Motherboard and slots.

[Jonny]

If you have the manual for the motherboard, read it. Motherboards vary, but
all share some irqs with some slots. And, some cards will only work with
some hardware irqs at the bios level (not talking windows here).

 

[Frank Martin]

I don't know much about this but I have been told that all 6 slots on my
motherboard are not quite equivalent, though each uses up an IRQ.

Is this true, because I am having trouble with a NetMos parallel printer
card, which was working before, but now freezes the computer on startup.

I have WindowsXP which has been reinstalled because of a System32 crash.

Is it worth swapping around the cards in the slots on the motherboard to try
for optimum performance, or is this an old wives tale?

Please help, Frank

 

[Guest]

how do you know it is the printer card causing computer to freeze up?

 

[Mike Hall \(MS-MVP\)]

Frank

Do not use the slot nearest to the AGP slot, or the one next to the ISA slot
if you have one..

 

[Jonny]

The AGP and adjacent slot is not always true, may be the second adjacent
slot on some motherboards.

 

[Mike Hall \(MS-MVP\)]

Second adjacent?.. it's either adjacent or it isn't.. the slots adjacent to
AGP or ISA slots can cause problems sometimes..

 

[Jonny]

That's alright Mike, no one likes it when they're wrong, even when they
learn something....

 

[Mike Hall \(MS-MVP\)]

Jonny

I wasn't wrong..

 

[Frank Martin]

My motherboad was installed in 2002 and is an "EPoX 4B2A Intel845
mainboard".

It has the max amount of RAM installed (1Gb).

It has done a lot of work downloading and recording TV movies.

Some of the little capacitors next to the CPU are beginning to swell and go
a bit furry, though I have been told this is not too serious.

have half a mind to get a new computer and use this machine as a backup.

 

[Frank Martin]

Because it's OK when I remove it.

how do you know it is the printer card causing computer to freeze up?

 

[Bob I]

If you have a good motherboard manual it will list which PCI interrupt
is assigned as Primary and which is assigned as secondary for each slot
and what is assigned to the onboard peripheries.