XP won't let me change IRQ numbers!

can you post a screenshot?

Maybe it is hidden? In the menu bar of Device manager click View and select "Show Hidden Devices".

Yeah, I tried that, but it isn't there. I think I'll probably have to reinstall windows today. *sighs*. Ya know, XP is great when it works but when it decides to quit working it's a pain in the ***.

How do I fix this damn IRQ thing? I just reinstalled windows. I can't move the card to the top three slots on my motherboard because it won't work since the agp slot is too close to the pci slot - the card won't work. I can't put it in the fourth pci slot because that's where my tv tuner has to go since if I put the tv tuner in the fifth pci slot, THAT card won't work. And if I have it in the fifth pci slot (the sound card) it assigns the card the same irq number as the video card! I've tried the sound card in the fourth pci slot, and it assigned the cards different irq numbers. And I won't try converting the pc to standard pc again because that didn't work. So what the hell ('scuse the language, but I'm extermely frustrated right now)? Do I do? I just paid $112 for this sound card, and I'm not in the mood to be sending it back. I had my previous sound card in the SAME slot and it worked PERFECTLY FINE (even though it was an Aureal card).

Well, if you have tried all the different things we have suggested, I really don't know what to tell you because in my experience, disabling ACPI in the BIOS usually works. You may still have to shift some cards around a bit but it should have let you change enogh that you could get it all working.

Okay, I've figured it out. It's my mobo (soyo k7v dragun plus - kt266a). It's not the vid. card, sound card, or windows xp - those all work fine. How have I come to this conclusion, you ask? Well, remember the last post I made that talked about the pci slots not working? I decided to try my TV Tuner in the top four slots and it wouldn't work either, and that IRQ signing problem? I'm pretty sure it's not a windows xp thing, because it always assign whatever card I put in the last (6th) pci slot - farthest away from the video card - the same irq as the video card! Which explains, why, when I tried my TV Tuner in the 6th slot, it would say failed to initialize video. Thank you Soyo. "six PCI slots" - yeah, only one works. So, what do I do now? I'm sure my motherboard is still under warranty, I bought it back in August. Could I possibly send it back and exchange it for a new one? Would exchanging the mobo for an identical one possibly fix the problem, or would I still have the same PCI slot problems? There isn't anything I could do that could possibly fix the PCI slot problems without having to send it back, is there (because I wouldn't be with a PC for about a week - ew)?

I have done as Phantasm suggested. Thanks for trying to help me, but I think I may just get a different board (different model than what I have). It's way more trouble than it's worth - I've already re-installed Windows XP twice this week and unless I absolutely have to, I don't really feel like reinstalling it again.

DO NOT ATTEMPT TO CHANGE YOUR HAL CONFIGURATION! This guy's "advice" will almost certainly hose your machine and you'll have to re-install XP. You would be MUCH better off to reinstall the OS, selecting a non-ACPI HAL from the very beginning as was recommended at the bottom of the thread, cuz changing it after the fact is a recipe for disaster. Anyone who would recommend such a boneheaded move is either ignorant or is purposely leading you down the garden path (to a cliff).

I cannot believe XP allows you to do this without some kind of warning. But anyway, if you look into it you'll find this warning from Microsoft...
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;237556

WARNING: Note that you should not attempt to change from an ACPI HAL to a standard HAL or from a standard HAL to a ACPI HAL under any circumstances. Doing so will result in your computer not starting properly or at all. This occurs because the Plug and Play device tree that would be currently loaded is for ACPI, and it does not get reconstructed or revert to a standard HAL Plug and Play device tree. Because of this (the device tree structures being drastically different), the system is unaware of any hardware changes after the computer restarts to include the location of the boot device. Microsoft does not recommend or support this procedure as it will result in data loss.

Good luck!
- Harry

Phant:

Here's something interesting.

I tested it out myself. You are right about IRQ assignment in BIOS meaning nothing to an ACPI enabled machine with an ACPI HAL installed - BUT, when it came to ISA devices, when I told the board to specify an IRQ for a certain ISA slot, it WOULD assign that IRQ to it in windows XP. This was done with an ABIT BH6. It would only do this with my ISA sound card(sound blaster 16).

Hi all..

New problem.. Xp also put all my devices on IRQ number 9. Now i had problems with the grapics and sound. So i followd the instructions to chance to standard PC .... after a while i got the system up and running under the 'standard pc' settings but the problem stayed the same..

