Windows 98SE overflows IRQ 11

[seskanda]

I'm having trouble using Windows 98SE on a Dell Inspiron 600m laptop, it took me much time to find drivers that work w/ 98 SE. Apparently, when i installed 98 SE typing 'setup' at DOS prompt, Setup opted to NOT install ACPI. Strangely, i can't find 'Advanced Power Management' listed under "System Devices." Anyhow, the majority of the devices (wireless, video card, NIC, sound, PCMCIA, modem, & USB 1.0 controller) are ALL assigned to IRQ 11, in fact the only devices NOT on IRQ 11, are the Primary IDE controller+ ULtra ATA controller which is on IRQ 14, and the Secondary IDE controller+Ultra ATA controller which is on IRQ 15. Moreover, the worse thing of all, is that Device Manager will NOT let me change the IRQ of ANY device. Why not? Now, according to System Information, IRQ 3, 5, 6, 9, & 10 are FREE, so why does 98 SE insist on putting all the major devices on IRQ 11? That's what i've been trying to figure out for a while now.....

Here is what i've tried to do: I installed the Unofficial Service Pack 2.1a, but this didn't do anything. Then, I enabled ACPI via the registry, but i had to detect new hardware for ACPI to install. Afterwards, it made NO difference. Actually, since w/ACPI IRQ 9 was used, it ended up making things worse. Next, i went ahead and disabled IRQ Steering,again,this did NOTHING. I checked 'Use BIOS' under 'Device Enumeration' under 'Settings' tab for PCI bus in System Devices, sadly, this made NO difference either. The Inspiron 600m's BIOS has very few options for me to set, so i don't what i could do there to fix this problem. Until i know what exactly is causing this issue; i'm stumped and at a lost as to what i can try next. If anyone can help, or at least allow me change the IRQ of my sound card to IRQ 5, where it belongs, i'd be very grateful.

Thanks in advance.

[glocK_94]

You could try to disable ACPI completely (sometimes it creates more problems than it solves) and then move your card to a different PCI slot. Sometimes this changes the IRQ assignement.

[kartel]

Look at this mess......

