XP won't let me change IRQ's?

[Radiation]

I have a sound card I wish to keep on its own physical (real) IRQ yet windows keeps putting it above 15 into the fake range but I have disabled about 4 or more devices in the bios that would use up IRQ's and windows won't use them even though they are free.

This is on a fresh install of xp so i know they are truly free and no drivers are interfering, this is starting to really **** me off now as i keep changing the card to different pci slots and when i start windows it will often at first say its using a sub 15 IRQ but when i come to install the drivers it changes to above 15.

What sort of idiots at microsoft felt we shouldn't be allowed to have the option to set this like before, really has annoyed me now as i need to have the sound card on its own IRQ for performance reasons, it works ok but not with a low latency buffer which is what i really need.

Please help, thanks!

 

[Dutch Guy]

Can you not fiddle with INT's in the BIOS to force IRQ's to different PCI slots?

I assume you also tried different PCI slots?

 

[Radiation]

Can you not fiddle with INT's in the BIOS to force IRQ's to different PCI slots?

Not sure how to do this?

I assume you also tried different PCI slots?

Yeah that's the thing that's really annoying me as i keep changing to a different slot and when i come back to xp i check what IRQ is in use and its often a good one but after the drivers are installed it will jump to a bad one so i go through the process again and the same thing keeps happening, I've got about 4 free IRQ's and xp has yet to use them after a driver install.

 

[Dutch Guy]

I think XP cannot (or will not) put the soundcard on a unused IRQ that might be used by COM or Serial ports like Win98 would do (and could do)

Have a look in the BIOS under PnP/PCI configuration, I think you might be able to assign IRQ's to different slots there, I remember this from a few years ago but it might still be possible.

 

[Radiation]

I think XP cannot (or will not) put the soundcard on a unused IRQ that might be used by COM or Serial ports like Win98 would do (and could do)

That's quite pathetic if true, im sure there are other free IRQ's though as I've seen it on various numbers under 15 so i want it to use one of them, I've seen guides and they often say under xp to disable com ports etc in the bios so i think it does work, plus it was on a com port IRQ twice before but never stays there after the drivers are installed.

Have a look in the BIOS under PnP/PCI configuration, I think you might be able to assign IRQ's to different slots there, I remember this from a few years ago but it might still be possible.

I think i know the bit you mean and i did look before and all you can do is reserve one for an isa or something i forgot what its called, is that the right place?

 

[Radiation]

I tried to reinstall xp about 4 times with standard pc instead of acpi so i could manually set the irq's but i found after all the messing about with installing sata drivers that after its done formatting it wants the drivers a second time but this time it strangely says the floppy is corrupt or missing which its not as i made more copy's, it seems like it just doesn't want to get the data off the floppy disk so i couldn't go any further, another pathetic problem, why the heck can't you use a cd or usb or any other drive to have the sata drivers on?

So im back to a normal install and still the damn card keeps jumping to a bad irq, what am i supposed to do?

 

[Radiation]

Still not found a way to sort this but im now wondering if running as standard pc is better or worse than acpi in the long run?

Im surprised this problem hasn't been sorted, why can't microsoft fix the problem by adding the option to force an irq?

Is there another way to install the sata drivers without a floppy or any way to get a real irq other than setting up the computer as standard pc?