K7VTA3 V8.0 IRQ issue

I'm running my K7VTA3 v8.0 with a Sempron 3000+ and Win2000 Pro. While
investigating a problem with games freezing up (eventually require a total
system rebuild), I noticed that IRQ 7 was shared by my TI 4200U video card,
onboard LAN, USB Host (x2) and SoundBlaster Live 5.1 card. However, IRQs 5
and 11 are not being used. This seems like a recipe for disaster. I logged
in as the Administrator and went into Device Manager to select different
configurations for these devices but the selections for each one were greyed
out. This seemed strange as I remember over the years with Win98 being able
to mess with the configs to get rid of device conflicts. I wanted to move
some of these devices to IRQ 5 and 11. In the BIOS, these two IRQs were not
reserved but were set up as the others for PCI cards. I tried resetting the
ECSD as well as setting the BIOS to "Plug and Play OS installed." Everytime
I rebooted and even after a total system rebuild, IRQs 5 and 11 were not
used. The onboard audio is disabled in the bios as is the serial and
parallel ports. I even tried reserving IRQs 5 and 11 but this obviously
didn't help. I did not try to reserve IRQ 7 to force the system to
reallocate the devices...I guess I didn't want to have another crash.

Well, I'm wondering if anyone else has run into this problem and found a
solution to utilize these other IRQs to prevent so many devices hanging off
the same IRQ. Seems very odd to me. I've been able to make SB cards use
IRQ 5 back in the day but not with this board. I'm not sure if its the
mainboard and/or its settings, the OS, the devices themselves, or my lack
of knowledge.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

BigSky

Oops, I almost forgot. I moved the SB Live card to 3 different PCI slots in
case the IRQs were tied to specific slots. This didn't make a difference.
The SB Live went straight to IRQ 7 each time. Currently the SB Live is in
the third slot from the bottom and working fine.

Thanks again for any help.


"Big Sky" <> wrote in message
news:nx4ze.14788$Qo.6123@fed1read01...
> I'm running my K7VTA3 v8.0 with a Sempron 3000+ and Win2000 Pro. While
> investigating a problem with games freezing up (eventually require a total
> system rebuild), I noticed that IRQ 7 was shared by my TI 4200U video
card,
> onboard LAN, USB Host (x2) and SoundBlaster Live 5.1 card. However, IRQs
5
> and 11 are not being used. This seems like a recipe for disaster. I
logged
> in as the Administrator and went into Device Manager to select different
> configurations for these devices but the selections for each one were
greyed
> out. This seemed strange as I remember over the years with Win98 being
able
> to mess with the configs to get rid of device conflicts. I wanted to move
> some of these devices to IRQ 5 and 11. In the BIOS, these two IRQs were
not
> reserved but were set up as the others for PCI cards. I tried resetting
the
> ECSD as well as setting the BIOS to "Plug and Play OS installed."
Everytime
> I rebooted and even after a total system rebuild, IRQs 5 and 11 were not
> used. The onboard audio is disabled in the bios as is the serial and
> parallel ports. I even tried reserving IRQs 5 and 11 but this obviously
> didn't help. I did not try to reserve IRQ 7 to force the system to
> reallocate the devices...I guess I didn't want to have another crash.
>
> Well, I'm wondering if anyone else has run into this problem and found a
> solution to utilize these other IRQs to prevent so many devices hanging
off
> the same IRQ. Seems very odd to me. I've been able to make SB cards use
> IRQ 5 back in the day but not with this board. I'm not sure if its the
> mainboard and/or its settings, the OS, the devices themselves, or my lack
> of knowledge.
>
> Any help would be greatly appreciated.
>
> BigSky
>
>