IRQ 0 System timer OK

IRQ 1 Standard 101/102-Key or Microsoft Natural PS/2 Keyboard OK

IRQ 4 NVIDIA nForce PCI System Management OK

IRQ 8 System CMOS/real time clock OK

IRQ 13 Numeric data processor OK

IRQ 14 ATA Channel 0 OK

IRQ 15 ATA Channel 1 OK

IRQ 17 D-Link DFE-530TX PCI Fast Ethernet Adapter (rev.C) OK

IRQ 18 Creative EMU10K1 Audio Processor (WDM) OK

IRQ 18 Silicon Image SiI 3112 SATARaid Controller OK

IRQ 19 Radeon X1650 Series OK

IRQ 20 Standard OpenHCD USB Host Controller OK

IRQ 21 Standard Enhanced PCI to USB Host Controller OK

IRQ 22 Standard OpenHCD USB Host Controller OK

IRQ 80 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK

IRQ 81 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK

IRQ 82 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK

IRQ 83 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK

IRQ 84 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK

IRQ 85 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK

IRQ 86 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK

IRQ 87 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK

IRQ 88 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK

IRQ 89 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK

IRQ 90 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK

IRQ 91 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK

IRQ 92 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK

IRQ 93 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK

IRQ 94 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK

IRQ 95 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK

IRQ 96 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK

IRQ 97 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK

IRQ 98 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK

IRQ 99 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK

IRQ 100 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK

IRQ 101 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK

IRQ 102 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK

IRQ 103 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK

IRQ 104 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK

IRQ 105 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK

IRQ 106 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK

IRQ 107 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK

IRQ 108 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK

IRQ 109 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK

IRQ 110 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK

IRQ 111 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK

IRQ 112 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK

IRQ 113 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK

IRQ 114 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK

IRQ 115 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK

IRQ 116 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK

IRQ 117 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK

IRQ 118 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK

IRQ 119 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK

IRQ 120 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK

IRQ 121 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK

IRQ 122 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK

IRQ 123 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK

IRQ 124 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK

IRQ 125 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK

IRQ 126 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK

IRQ 127 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK

IRQ 128 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK

IRQ 129 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK

IRQ 130 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK

IRQ 131 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK

IRQ 132 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK

IRQ 133 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK

IRQ 134 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK

IRQ 135 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK

IRQ 136 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK

IRQ 137 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK

IRQ 138 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK

IRQ 139 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK

IRQ 140 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK

IRQ 141 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK

IRQ 142 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK

IRQ 143 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK

IRQ 144 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK

IRQ 145 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK

IRQ 146 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK

IRQ 147 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK

IRQ 148 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK

IRQ 149 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK

IRQ 150 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK

IRQ 151 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK

IRQ 152 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK

IRQ 153 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK

IRQ 154 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK

IRQ 155 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK

IRQ 156 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK

IRQ 157 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK

IRQ 158 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK

IRQ 159 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK

IRQ 160 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK

IRQ 161 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK

IRQ 162 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK

IRQ 163 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK

IRQ 164 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK

IRQ 165 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK

IRQ 166 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK

IRQ 167 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK

IRQ 168 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK

IRQ 169 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK

IRQ 170 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK

IRQ 171 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK

IRQ 172 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK

IRQ 173 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK

IRQ 174 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK

IRQ 175 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK

IRQ 176 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK

IRQ 177 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK

IRQ 178 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK

IRQ 179 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK

IRQ 180 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK

IRQ 181 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK

IRQ 182 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK

IRQ 183 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK

IRQ 184 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK

IRQ 185 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK

IRQ 186 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK

IRQ 187 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK

IRQ 188 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK

IRQ 189 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK

IRQ 190 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK

[seskanda]

You could try to disable ACPI completely (sometimes it creates more problems than it solves) and then move your card to a different PCI slot. Sometimes this changes the IRQ assignement.

ACPI was disabled by default, and enabling it did NOTHING. I already mentioned this, i believe. As far as switching PCI slots, I have a LAPTOP here. PCI slots, AFAIK, do NOT exist in the traditional Desktop manner. So, moving cards is definitely NOT practical, if it's even possible at all.

[glocK_94]

Oups. My fault. I didn't see "laptop".

For the rest I was thinking about your BIOS. Does it lets you take care of IRQ assignement / ACPI enabling/disabling?

If it does, you could try to assign IRQ manually in BIOS and reinstall 98 from scratch.

[seskanda]

You see i think the problem IS the BIOS. It has NO settings to turn off/on ACPI or APM (if the Inspiron 600m even supports APM mode...) Of course, it does NOT provide the luxury of manually assigning IRQ's to ANY devices. In fact, NOT many BIOS setups allow this, at least the newer ones, possibly because XP is suppose to handle IRQ assignment. Come to think of it, overall, XP does do a better job then 98SE here, at least as far as modern hardware is concerned. Nonetheless, here's one thing i've tried, i installed ALL my devices: video card, wireless, PCMCIA, NIC, USB 1.0 controller, USB 2.0 controller(which are ALL still on IRQ 11, BTW) leaving the sound card as the last device to install. I figured with 7+ devices already using IRQ 11 there's no way in hell 98SE will put the sound card on IRQ 11 this time. Guess what? I was completely wrong! This is starting to get on my nerves... What really ticks me off is not so much the fact that i don't know WHY 98SE is fixated with IRQ 11, but that installing 98SE in APM mode doesn't make ANY difference whatsover!! I hear Windows 2000 has this problem too, but i doubt it's any where near as extreme as with 98SE.

Edited March 2, 2007 by seskanda

[glocK_94]

No ACPI options in CMOS? That sucks!

Hmm... If you can't turn it off from the BIOS, maybe from Windows? A post from Tihiy that I can't find anymore explained how to disable ACPI in Win.

Here's the reg entries

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Current Version\Detect]
"ACPIOption"(dword)=2

If that doesn't help then I don't see what you can do. Does reinstalling Win98 ends up the same way everytime ?

[RainyShadow]

Try to downgrade your BIOS to an older version. On Dell laptops usually newer BIOSes create more problems than they solve.

[qazwsxedc]

Some bioses (especially laptops) have so many limitations.

e.g. i have a computer which its ACPI function can only be displayed...

[seskanda]

The BIOS is version A3, and dated March, 7, 2003. Now, i'm pretty sure the Inspiron 600m laptop was made in 2003. I checked Dell's FTP website, but i could NOT find anything older than A6. So, getting A0-A2 (if they even exist) is gonna be real tough.