Eastcoasthandle
12-22-2005, 07:04 PM
Most people don't even know they are sharing an irq with their sound card or onboard lan adapter in some cases harddrive. When they try tweaking it or playing games they sometimes:
-obtain little to no increase in FPS (with a decent PSU), COD, BSOD and BS (black screen).
-hardware errors in xp
-other unusual pc problems
Most game forums are now discussing this issue to improve FPS in games but I think this also needs to be taken into consideration when tweaking your card as well.
Check to see if you are sharing irqs between your video card, sound card and lan card.
1. Click Start, right click on My Computer and select Properties.
2. Click on the Hardware tab and then the Device Manager button.
3. Go to the View menu and select 'Resources by type'.
4. Expand 'Interrupt request (IRQ)'
5. Check your IRQ's for any particular sharing with either your lan, video card or sound card. These three components should have their own IRQs. For now disregard the usb and other chipset drivers that may be sharing that IRQ as I haven't read, seen any problems from this.
Do to the nature of HAL it's difficult to change IRQ settings in XP. Most folk most with hyperthreading/hypertransport should be on the APCI multiprocessor. However it's very difficult to change, even in bios do to it's lack of ability to assign an irq to a specific component.
The only remedy that I can think is the following:
-sound card & video card sharing IRQ, move the sound card to a different pci slot
-sound card & video card sharing IRQ with onboard lan, disable the onboard lan in bios and buy a lan card
-video card or sound card & lan card sharing IRQ...your screwed unless it has jumpers to switch IRQ. Or move the lan card to another pci slot.
-check your MB manual to see if you are able to flip dip switchs for IRQs
Please note that if you upgrade your 500 series Intel CPU to a 600 series Intel CPU (after updating my bios) you are going to have to do a complete reinstall of XP. For some odd reason I was getting printer problems and sound problems and no matter what I did it would not go away. I finally gave up and did a complete reformat and reinstalled xp. Now I notice FPS in games then I did previously. But take this as you want as this is just IMO.
-obtain little to no increase in FPS (with a decent PSU), COD, BSOD and BS (black screen).
-hardware errors in xp
-other unusual pc problems
Most game forums are now discussing this issue to improve FPS in games but I think this also needs to be taken into consideration when tweaking your card as well.
Check to see if you are sharing irqs between your video card, sound card and lan card.
1. Click Start, right click on My Computer and select Properties.
2. Click on the Hardware tab and then the Device Manager button.
3. Go to the View menu and select 'Resources by type'.
4. Expand 'Interrupt request (IRQ)'
5. Check your IRQ's for any particular sharing with either your lan, video card or sound card. These three components should have their own IRQs. For now disregard the usb and other chipset drivers that may be sharing that IRQ as I haven't read, seen any problems from this.
Do to the nature of HAL it's difficult to change IRQ settings in XP. Most folk most with hyperthreading/hypertransport should be on the APCI multiprocessor. However it's very difficult to change, even in bios do to it's lack of ability to assign an irq to a specific component.
The only remedy that I can think is the following:
-sound card & video card sharing IRQ, move the sound card to a different pci slot
-sound card & video card sharing IRQ with onboard lan, disable the onboard lan in bios and buy a lan card
-video card or sound card & lan card sharing IRQ...your screwed unless it has jumpers to switch IRQ. Or move the lan card to another pci slot.
-check your MB manual to see if you are able to flip dip switchs for IRQs
Please note that if you upgrade your 500 series Intel CPU to a 600 series Intel CPU (after updating my bios) you are going to have to do a complete reinstall of XP. For some odd reason I was getting printer problems and sound problems and no matter what I did it would not go away. I finally gave up and did a complete reformat and reinstalled xp. Now I notice FPS in games then I did previously. But take this as you want as this is just IMO.