Unresolvable conflict

[Randal South]

I am running Windows 2000 Pro and have an IRQ conflict in device manager. As a result I can't use my CDR or CDRW. Device manager shows shows Ultra ATA channel as having IRQ 14, but the primary IDE channel also has IRQ 14. Win2k shows Ultra ATA to be working normally with no conflict, but primary IDE indicates that it has insufficient resources.

There is a yellow exclamation point over the primary ide channel in device manager. Ultra ATA tab does not have a tab for deleting or deactivating the Ultra ATA. However, the Primary IDE does have a tab for deleting.

Any way to manually change the IRQ? My informants tell me the ATA tab doesn't belong under the ATAPI IDE Controller devices anyway. What should I do?

Randal
ICQ 118179171
<bd652@scn.org>

[RipperRoo]

IDE ATA/ATAPI Controlers is where the ata should be located , as for the irq clash , there maybe a way to assign the IRQ manualy in the bio's , have a poke about in your bios , see if anything turns up


NOTE: While in the bios , if you dont know what something does DONT CHANGE THE SETTING
or you might end up with a system than fail's to boot
requiring a bios reset in order to run again

[Randal South]

Well I have new information. I ran checkit for dos, a diagnostic program and it appears that all of the IRQs are taken. This would explain the conflict. I was wondering if there is a utility that allows a person to resolve IRQ settings and move things around manually. I heard that IRQ 10 or IRQ 11 is usually where you put something when you are not sure.

Prior to Windows 98, you could move things manually. But that is no longer the case. I haven't checked the bios. Not sure, but think I have to reboot to do that. I will be back if I still have a problem.

[NUTNDUN]

Hey Randal,
If I'm not mistaken Cirga and the crew were able ot get you fixed up in the chat room right? I tried to keep track of the conversation but I was in and out trying to finish up some coding.

[Randal South]

Unfortunately I am still having problems. IRQ is shared jointly by the primary IDE channel and Ultra ATA channel both under ATAPI/ATA. This would explain why I am having trouble getting my CDRW and CDR to work.
I have tested the CDR and CDRW and there is nothing wrong with the peripherals.

It appears that todays demands for devices has outpaced the expansion of the 15 IRQs that all motherboards have. I was just on the Windows 2000 General newsgroup and found someone else who had the exact same problem.

I am also having a problem with my sound card. It quit working and have no idea why. Someone suggested that I need to go into the bios and under advanced pci resource exclusion and exclude IRQ 5 because that is what the sound card uses. I tried this and it didn't work and I put it back. I haven't looked on the Creative Labs website, but RomperRoo indicated that is where he got the information from.

I suspect that much of my problem is coming from two incompatible controllers trying to use IRQ 14. Is there a way to manually change the IRQ controllers? I checked the properties area and found that the Ultra ATA can not be modified, but the advanced settings under properties does allow you to shut off the auto detect on the primary IDE channel.

This presents a real problem because this can not be solved through the bios. If you shut off IRQ 14 through the bios, the both devices will be unassigned. The failure of Mickey Soft to allow us a manual override option and the failure of the motherboard makers to give us enough IRQ settings has created problems.

I am running Windows 2000 PRo on an ASUS CUSL2-C motherboard with an award bios 6.0 version 1009. I have 512 mb of ram on a 40gb drive with a 40gb backup drive that uses raide controllers. One possible option would be to temporarily uninstall the raid controllers for my backup drive and hopefully Win2k will reassign the primary IDE channel to another IRQ.

I am still stuck. Sure wish there was a utility that would let you change IRQ assignments on the fly.
Microsoft should have allowed this. It was an oversight on their part.

Randal
<bd652@scn.org>
:?

[Cirga]

What still makes me wonder.. is how you got "ATA channel" In your Device manager. Normally when you have something like this it stands for a custom driver for either a device or from your motherboard to increase the speed of the ATA channels.

Like I was saying in IRC.. I just did a fresh install of Win2k PRO.. and All I have under my ATA drive controllers is:

Primary IDE channel
Secondary IDE Channel
And the third is a Dual Configuration IDE Controller.

I have the exact same motherboard that you are using and 2K didnt give me an ATA channel controller.. so there must be something custom about that.

