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#31
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WAG -- Windows may not have seen any conflict, even though one existed.
Windows 98 is capable of IRQ Sharing. It doesn't necessarily see anything wrong with two or more devices sharing an IRQ, provided a couple of other settings are different. It just so happens that your new NIC can't play the IRQ sharing game according to Win98 specs, or, maybe, the fault lies in the other device(s) that were sharing that IRQ. The fact that modem and NIC are rather similar in purpose, and presumably share many other built-in routines, may also have something to do with it. Just too many similarities, and when you throw in the shared IRQ, they started resembling two very large people trying to get to somewhere sharing the same narrow hallway that only fits one of them. The IRQ is the starting gate, and they both use the same one at the same time. On your mark, get set, Ooof! -- Gary S. Terhune MS MVP Shell/User wrote in message oups.com... Gary S. Terhune wrote: Just the opposite. You want a Normal startup to look for conflicts. Immediately after I installed the NIC that was conflicting with my installed modem, I rebooted and got that long "hanging" boot that I described above. But when I got to the desktop and went to Device Manager, I did not see any ! icons next to either the NIC or the modem. Do you have any idea why that would be? That's what confuses me the most, now that I have identified the problem as a resource allocation problem and resolved it. |
#32
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Franc Zabkar wrote:
Well, I guess that bears out what was stated almost from the outset, namely that you had an undetected resource conflict. In hindsight you could have saved yourself a lot of trouble had you posted the resource list. Indeed it does bear it out. From now on, my procedure will be to check the resource configuration BEFORE doing any device installation. Then I'll be able to track whatever changes are made thereafter. Franc Zabkar wrote: I suspect that you had two situations where an ISA device was competing for the same IRQ as a PCI device. Initially it was a PCI NIC and some ISA device on your motherboard or in a slot, then it was an ISA NIC and some existing PCI device. An ISA NIC? I do not have one. The Belkin NIC is PCI. My only ISA device was the modem. Franc Zabkar wrote: In my system I occasionally have problems when my onboard sound (an ISA device) finds itself sharing an IRQ with an onboard PCI device. Win98SE's Device Manager identifies the sharing but does not flag it as a problem. Why wouldn't Win98se flag it as a problem if it was one? And does that mean that any instance of shared IRQs could conceivably be the cause of the problem, even if DM does not flag them as such? Franc Zabkar wrote: PCI devices can share IRQs as long as IRQ Steering is enabled. My plug-in PCI NIC shares one IRQ with the onboard USB controller and the onboard graphics. In that case, why did the PCI NIC try to use the modem's IRQ3 instead of sharing an IRQ with another PCI device, like the Video card or TV tuner card? For reference, here is my current IRQ configuration: 0 System Timer 1 Keyboard 2 Cascade 3 NIC 4 COM1 5 Sound 6 Floppy disk controller 7 LPT1 8 Real Time Clock 9 Video 10 Promise IDE Card 11 TV Card and USB Host controller 12 Mouse port 13 Math Co-Processor 14 Primary IDE Controller and Bus Master IDE Controller 15 Secondary IDE Controller and Bus Master IDE Controller Franc Zabkar wrote: I presume you are referring to your internal dial-up modem, not the DSL modem. If this is an ISA "hardware" non-PnP modem, then it would most likely have occupied IRQ 3 or IRQ 4 and would have appeared as a standard COM port in DM. Yes, the dial-up USRobotics modem. It used IRQ3 and appeared under the "Modems" icon in DM. Franc Zabkar wrote: In any case, just because you solved your problem by removing your modem doesn't prove that your modem was the culprit. The nature of PnP is such that resources are shuffled about like musical chairs whenever the device list changes. It could be that the actual problem device is now occupying an IRQ vacated by your modem. I think the fact that the modem stopped working at one point strongly indicates a conflict between it and the NIC, don't you? Thanks for your help with this Franc. Patrick |
#33
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Gary S. Terhune wrote: WAG -- Windows may not have seen any conflict, even though one existed. your new NIC can't play the IRQ sharing game according to Win98 specs, or, maybe, the fault lies in the other device(s) that were sharing that IRQ. That makes a lot of sense to me. Now that I look back on it, this is what must have happened: The NIC had to share an IRQ with one of the other PCI devices installed, but it doesn't like sharing its IRQ and it had no free IRQ to use, so it caused a conflict. I suppose that the fact that DM didn't display any ! even though there was indeed a conflict is a testament to Win98's poor implementation of PnP. Do you agree? Gary S. Terhune wrote: The fact that modem and NIC are rather similar in purpose, and presumably share many other built-in routines, may also have something to do with it. Just too many similarities, and when you throw in the shared IRQ, they started resembling two very large people trying to get to somewhere sharing the same narrow hallway Based on what Franc wrote above, I don't think this is true. He said ISA devices, like my modem, don't like to share IRQ's, so the modem COULDN'T have been sharing its IRQ with the NIC. (In fact, I remember seeing this in DM). Thus, the NIC must have been sharing the IRQ of another PCI device. What removing the modem did was simply to free its IRQ for use by the NIC -- but its IRQ was never shared with the NIC. Thanks for your explantion. Patrick |
#34
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Let me amend my previous post. Actually, the modem and NIC could
