TR Forums

I was looking at a TV tuner card earlier today, nearly bought it then suddenly remembered I had no backplates free Well, apart from the ISA one at the very bottom

So I was looking at my case earlier, and coincidentally, I took the fan off my HSF and cleaned that out as well, you wouldn't believe the gunk that got in there! I also noticed that I had a backplate I never used. I followed the cables back to the motherboard and it turns out they're COMs 1 & 2.

Now, I know I never used them, but as I looked to see if there was difference in CPU temps after getting rid of the gunk, I noticed a couple of IRQ settings for the COM ports. This had me a bit worried.

If I took out the COM port back plate, and therefore disconnected it from the motherboard as well, would I have to disable the COM IRQs or something? I've never understoof IRQs really, and they've been a bit of a taboo when playing with my BIOS... not that I understand much of it anyways

My current thinking is that I wouldn't have to disable the IRQs, I just won't be able to use them for anything else.

How close am I? lol,
IntelMole

Assuming those cables off the backplate lead to the motherboard, then yes you would have to go into the BIOS setup and disable those COM ports if you did want the IRQs. If you didn't care then sure, leave them on. I have an older Linux box that I use as a MySQL serer that only has the KB, Mouse, Video and Network connected, and my COM ports are sitting there, happy as can be.

Hope this helps.

Assuming you're on a Win box, the OS will just re-juggle the IRQ's when there is no connection available - I suppose it does depend on how your BIOS senses the mobo resources - Win fooling with IRQ numbers has always baffled me, too ( the first time I tried a 1394 card, Win shoved almost everything in the computer onto IRQ 11, including the new TI 1394 port, and I had to perform the watusi in a grass skirt while burning a sage "smudge stick" and chanting Islamic slogans to fix the matter ---- or it was something like that, any Windows folks will understand); roughly, there's two scenarios:

1) BIOS detects that serial ports disconnected, Windows shuffles IRQ's, you never notice except adding a future peripheral might work better because of the new free IRQ's

2) BIOS does not detect such, Windows remains dumb to the loss, and you never notice because that's how it has been all along.

Either way, you never notice

(not the most illuminating post I've ever made, sorry - I would have deleted it except for the watusi description, LOL)

Okay, so I won't notice then

I don't really want the IRQs... just the PCI slot the backplate covers... by the way, the TV tuner card is a called Winhauppage (or something like that) PCTV Tuner Card, goes for £30, sound any good to you lot?

nrobinson, am glad you didn't delete the post Was very entertaining

Thanks by the way,
IntelMole

I have one in my room, just haven't freed up a computer to plug it into. My main box has my ATI 7500 AIW and 2 TVs just isn't necessary especially since it's on a switch box. But they do work OK, and I like their programmability.