How bad is 503+ conflict of AGP vs. PCI slot 1?

I remember seeing in this newsgroup words about conflicts between the AGP
card and a PCI card in the adjacent slot on the 503+. I flipped through the
503+ manual, but didn't see anything on the topic. Is this something to
strictly avoid, or just be aware of potential conflicts?

I have two 503+ computers with AGP cards and with PCI slots 2 and 3 filled.
One is Win2000 with PCI cards for ethernet and an Ultra100 TX2, and an ISA
sound card. I want to put a modem in PCI slot 1. The other is Red Had 8
with PCI ethernet and sound cards, and I want to add a Promise controller.

Any advice would be appreciated.

 

The AGP slot and the adjacent PCI slot on the 503+ share the same
interrupt assignment, thus the commentary that one should avoid using
both slots. If drivers are written correctly, IRQ sharing should not
be a problem. As a rule of thumb, try using a PCI card in the
adjacent slot that will have the least IRQ "activity" associated
therewith.

Heck, on my win2k gaming machine (ECS K7S5A mobo), win2k put the HD
controller, USB, VID card (ATI 8500) and the onboard NIC all on 1 IRQ
and the system did not burp at all. However, that system is ACPI
compliant, and the 503+ is not fully compliant (and I'm not certain as
to why the 503+ is not fully ACPI compliant).

I'll bet the Linux system handles the situation better than win2k, but
ya never know. Do you have USB enabled? Having USB enabled mucks up
IRQ steering with the 503+ (if you are using the 503+ in APM mode).

Give it a try and tell us of your successes/failures. Hopefully, it
will be successes.
--
Best regards,
Kyle
tired of spam, no email address
| I remember seeing in this newsgroup words about conflicts between
the AGP
| card and a PCI card in the adjacent slot on the 503+. I flipped
through the
| 503+ manual, but didn't see anything on the topic. Is this
something to
| strictly avoid, or just be aware of potential conflicts?
|
| I have two 503+ computers with AGP cards and with PCI slots 2 and 3
filled.
| One is Win2000 with PCI cards for ethernet and an Ultra100 TX2, and
an ISA
| sound card. I want to put a modem in PCI slot 1. The other is Red
Had 8
| with PCI ethernet and sound cards, and I want to add a Promise
controller.
|
| Any advice would be appreciated.
|
|

 

Never had a problem when I ran an AGP Radeon 32MB DDR and a 3DFx Voodoo2
card by side. I'm now currently running a 16Mb Voodoo 3 AGP with a USB 2.0
PCI card next to it and it still works fine. Dual booting Win2K and Win98SE
if that makes any difference.

 

really bad, really really really bad, super bad, bad bad

 

Thanks to can-do words from Kyle and ?uzzled, I installed a Ultra66 in slot
one of my 503+. It works, noticeably faster! This is a Linux machine, and
I'm still studying what happened to the Linux partitions, but the apps and
all work fine.

Thanks again.

- Dave