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So anyway, I'm an idiot. I can't change resource settings because the"use automatic configuration" check box is grayed out and it won't let me uncheck it. If someone could tell me what to do to get it unchecked I would greatly appreciate it. Once again, I'm an idiot, just for the record.

Seriously guys, is this too stupid of a question? Do I need to be more specific? Or is everyone else here an idiot like me? Seriously though I really need to change some IRQ's and would really appreciate any help. thanks

What device are you trying to change the IRQ on? Windows 2K only leaves that option available on plug and play devices. If you check some of your other devices like for your serial port you should be able to change the settings. Also you can change some settings for IRQs in the system bios and certain (mainly older) devices allow you to switch their IRQ with a jumper or through special vendor supplied software.<br><br>

Why do you need to change IRQs with Win2K?

Win2K has ACPI, which puts most of the devices onto IRQ 9 (or 11), but this does not mean that you will experiance IRQ conflicts. It is much more important to manage PCI card placement on the motherboard itself rather then worry about what IRQ Windows is reporting to you. You have to be worried about the specific address line that the cards are placed on. You don't want cards or devices to share address lines if you can get away with it, however, most modern devices won't even have problems if the address lines are shared.

IRQs in Win2K and WinXP are pretty much useless as troubleshooting guidelines if ACPI is installed. IRQs and address lines do not mean the same thing.

What motherboard do you have? Are you experiencing any specific problems?

osiris wrote:

I can't change resource settings because the"use automatic configuration" check box is grayed out and it won't let me uncheck it. If someone could tell me what to do to get it unchecked I would greatly appreciate it.

It's in your BIOS.

I always manually select interrupts for my devices. I've never had a hard-lockup on my last two home-built machines (from the past year--both EPoX based Athlon machines running Win2K, one A1.2G and one A1.53G [1800+]). My previous machines ran Windows 95 and Windows 98, so it goes without saying that they had problems at least on a weekly basis, sometimes more.

To get back to your question, there are numerous BIOS tweaking guides that detail how and where to turn off automatic interrupt assignments for PCI slots and what typical settings you should use for various components.

There are numerous BIOS guides at http://www.amdmb.com (I like the one by the forum user "Mushkin Rules" in the EPoX forum) and a good one at http://www.lostcircuits.com.

It's all pretty easy. You can probably figure it out yourself if you like to fiddle. Of course, your motherboard has to support it.

First of all, thank you very much for the information, I really appreciate the response. My problem is that every time I play any multiplayer game my whole system goes to crap. It will run for weeks without a problem at all as long as I dont do multiplayer gaming. So naturally I thought it was my NIC. Switched it out and still had the same problem. I even switched video cards and pulled my Hollywood Magic card out. Still have the same problem. I got to looking around on my system and noticed all PCI cards, my video card, USB controllers, and the Highpoint 372 RAID controller were all on IRQ 7. A total of eight things on the same IRQ. I have three IRQ's that aren't even in use. I didn't have this problem in win98. I have an ABIT KR7A RAID and I have placed my pci cards in proper slots as far as what the manual states for my motherboard. I dont know what to do,thought moving some things to their own IRQ would help. If anybody has any ideas I'm all ears. Thanks for your time and input.

Here's a great resource for your motherboard:

http://www.viahardware.com/faq/kg7kr7/kg7kr7faq.htm

Definately give that a read. Really good information there.

As far as your having a ton of devices on IRQ 7 in Win2K, that is ACPI at work as I mentioned earlier. How are your devices laid out on your PCI bus? Here's mine as an example:

AGP Slot: Geforce2 GTS
PCI Slot 1: Empty
PCI Slot 2: Empty
PCI Slot 3: SB Live
PCI Slot 4: DVD Decoder Card
PCI Slot 5: Network Card
PCI Slot 6: Empty

What extra devices do you have enabled like USB, Highpoint RAID Controller, etc.?

You might want to check out the bottom of this page:

http://www.viahardware.com/faq/kg7kr7/installation.htm

Which has suggestions on how to lay out your PCI devices, it also explains how to avoid address line sharing. Pay close attention to this diagram:

1. "INT Pin 1": AGP card and PCI Slot 1
2. "INT Pin 2": PCI Slot 2 and PCI Slot 3 and ACPI (if enabled)
3. "INT Pin 3": PCI Slot 5 (and HPT370 controller in KT7-RAID)
4. "INT Pin 4": PCI Slot 4 and PCI Slot 6 and USB

That tells you what is on each of the address lines. Be aware that GeForce cards don't like to share the address line and Soundblasters and NICs don't get along very well on the same address line. So don't stick your soundblaster (if you have one) in slot 2 then put a NIC in slot 3.

Of course, your problem might not be related to your PCI devices at all. Do you have the latest drivers installed? What about the latest VIA 4-in-1 driver? Do other games work or other intesive programs? Or is it just multiplayer games? Do you have the latest DirectX version installed?

Instability problems like this are a real pain to track down. But just keep at it. We'll find it eventually.

Thanks for the links and the info. i'll give everything a good read and see if I can get anywhere. thanks again