indeed have been trying to share the same IRQ at one point. I installed and removed the NIC multiple times. On ONE of those occasions, the NIC and modem were not using the same interrupt, but on other occasions they might have been. That would explain why after one reinstallation of the NIC the modem stopped working. |
#35
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PnP is *still* a work in progress, but I would suggest that the manufacturer
of the NIC or the modem, or rather the drivers developers, might be as much or more to blame. They have to provide the proper instructions to Windows in order for Windows to properly handle them. If this is a new model NIC, Belkin may simply not have bothered to heavily test it against 98 PnP. But my guess is the modem... Those things *often* wreak havoc with Win98 PnP. Some of them are just horrible. -- Gary S. Terhune MS MVP Shell/User wrote in message oups.com... Gary S. Terhune wrote: WAG -- Windows may not have seen any conflict, even though one existed. your new NIC can't play the IRQ sharing game according to Win98 specs, or, maybe, the fault lies in the other device(s) that were sharing that IRQ. That makes a lot of sense to me. Now that I look back on it, this is what must have happened: The NIC had to share an IRQ with one of the other PCI devices installed, but it doesn't like sharing its IRQ and it had no free IRQ to use, so it caused a conflict. I suppose that the fact that DM didn't display any ! even though there was indeed a conflict is a testament to Win98's poor implementation of PnP. Do you agree? Gary S. Terhune wrote: The fact that modem and NIC are rather similar in purpose, and presumably share many other built-in routines, may also have something to do with it. Just too many similarities, and when you throw in the shared IRQ, they started resembling two very large people trying to get to somewhere sharing the same narrow hallway Based on what Franc wrote above, I don't think this is true. He said ISA devices, like my modem, don't like to share IRQ's, so the modem COULDN'T have been sharing its IRQ with the NIC. (In fact, I remember seeing this in DM). Thus, the NIC must have been sharing the IRQ of another PCI device. What removing the modem did was simply to free its IRQ for use by the NIC -- but its IRQ was never shared with the NIC. Thanks for your explantion. Patrick |
#36
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I just thought of another possibility.
Does the resolution of the problem after removing the modem necessarily prove that it was a resource allocation problem? If the device is no longer there, then its driver won't be loaded, right? Thus, couldn't the problem have been with the driver and not the IRQ's? |
#37
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Could be. Could be that the modem itself is the problem, regardless of
drivers. It's kind of a total-Gestalt situation. Only testing would prove things one way or another. Different drivers for the modem, if available, for instance. My guess is that the NIC and Modem just don't play well together when on the same IRQ. Changing the modem or the NIC for a different model, particularly if they are based upon different strategies, would probably resolve the issue. But I say again that modems are notorious for not playing well with other devices. That's just the nature of the beast. That's why it's common to assign a specific IRQ to the modem (like IRQ5, if my memory serves me right) and take it out of the IRQ Sharing queue in BIOS. -- Gary S. Terhune MS MVP Shell/User wrote in message ups.com... I just thought of another possibility. Does the resolution of the problem after removing the modem necessarily prove that it was a resource allocation problem? If the device is no longer there, then its driver won't be loaded, right? Thus, couldn't the problem have been with the driver and not the IRQ's? |
#38
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#39
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#40
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Franc Zabkar wrote: Patrick wrote: Why wouldn't Win98se flag it as a problem if it was one? I don't know. I think another poster has answered this. He said that PnP is only as good as the device drivers that communicates with it and tell it the resource requirements of that device. Thus PnP probably simply didn't know about the conflict because the devices' drivers didn't tell it there was one. Patrick wrote: And does that mean that any instance of shared IRQs could conceivably be the cause of the problem, even if DM does not flag them as such? Franc Zabkar wrote: That's what I see in my system. I also found a reference to this effect in Scott Mueller's "Upgrading and Repairing PCs". He specifically states that ISA and PCI don't share. But does it apply to ANY instance of a shared IRQ? In other words, could 2 PCI devices sharing an IRQ actually be in conflict even if DM says they're OK? Franc Zabkar wrote: PCI devices can share IRQs as long as IRQ Steering is enabled. My plug-in PCI NIC shares one IRQ with the onboard USB controller and the onboard graphics. In that case, why did the PCI NIC try to use the modem's IRQ3 instead of sharing an IRQ with another PCI device, like the Video card or TV tuner card? I don't know. To answer my own question, I suspect that it comes down once again to the drivers not telling PnP about their resource requirements. Franc wrote: One thing you could check is whether you have IRQ steering enabled. I do. However on the odd occasion I find that the above PCI devices will be assigned to IRQ 10 which is where the WSS component of my onboard ISA sound device also lives. Even though DM does not flag this situation as a conflict, my sound doesn't work properly. I have to shuffle my resource list until the WSS device is on its own. That's not surprising. Sound cards are notorious for needing to get their own way when it comes to allocating resources. If PnP didn't catch it, I guess that's why they call it Plug and Pray, after all. Patrick |
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