IRQ help please!

[Guest]

Hi all,

I just bought a new computer, and its running fairly sluggish in games like
Halo. My OS is Windows XP Home with SP2 installed.

I've installed and ran PCMark04, and am getting a score of 1024 on graphics
(my other scores are around 4000ish).

I've checked my IRQs and here's what they are:

0 - System Timer
1 - Keyboard
6 - Floppy Disk
8 - CMOS realtime clock
9 - Microsoft ACPI Compliant System
12 - Mouse
13 - Numeric Data Processor
14 - Primary IDE
15 - Secondary IDE
16 - NVidia Geforce FX 5200 (graphics card)
18 - Creative SB Audigy (sound card)
19 - SiS 900-Based PCI Fast Adapter (onboard ethernet card)
19 (Yes, 19) - IEEE 1394 Host Controller
20 - SiS 7001 PCI to USB Host
21 - Sis 7001 PCI to USB Host
22 - Sis PCI to USB Host

IRQs 2,3,4,5,7,10,11,17 are not listed. This leads me to believe that they
are not being used. I've disabled my onboard audio, COM2, game port, and
Modem through BIOS (Im not using them).

My ethernet, sound card, and video card are all sharing 1 IRQ (16-22 act as
one IRQ), and I need them to be on separate IRQs so that they arent
competeing for processor time.

How can I move devices to different IRQs? I've tried to go to Device
manager, and to the properites of my graphics card, and then to the resources
tab - but the option to changes settings is disabled (or greyed out).

Please help! Thanks

 

[R. McCarty]

Modern motherboards are no longer limited to 16 IRQ lines. Your
system has a Routing Hub that extends the range. As long as the PC
is ACPI compliant, you'll have instances of sharing that are normal.
Manually assigning IRQ's via BIOS will be ignored by a PNP O/S.
The only user level option is to move PCI cards to slots that are not
shared. Usually this is Slots #2 and 5 as counted from the AGP slot.

 

[Guest]

A general description of IRQ sharing in Windows XP (314068)
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;en-us;314068

Windows XP cannot rebalance resources in the same way that Microsoft Windows
98 does. After PCI resources are set, they generally cannot be changed. If
you change to an incorrect IRQ setting or I/O range for the bus that a device
is on, Windows XP cannot compensate by rebalancing the resource that was
assigned to that bus.

 

[Guest]

Somebody told that the way to fix the IRQs is to disable APCI in the BIOS and
reinstall windows. I havent got my Windows CDs from the folks who sold me
this computer, I do, however, have a copy of Windows XP Pro that I installed

 

[Ron Martell]

Somebody told that the way to fix the IRQs is to disable APCI in the BIOS and
reinstall windows. I havent got my Windows CDs from the folks who sold me
this computer, I do, however, have a copy of Windows XP Pro that I installed
on another comp (which I am still using). Where do I go to buy additional
licenses for Windows XP Pro?

Microsoft does sell additional licenses direct from their website
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/howtobuy/addlic.mspx

However you will probably get a better price by shopping around at
"big box" retailers in your area or from an online discount retailer.

Good luck


Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca

"The reason computer chips are so small is computers don't eat much."

 

[Alex Nichol]

How can I move devices to different IRQs? I've tried to go to Device
manager, and to the properites of my graphics card, and then to the resources
tab - but the option to changes settings is disabled (or greyed out).

That is not going to help. But what CPU speed and RAM size do you have?
- those (aside from graphics card) are top importance for such games

 

[Guest]

I have a Intel Pentium 4 - 3 GHtz processor w/ Hyperthreading
1024 MB of DDR RAM

Ram is divided into 3 different sticks
1 stick of DDR400 133 MHtz 512 MB ram
2 sticks of DDR333 133 MHtz 256 MB ram

 

[Bob I]

The problem is the cheesy low end video card. I tried one of those to
replace a TNT2 Ultra and it was worse! It's a really low end card so
replacing it with somthing better will fix that score.

http://www.tech-report.com/reviews/2003q2/geforcefx-5200/index.x?pg=1