. Both have 4-in-1 4.35's installed.
Thanks...
SteenkyBastage
11-11-01, 07:24 PM
hey jon
just to clear up, are you saying your IRQ's are actually those numbers?!?
like your video card has an irq of 128?
maybe i'm not following what's happening, but that's what it sounds like you're saying. i didn't think you could go beyond 15 (from manually setting it).
I don't claim to understand the irq sharing at all- I use an old fix from when I first started to mess with win95:
in bios I force a slot to not use plug and pray, and then install in a certain order: video, sound, modem and then network. this has solved the trouble I've had in the past, although I have had no problems with win2k
Originally posted by Rabid Bob Dole
hey jon
just to clear up, are you saying your IRQ's are actually those numbers?!?
like your video card has an irq of 128?
maybe i'm not following what's happening, but that's what it sounds like you're saying. i didn't think you could go beyond 15 (from manually setting it).
Yes, IRQ of 128. Here's an example of what I'm seeing on a couple of my VIA systems.
*Shivers* That old Windows look..
Anyways those are really weird screen shots.. Its very rare that it happens on two systems.. Did you switch something in the bios that made it like that.. Does it happen if you use the default bios settings for the IRQ and stuff?
Hugo 59
11-11-01, 09:30 PM
You got me:confused:
Originally posted by Yodums
*Shivers* That old Windows look..
Anyways those are really weird screen shots.. Its very rare that it happens on two systems.. Did you switch something in the bios that made it like that.. Does it happen if you use the default bios settings for the IRQ and stuff?
It's Win2K and I've tried every possible setting you can imagine. It's not just video cards either. RAID, sound, NIC...if it's a PCI card it has a whack IRQ.
Originally posted by Jon
It's Win2K and I've tried every possible setting you can imagine. It's not just video cards either. RAID, sound, NIC...if it's a PCI card it has a whack IRQ.
Well what are you setting on Win2K that'll affect both your systems running Win2K?
Is it the version of Win2k your running? Does this happen right after a clean install? How about that graph above "Verifying DMA Pool"
Shows all your IRQ's and stuff does any say over 100 or anything?
It's the final release of Professional.
Upon POSTing it does have normal IRQ listings there. Apparently my video card is at 15 (I have a disabled IDE controller) and I don't remember where the others for...goes by too fast.
Once Windows is loaded it's funky though.
Well for one thing, follow these instructions and see what u have listedl
cick START, and select the CONTROL PANEL option from the Settings menu
Double-click on the ADMINISTRATIVE TOOLS icon, and then double-click on the COMPUTER MANAGEMENT icon
In the Computer Management screen, click the plus sign next to the System Information option to expand that menu, and then click the plus sign next to the Hardware Resources option to expand that menu
also check the folder Conflicts/Sharing from same group
just wondering what is reported
flaming gerbil
11-12-01, 02:52 PM
i'm read a readers letter in an issue of max pc about win2k and they had an irq situation where all irq numbers were the same for all devices in the system. they answered that win2k basically assigns irq's in a different manner than previous windows versions and that if everything works it's best to leave well enough alone. they explained how to reassign numbers if you really wanted too, but i don't remember the process. sorry!
farrier
11-12-01, 02:59 PM
win 2 k put's them all on the 11 most of the time but if it was installed right it will auto switch them as needed if it see's a conflict, another example of bill ugggg gates telling us he knows everything
Already know about the Win2K and how it uses ACPI to steer IRQs...also know about how to fix it.
The problem I'm having is not really related to that. I'm getting IRQs for my devices that do not exist.
Here is a directly exported list from my VP6 system's System Info utility. Notice the IRQ's for my PCI devices...
If that's not weird enough for you, then here's my IRQ list from the ECS D6VAA file server I have:
farrier
11-12-01, 03:18 PM
missed the wierd numbers before lol, try putting a pci card in slot 3, i have no clue why but it sometimes wakes the irq's up and sets them straight, i had it happen on a asus board once
I've moved every device every possible way. If you can think of something to try...I've tried it.
I'm only at the point now where I just want to know why the hell it's showing what it's showing. I don't even care if I can fix it, haha.
Thats what I really hate sometimes: when I don't understand what the he..ck the os is doing or why! Makes it hard to fix if it does break!
And its definitely the first time I've seen an irq of 40 or 128!!!
Usually I just have 2 or 3 cards on the same irq.
I found my answer finally and this type of thing applies only to dual CPU systems. Has to do with the APIC module and how it assigns interrupts. Appears it has many more in which to operate with.
In short, MicroShaft states it's by design.
Read about it here (http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q180/2/87.ASP?LN=EN-US&SD=gn&FR=0&qry=IRQ&rnk=6&src=DHCS_MSPSS_gn_SRCH&SPR=WIN2000).
Cool: I had never noticed that when I had Win2K on my duallie 400-no problems so I never looked!
I should have a dual Intel soon, and I'll be putting 2K on that, so now I'll know.
Thanks for the link
I'm just PO'ed now cause I hate having an ACPI HAL installed.
Guess I'll be reinstalling once again tomorrow morning to get rid of it since there was no problem after all.
Cool, I'm learning stuff again!:cool:
Will the apic work without acpi in 2K?
From that link I got the idea that it needs to be able to reassign irqs to work right with smp....?
Originally posted by rogerdugans
Cool, I'm learning stuff again!:cool:
Will the apic work without acpi in 2K?
From that link I got the idea that it needs to be able to reassign irqs to work right with smp....?
Yes, it will. It was doing the same thing as before when I had it set as Standard MPS PC except I didn't have the IRQ sharing like it shows on IRQ 17.
Everything had it's own IRQ even if it was a weird one.
flaming gerbil
11-13-01, 02:49 PM
i have a friend running dual p3's under nt 4.0 (not sure the motherboard) and he was talking about the nightmare of assigning "vector" irq's which involved all sorts of strange irq numbers. is this along the same line?
Originally posted by flaming gerbil
i have a friend running dual p3's under nt 4.0 (not sure the motherboard) and he was talking about the nightmare of assigning "vector" irq's which involved all sorts of strange irq numbers. is this along the same line?
I would say probably so since it's only present in dual systems.
As far as I can tell, the actual assigning of IRQs is no different than normal, Windows just gives a different IRQ number set when using the APIC to map interrupts with a MPS kernel.
If you or your friend reads the Microsoft explanation I gave a link to above it should make a little sense even if you don't understand some of the terms it uses.
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