XP Stability tip

Wrathchild

OSNN Senior Addict
Joined
7 Feb 2004
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338
Here's a tip:

Sometimes, WindowsXP assigns the same IRQ to both your sound card and your video card, which can cause problems (i.e. crashes) when you're taxing your system. (i.e. playing UT2003) XP automatically assigns IRQs 3, 4 and 7 to your serial and printer ports. So if like me, you don't use legacy serial devices, and have a USB printer you don't need to have them enabled. Put those IRQs to better use! Go into your BIOS and disable your serial and printer ports. When you reboot, XP will dole out the freed-up IRQs to the devices which need them. Your Soundcard and your video card will have their own IRQs and your system will be less likely to crash.

-Wrath
 
Wrath!!!...child!!!!

this is a great friggin post!!!

how many of us still use our serial ports!!!I certainly don't.

this is one great idea...wish I thought of it
 
/me gives dealer some milk and a cookie to calm him down.

;)

A very good tip though, I shall have to see if any IRQs on my system are being shared....
 
Cool. I guess I'll check that out since both my vid card and sound card use IRQ 11.
 
I'm not too familiar with the BIOS area but I found two places that mentioned Serial ports, and I disabled them. XP is still showing IRQ 11 assigned to both my Video and Sound cards. Here's a ss.

IRQ Screenshot

*Notice that IRQs 2,3,7,9 do not show. Any ideas why?
 
i notice "Communications Port (COM1)" is still listed as using IRQ4 in that screenshot...

is your soundcard in the very top PCI slot? or in the very bottom PCI slot? I hear of many mobos sharing the top PCI with the AGP so they both use the same IRQ. I also hear of mobos sharing an IRQ for the AGP and the bottom PCI. Try shifting the sound card to another slot (if you can)
 
Yeppers

Originally posted by TechSupport
i notice "Communications Port (COM1)" is still listed as using IRQ4 in that screenshot...

is your soundcard in the very top PCI slot? or in the very bottom PCI slot? I hear of many mobos sharing the top PCI with the AGP so they both use the same IRQ. I also hear of mobos sharing an IRQ for the AGP and the bottom PCI. Try shifting the sound card to another slot (if you can)


Took the words right out on my mouth.

:blink:
 
Originally posted by TechSupport
i notice "Communications Port (COM1)" is still listed as using IRQ4 in that screenshot...

is your soundcard in the very top PCI slot? or in the very bottom PCI slot? I hear of many mobos sharing the top PCI with the AGP so they both use the same IRQ. I also hear of mobos sharing an IRQ for the AGP and the bottom PCI. Try shifting the sound card to another slot (if you can)

Top slot I'll call Slot #1
Slot #1 = Video Card = AGP
Slot #2 = Empty
Slot #3 = Soundcard
Slot #4 = Empty
Slot #5 = Network Card
Slot #6 = Empty
Slot #7 = Empty

Mouse = USB with a PS/2 Adapter
Keyboard = PS/2
Printer = USB port
And 1 Free USB port for my Scanner & Portable MP3 player.

I see also (they must be onboard) 2 serial ports as well as a Printer port which I do not use.

My motherboard is a MSI 6163.
 
IRQ info...

if you don't want any irq conflicts and you are using a windows-based PC, simply turn on OS plug and play in BIOS and your operating system can use IRQ's such as 16,19,20...etc as resource for your device. if OS plug and play is not enabled on your bios, you are still tied on having only up to IRQ 15 that makes IRQ sharing imminent.:)
 
Even though you are using a PnP OS, you can still sometimes make some rough adjustments with the IRQs in the BIOS depending on the Mobo.

I had a problem with my vid card sharing IRQ11 with my sound card too and all I did was force the sound card PCI slot to use a different IRQ (shared with anything else), and left all other IRQ settings at "auto".
 
if you set enable PNP OS on your BIOS, you don't need to tamper any IRQ's on your CMOS setting. Using a PNP compliant motherboard along with your Windows XP makes setting and installing your devices and other peripherals easy. if in any case that a sharing of IRQ would exist, Windows XP will automatically make use of additional IRQ (IRQ 16+). As shown in the attached file on previous message. Having these settings enabled, the resources settings on your device manager would be set to automatic and additional settings there is disabled.

note: should enable "PNP OS installed" on your BIOS before installing the OS. :cool:
 
Originally posted by markmg
if you set enable PNP OS on your BIOS, you don't need to tamper any IRQ's on your CMOS setting. Using a PNP compliant motherboard along with your Windows XP makes setting and installing your devices and other peripherals easy. if in any case that a sharing of IRQ would exist, Windows XP will automatically make use of additional IRQ (IRQ 16+). As shown in the attached file on previous message. Having these settings enabled, the resources settings on your device manager would be set to automatic and additional settings there is disabled.

note: should enable "PNP OS installed" on your BIOS before installing the OS. :cool:

True, but even though I had the PNP setting in the BIOS enabled, I still had trouble with IRQ11 being shared with the video and audio cards. I had to fool with the IRQ settings to get them seperated. I let the OS/BIOS assign the others as they saw fit. At the time, I had all the PCI slots filled, so moving them around wasn't going to help too much.
 

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