Is IRQ Sharing 'bad' in Windows 2000 Pro ??

[thatsright]

Hi All. Just got done installing W2K Pro on a old ABIT BH6 440BX Motherboard & Celeron 300A>OCed>450Mhz & 512MB of RAM. Well I was looking in the System Information>Hardware Resources>Conflicts/Sharing folder. For IRQ5 their were two devices listed:

IRQ 5 Intel 82371 AB/EB PCI to USB Universal Controller
IRQ 5 3COM Etherlink 10/100 PCI TX NIC

I have no problem getting online or using my USB 1.1 Ports. I'm not sure if W2K can share IRQ's between Motherboard chipset devices, and a PCI device installed in a PCI slot? IS this a problem, should I move my NIC card to a different slot? These two are listed in the Conflicts/Sharing folder, thought?

The only real problem I'm having now, is that W2K Pro can't burn discs for my Sony old 8X CD/RW drive installed.

Please let me know, thanks.

 

[drag]

It would be nice to aviod it, but if it's working then... well, it's working. It's just a limitation of x86 design and nothing to worry about. I am sure that w2k can handle that with no problem

 

[PrincessGuard]

The BX chipset has the southbridge (USB, IDE, etc.) on the PCI bus. IRQ sharing is not a limitiation; it is by design.

Anyway, I doubt your CD-RW problem is related to your USB port or NIC.

 

[bozo1]

FAQ

 

[Nothinman]

PCI devices have always shared IRQs, infact the numbers are only presented for legacy support and there's only 4 real IRQ lines (A,B,C and D). If you're having problems with a certain device it might not be fully PCI compliant (like most Creative cards that I've seen) and you may need to move it around physically, but otherwise PCI IRQ sharing isn't something that can be avoided and shouldn't cause any problems.