IRQ Question...

Is this normal?

Last week... I was told that I was experiencing lag/choppiness issues when playing online games because I had two sound cards active at the same time (one was built into my Motherboard) and my video card and ethernet card were sharing the same IRQ.

Well... last week I disabled the onboard sound card and things got better..but this week... the lag/chop started up again. So when I went in to see exactly which IRQ was assigned to what... I noticed that my video card and ethernet card were assigned to two different IRQs. But I didn't do a thing?

Can IRQ settings switch automatically without the user doing anything or is it because I disabled my onboard sound that the ethernet card got reassigned automatically.

Below are the IRQ assignments pre and post the disabling of the onboard sound card.

PRE
[Hardware Resources]
[Conflicts/Sharing]
IRQ 5 Intel(R) 82801EB USB Universal Host Controller - 24D7
IRQ 5 Intel(R) 82801EB USB Universal Host Controller - 24D4
IRQ 5 ACPI IRQ Holder for PCI IRQ Steering
IRQ 5 ACPI IRQ Holder for PCI IRQ Steering
IRQ 10 3Com Fast EtherLink XL 10/100Mb TX Ethernet NIC (3C905B-TX)
IRQ 10 Intel(R) 82801EB USB Universal Host Controller - 24DE
IRQ 10 Intel(R) 82801EB USB Universal Host Controller - 24D2
IRQ 10 NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4400
IRQ 10 ACPI IRQ Holder for PCI IRQ Steering
IRQ 10 ACPI IRQ Holder for PCI IRQ Steering
IRQ 11 SoundMAX Integrated Digital Audio
IRQ 11 Intel(R) 82801EB SMBus Controller - 24D3
IRQ 11 Creative Sound Blaster PCI128
IRQ 11 Intel USB 2.0 Enhanced Host Controller
IRQ 11 ACPI IRQ Holder for PCI IRQ Steering
IRQ 11 ACPI IRQ Holder for PCI IRQ Steering
IRQ 11 ACPI IRQ Holder for PCI IRQ Steering
IRQ 11 ACPI IRQ Holder for PCI IRQ Steering
IRQ 14 Primary IDE controller (dual fifo)
IRQ 14 Intel(R) 82801EB Ultra ATA Storage Controllers
IRQ 15 Secondary IDE controller (dual fifo)
IRQ 15 Intel(R) 82801EB Ultra ATA Storage Controllers


POST

[Hardware Resources]

[Conflicts/Sharing]

IRQ 5 3Com Fast EtherLink XL 10/100Mb TX Ethernet NIC (3C905B-TX)
IRQ 5 Creative Sound Blaster PCI128
IRQ 5 Intel(R) 82801EB USB Universal Host Controller - 24D7
IRQ 5 Intel(R) 82801EB USB Universal Host Controller - 24D4
IRQ 5 ACPI IRQ Holder for PCI IRQ Steering
IRQ 5 ACPI IRQ Holder for PCI IRQ Steering
IRQ 5 ACPI IRQ Holder for PCI IRQ Steering
IRQ 5 ACPI IRQ Holder for PCI IRQ Steering
IRQ 5 ACPI IRQ Holder for PCI IRQ Steering
IRQ 10 Intel(R) 82801EB SMBus Controller - 24D3
IRQ 10 Intel(R) 82801EB USB Universal Host Controller - 24DE
IRQ 10 Intel(R) 82801EB USB Universal Host Controller - 24D2
IRQ 10 NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4400
IRQ 10 ACPI IRQ Holder for PCI IRQ Steering
IRQ 10 ACPI IRQ Holder for PCI IRQ Steering
IRQ 11 Intel USB 2.0 Enhanced Host Controller
IRQ 11 ACPI IRQ Holder for PCI IRQ Steering
IRQ 14 Primary IDE controller (dual fifo)
IRQ 14 Intel(R) 82801EB Ultra ATA Storage Controllers
IRQ 15 Secondary IDE controller (dual fifo)
IRQ 15 Intel(R) 82801EB Ultra ATA Storage Controllers

Usually Windows likes putting almost everything on one or two IRQs which isn't a problem most of the time. What OS are you using? I believe you can sort of change the IRQ assigned for the pci cards if you're using Win98, but I'm not too sure since it's been awhile when I last used a Win9x OS... Also certain pci slots share irqs. For example the first pci slot (the one below the agp slot) always shares its IRQ with the AGP slot. There's also other pci slots that might share irqs with the on-board sound or RAID. The manual for your motherboard should give you more details about this. Try moving your pci cards to different pci slots and see if that makes a difference.

I'm using Windows 98 SE. My motherboard manual isn't very helpful. I have 3 PCI Slots. My sound card is in the first PCI slot under the AGP slot. Underneath the sound is my ethernet card leaving me with only one other option to move it to.

I thought this was "home-built" pc and because of that I assumed you had a motherboard with 5 or 6 pci slots. Anyway as I said before you generally don't want to have a pci card installed in the first pci slot. The soundcard and NIC still have the same IRQ and that might be causing your lag. Try putting the soundcard on the other slot and see if solves the problem.

I took the sound card out of the first PCI slot and put it in the empty one. Now, only the first PCI slot is empty. I checked the IRQ assignments and now the Sound card is sharing a IRQ with the network card. I played my online game and things seemed to be OK for now... but this happened the last time.

Will it be possible to lag or get choppiness with my sound and video sharing the same IRQ?

NEW ASSIGNMENT

IRQ 5 3Com Fast EtherLink XL 10/100Mb TX Ethernet NIC (3C905B-TX)
IRQ 5 Intel(R) 82801EB USB Universal Host Controller - 24D7
IRQ 5 Intel(R) 82801EB USB Universal Host Controller - 24D4
IRQ 5 ACPI IRQ Holder for PCI IRQ Steering
IRQ 5 ACPI IRQ Holder for PCI IRQ Steering
IRQ 5 ACPI IRQ Holder for PCI IRQ Steering
IRQ 5 ACPI IRQ Holder for PCI IRQ Steering
IRQ 10 Intel(R) 82801EB SMBus Controller - 24D3
IRQ 10 Creative Sound Blaster PCI128
IRQ 10 Intel(R) 82801EB USB Universal Host Controller - 24DE
IRQ 10 Intel(R) 82801EB USB Universal Host Controller - 24D2
IRQ 10 NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4400
IRQ 10 ACPI IRQ Holder for PCI IRQ Steering
IRQ 10 ACPI IRQ Holder for PCI IRQ Steering
IRQ 11 Intel USB 2.0 Enhanced Host Controller
IRQ 11 ACPI IRQ Holder for PCI IRQ Steering
IRQ 14 Primary IDE controller (dual fifo)
IRQ 14 Intel(R) 82801EB Ultra ATA Storage Controllers
IRQ 15 Secondary IDE controller (dual fifo)
IRQ 15 Intel(R) 82801EB Ultra ATA Storage Controllers