Change Device IRQ

[SPeedY_B]

Is there any way to change a device IRQ in WindowsXP (Pro2600) ??
I remember being able to do this in Win9x by simply going to the device properties and un-ticking the "Use Automatic settings" box, yet this option is greyed out in XP.

 

[allan]

Very difficult to do with XP - if at all possible. Some bios's support direct irq assignment. If yours does you'll have to disable ACPI and try to manually assign through bios. But I recommend against it. XP prefers to control this function - likes to have devices share irq's too.

Is there a specific problem you are having?

 

[SPeedY_B]

My bios doesn't allow direct assigning, it's one of the solutions i've tried.

My problem is that the GFX Card (AGP 32mb GeForce2 MX) is using the same IRQ as the sound card (Sound Blaster 128 PCI ... not the best piece of kit, but it works...) and when ever anything moves on screen the sound breaks up or crackles.
when i say moving things on screen, this includes, min/maximising windows, moving windows around, flash animations, divx/mpeg movies etc...

Many people have said to me this isn't the IRQ's as XP handles them well, but it's the only thing i can narrow it down to, i'm open to any solution ....

 

[SPeedY_B]

The sound card has been in every PCI Slot available with and without all the other cards in (Ethernet/WinTV)
and i've formatted recently, in-fact i've formatted and re-installed about 5 times in the past month (Various Reasons)
Nothing seems to fix it. The sound just seems to break up at the slightest movement on screen, Winamp is crackling slightly now because of the animated avatar's on this post...

 

[fedele]

SPeedYB have you downloaded the latest drivers from soundblaster.com?, I used to have a crackling sounds and weird stuff and the new drivers for XP took care of everything.

 

[SPeedY_B]

Yup, got the latest drivers, for both GeForce and Sound card

 

[allan]

Originally posted by catch23
Try changing PCI slots with the sound card...and formatting/reinstalling Windows may help too

WindowsXP does not handle IRQs any better than other Windows vesions...you can still easily run into IRQ conflicts.

First of all, chaning slots doesn't do anything. As far as XP is concerned, one PCI slot is the same as another.

Second, XP certainly does manage irq sharing better than any prior OS. It can - and frequently does - have up to 11 devices on the same irq with absolutely no difficulty. That doesn't mean it's perfect. No OS - and no programmer - can accurately predict every possible new piece of hardware that will be designed nor the myriad possible combinations that may (and will) be used in the millions of PC's in the world using old and/or new hardware. In other words, S**T happens.

Last, you seem to recommend formatting and reinstalling an awful lot. I'm not sure that's the most responsible thing to do in a first post when trying to troubleshoot a problem.