How to enable 23 IRQs support in Win 2000?

[Valentin Stanev]

I have a couple of hardware conflicts on my PC configuration - my TV-tuner,
Lan card, Video card, Sound card, Modem, and USB controller use one and the
same IRQ -> IRQ11. That causes frequent crashes of my Windows and makes my
computer unusable. I've heard that if enabled Win 2000 can support up to 23
IRQs. Any idea how to enable that thing would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance.
Valentin

 

[Rick]

I have a couple of hardware conflicts on my PC configuration - my TV-tuner,
Lan card, Video card, Sound card, Modem, and USB controller use one and the
same IRQ -> IRQ11. That causes frequent crashes of my Windows and makes my
computer unusable. I've heard that if enabled Win 2000 can support up to 23
IRQs. Any idea how to enable that thing would be greatly appreciated.

1. IRQs above 15 are available only on multiprocessor systems.

2. Your question was already answered, yesterday. You need to
disable ACPI and reinstall Windows to gain manual control (or at
least partially manual control) over your IRQs.

Rick

 

[Overlord]

1. APIC capable motherboards make available a larger number of IRQs.
You have to enable it in the BIOS in order for 2K to take advantage of it.

1.5 It is not restricted to multiprocessor systems

2. It is sometimes possible to change the ACPI HAL to Standard PC just like
updating any other driver tho it has wider reaching effect like redetecting
Every chipset/feature on the motherboard from the RTC to your sound card
and more and installing their drivers all over again. You lose some of your
power management control and, giving 2K free reign you end up with all the
stock 2K drivers unless you have them all ready to install as the devices are
redetected. It will give more control over IRQ allocation but will not give you
23 IRQs to allocate unless the mb is APIC capable and enabled.
Generally going to Standard PC HAL is a last ditch attempt taken after trying
to install all the newest hardware drivers. However some older drivers, and
some hardware simply don't play well with others using the same IRQ.

1. IRQs above 15 are available only on multiprocessor systems.

2. Your question was already answered, yesterday. You need to
disable ACPI and reinstall Windows to gain manual control (or at
least partially manual control) over your IRQs.

Rick

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[Rick]

1. APIC capable motherboards make available a larger number of IRQs.
You have to enable it in the BIOS in order for 2K to take advantage of it.

1.5 It is not restricted to multiprocessor systems

True, but APIC isn't found on most uniprocessor motherboards.
However it's mandatory on multiprocessor motherboards:
http://www.microsoft.com/HWDEV/PLATFORM/proc/IO-APIC.asp

2. It is sometimes possible to change the ACPI HAL to Standard PC just like
updating any other driver tho it has wider reaching effect like redetecting
Every chipset/feature on the motherboard from the RTC to your sound card
and more and installing their drivers all over again. You lose some of your
power management control and, giving 2K free reign you end up with all the
stock 2K drivers unless you have them all ready to install as the devices are
redetected. It will give more control over IRQ allocation but will not give you
23 IRQs to allocate unless the mb is APIC capable and enabled.
Generally going to Standard PC HAL is a last ditch attempt taken after trying
to install all the newest hardware drivers. However some older drivers, and
some hardware simply don't play well with others using the same IRQ.

Yes. I usually recommend installing Win2K with Standard PC
HAL if one doesn't need power management features. It's much
preferable to have some level of control over IRQ assignments
(even if the control is limited to PCI card placement/slot order)
than no control at all. Fortunately there aren't nearly as many
devices and drivers that have problems sharing IRQs as there
once was -- sound card drivers seem to have the most problems.

Rick

 

[Valentin Stanev]

Thanks, Rick. I've solved the problem by flashing with a modded bios that
supports IO APIC and changed the ACPI to Uniprocessor ACPI and now there are
no conflicts with the sound card. But I have many other problems with my Win
2000 after installing SP4 and as far as I have heard it makes the system
very unstable and slow. Do you know more about that problem and is MS going
to release a fix for that ?

Best regards,
Valentin