Furthermore.. you mentioned removing something that was duplicate in the Device manager before this all started happening.. and that could have thrown 2k for a loop. Devices are supposed to be able to share IRQ's and that is what IRQ steering takes control of. YOu shouldnt have any problem with too many devices in your PC especially not on Win2k.

I have never updated the BIOS for the CSULSC-2 motherboard either.. so I still have the original from the box. So maybe that is a difference.

At this point.. I think it has more to do with Win2k than anything else. Have you attempted a repair from the win2k CD on boot up?

And if that doesnt work.. just reinstall 2k. That may very well be the solution and fix your problem.

Just a few more things to think about...

[Randal South]

I don't think the removal of the Primary IDE Channel should affect anything. As you may recall, it was reinstalled when we deleted all of the ATAPI channels, but it reinstalled incorrectly and both drives are showing up under the Secondary IDE Channel under ATAPI instead of the CDR showing up under the Primary Channel and the CDRW showing up under the secondary channel.

Both primary and secondary channels are showing up under Intel(r) 82801BA Bus Master IDE Controller, but primary channel has a yellow exclamation mark over it.
At this point I would strongly suspect that there is a bug with a likely culprit of Intel(r) 82801BA Bus Master IDE Controller to be the culprit.

You may recall from my earlier posting that an analysis by Checkit Software running through Dos emulation of Windows 2000 reveals that there are no available IRQs and that appears to be the reason two IRQs were assigned incorrectly. The shortage of IRQs coincides with the system message that indicates that I ran out of resources.

I was unsuccessful in getting IRQ 14 to be reallocated. I tried disabling Com Ports 1 and 3 and then rebooting,
but came up with the same problem and both CDR and CDRW are both on the secondary channel. Windows 2000 should have been able to reallocate.

The problem is unresolved and I strongly suspect a bug. PRobably something to write up and send to bugs, Wishlist, or Managers@Microsoft.com


I noticed that there are other people having the same problem on Microsoft Community Forums Windows 2000 Hardware Support.

[Cirga]

Ouch.. its no wonder its a problem that was driving me nuts. If it truly is a problem others are having then at least that gives a chance for a possible bug fix on 2k for it in the near future. windows "should" be sharing the IRQ's on devices to accomidate everything.. but I guess you were lucky enough to find the bug.

Still might not hurt to "try" a clea install of 2k. Never know.. it might be able to do some good. Something to attempt at any rate.

If I see anything about this I will be sure to post it bud.

[Randal South]

Is there a way to manually assign IRQs in Windows 2000 Pro? From what I can tell, the bios only reserves the IRQ settings so that they can not be used by Windows.

[NUTNDUN]

Hey Randal,

Here is what I need ya to try, please try it as I think this will resolve your problems. I think there has been too much messing going on to be able to get you back to where you need to be, unless we could see the system in person. Win2K and even win98 do a very good job with managing irq resources and yes sometimes there may even be 5 devices on one irq. Do me a favor and go into device manager, don't remove any controllers, just remove secondary ide devices like cdrom and whatever, don't remove your hd, then I need you to shutdown and reset the cmos on the motherboard either by using the jumper or removing the battery, if you have to use the battery method leave the battery out for at least 5 minutes, once ya have that done bott up and go directly into your bios, set your first boot device to being the cdrom drive if you have two cdrom drive it won't matter it will aytuomatically scan both drives for a boot record. Now that you have this done insert your win2k cd and save settings and exit, system will reboot and make sure you press a key to allow cdrom boot, then reinstall win2k, you won't loose any info with a reinstall just don't reformat unless you wanna do a fresh install that is up to you. Please try this, win2k should have no problems assigning irq's on it's own.

[Randal South]

Thanks for the advice. Unfortunately I have already reinstalled the entire operating system before I saw your message. I considered your suggestions about going into the C-mos, but after looking at my c-mos only find the options of unassigning certain IRQs instead of assigning IRQs to specific devices.

From the messages that are on the Windows 2000 General newsgroup, it appears that Windows 2000 generally assigns the IRQs without any problem, but occassionally things get tangled. The messages from other users seem to indicate that nothing short of a complete reinstall will resolve the problem.

Really appreciate your help.

Thanks,
RANDAL SOUTH
ICQ 118179171
<bd652@scn.org>
:o