Now my question .. is it possible to switch back to the 'ACPI' settings??? Because updating the drivers doesn't find that profile anymore ...

thanks in advance...
Nico

Hi everybody

Skik - i changed to standard PC and have switched back to ACPI computer by using system restore, everything works neet so far (it didnt fix my problem but it was great fun).

As a standard PC i could manually assign the IRQs in BIOS without a problem and XP picked them up. Using ACPI it is impossible to change IRQ settings, microsoft say this is not a problem, it is by design:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;315278

I got a question. I'm also having this crisis, and was wonder is it possible to change the IRQ in Windows 98? Does Windows 98 have ACPI??? Cus this is getting on my nerves, if installing Windows 98 will allow me to change the IRQs, let me know!

as small payment for all of the great tips contained in this thread, i have registered to post this reply with what worked for me...

i dont know why that "harry_platypus" is so grumpy, but it may just be that he is the bonehead.

changing to a standard pc on the device manager tree, as advised by "Phantasm66" worked beautifully. the only adaptation i had to make was switching the pci cards around after the switch from ACPI. it seems that my soundcard didn't like irq 9 for some reason.

but anyways, the world is a better place now that i know how to defeat microsoft's ploy to sieze my hardware configuration. i feel like a real man.

as a final word, if i had known you could install a standard pc HAL from the start i would have. according to the windows knowledge base, you may setup a standard pc HAL by pushing F5 immediately upon entering windows XP setup (the screen actually says "push F6 to install third party scsi...").

Help!

Ok I have a major problem here. I bought this M-Audio Revolution 7.1 sound card and I've been trying to change its IRQ because the thing is sharing IRQ11 with 3 other things and the card is operating oddly because of this.

I'm running XP and I switched the HAL to Standard PC like what Phant said. All this did was reaquire all the drivers for everything and disable advanced power management, and I still can't change the IRQ of the sound card. I tried going to device manager and switching it there but there's still no option. I've tried switching it in the bios, I have Cheepobios which is a modified AMI bios because my original AMI bios didn't even have IRQ options. There's no "Switch IRQ To:" type setting in the BIOS but there are options to change the "IRQ Priority" of the Slots. These did nothing as well. I also switched Plug And Play Aware O/S to disabled, and I disabled ACPI aware O/S.

I've switched the sound card around in the case and it's pretty much like slots 2-5 are set to IRQ 11. Slot 1 is set to IRQ 5 which is sharing with my video card so I can't use that. Here's the list of IRQs:

IRQ 0 System timer
IRQ 1 PC/AT Enhanced PS/2 Keyboard (101/102-Key)
IRQ 3 Communications Port (COM2)
IRQ 4 Communications Port (COM1)
IRQ 5 RADEON 9000 SERIES
IRQ 6 Standard floppy disk controller
IRQ 8 System CMOS/real time clock
IRQ 10 MPU-401 Compatible MIDI Device
IRQ 11 SiS 7001 PCI to USB Open Host Controller
IRQ 11 SiS 7001 PCI to USB Open Host Controller
IRQ 11 M-Audio Revolution
IRQ 11 Linksys LNE100TX Fast Ethernet Adapter(LNE100TX v4) #3
IRQ 12 Microsoft PS/2 Mouse
IRQ 13 Numeric data processor
IRQ 14 Primary IDE Channel
IRQ 15 Secondary IDE Channel

I have a ECS K7S5A motherboard with SiS 735 chipset.

Please, any help would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks

Solved

I figured it out! Basically what I did was keep plug and play aware o/s disabled in the BIOS and leave ACPI aware o/s enabled. I enabled ACPI HAL in windows XP and I disabled Com 1 and Com 2 to free up IRQs. When I rebooted I managed to get the soundcard by itself in IRQ4, taking com1's place.

However, giving the soundcard its own IRQ solved nothing, so I'm returning it. Man I hate computers. Its only when you are up till 6 AM trying to fix something, that you realize you are actually being owned by the computer, not the other way around

I have read through this whole thread, my on board sound skips badly anytime the processor is working, it is sitting on IRQ 18. I also bought a sound card an put it and it to skipped. So back to the on board and AC97. Currently set up as ACPI.
WHat I want to know, is there a way to do a poll of my computer and get a list of all devices and their associated IRQ?
Thanks