How to change IRQ for PCI card in Dock II PCI slot?

[tbessie]

Taking a different slant from my other posting -- does anyone know how I can set a specific IRQ for a card in the Dock II's PCI slot?

All PCI devices are currently using the same IRQ, and, from what I've read, I need to disable ACPI (I think it was) and assign IRQ's manually. This will also require reinstalling a bunch of drivers (since this is a "new hardware profile" in Windows XP), and a lot of pain in other ways, since power management will no longer be enabled.

So... any clues?

- Tim

[a31pguy]

Without rebooting right now - there are at least three options. There is the BIOS settings, the device manager applet, and the IBM thinkpad Hardware Control Applet.

You might want to go into safe mode - delete your usb and firewire devices then reboot, boot normally, and auto-rediscover the devices. Sometimes you may have "ghost" device drivers that exist in one profile and have device drivers loaded.

The PCI chain in the dock is linked through a PCI to PCI bridge. You might also want to make sure you have the correct chipset drivers loaded for you thinkpad.

[tbessie]

I haven't tried the rediscovering process -- when you're talking about removing the devices, you mean through the Device Manager, correct? "Uninstall"-ing them?

The BIOS is not helpful at all -- I have tried changing the IRQs there, but none seem to correspond to particular devices on the bus, just the PCI bus as a whole; I could not assign an IRQ from there to the device in the PCI slot in the dock.

The device manager applet has the IRQ values greyed out, so they are not changable through there. And the Thinkpad Configuration app also has IRQ values greyed out, as well as the checkbox that's supposed to allow me to modfy them.

In any case, with ACPI, aren't all PCI devices ALWAYS using the same IRQ, and there's no way to make an exception to it? ACPI doesn't seem to notice the conflict between the two devices on the same board, even though it's obvious, through Windows' behavior when both Firewire and USB ports are being used, that there's a conflict.

Have you had this problem before? The situation of a two-device board in a single-slot computer (where you can't change to a different slot) using ACPI with all the IRQs shared... is probably unusual enough that people have rarely seen it happen.

- Tim

[a31pguy]

BTW - you are talking about the PCI slot? Not the PCMCIA slots?

I've had problems with "ghost" USB devices and drivers. I solved it with Microsoft - by the steps I posted above. Safe Mode, Uninstall, Reboot, Redetect. Not with Firewire devices.

In regards to the PCI slot - it depends on the card being used. I've had issues with PCI video cards which trying (Bus Master type) which try to be primary video cards. That was solved with finding a non-bus master type of card.

As far as being grayed out - that's an indicator of a device not started or working correctly. Have you checked the Event log?

[tbessie]

BTW - you are talking about the PCI slot? Not the PCMCIA slots?

Yes, the PCI slot in the dock, not the Cardbus slots.

I've had problems with "ghost" USB devices and drivers. I solved it with Microsoft - by the steps I posted above. Safe Mode, Uninstall, Reboot, Redetect. Not with Firewire devices.

Remember, this is a dual-device card -- it has several USB *AND* firewire ports -- I don't think it's the USB or the firewire that's the problem, but attempting to use them both at the same time (which the card was designed to do), and the inability to reassign the IRQ for one, that's causing the problem.

As far as being grayed out - that's an indicator of a device not started or working correctly. Have you checked the Event log?

In this case, it's not -- both devices on the card are shown as working correctly. The grey-out nature of the IRQs is because in ACPI, IRQs are assigned automatically, and conflicts between IRQs are also determined automatically in the assigning process, and manual assigning of IRQs is forbidden -- at least, according to the docs online I've read. So Windows/ACPI THINKS that there is no conflict, but there is, and, since ACPI does this assigning automatically, there's no way to change it (unless there's some secret registry hack I haven't heard about).

And of course I've checked the event log -- no errors are posted, even when both devices go wack-o when I attempt to use them at the same time.

Do you know about ACPI's IRQ-assigning process?

- Tim

[a31pguy]

Well I do now - quick study!

Windows 2000 IRQ sharing
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=252420

XP IRQ sharing
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314068/EN-US/

Seems like you only have the option to the use the PC Hardware abstraction layer if you want to manually assign the IRQ in the bios. Which means losing out on ACPI.

Forcing a HAL
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/299340/

After installation HAL changes
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/309283/

Can you try to disable some devices? Perhaps the irDA port and modem?

[tbessie]

Well I do now - quick study!

Good stuff! I read a bunch of those articles.

Can you try to disable some devices? Perhaps the irDA port and modem?

Already did -- I disabled the serial and parallel ports, and the legacy floppy controller, since I'll never use them. But Windows didn't use them for one or the other of the devices on the card, sadly.

- Tim

[a31pguy]

So if you need both Firewire and USB 2.0 - why not use the PCMCIA slots and PCMCIA cardbus adapters? You have four of them and it's more portable that way.

[tbessie]

So if you need both Firewire and USB 2.0 - why not use the PCMCIA slots and PCMCIA cardbus adapters? You have four of them and it's more portable that way.

It's a question of the layout of my office, and having cables hanging over the edge at angles where they could easily get yanked out. Plus, the cardbus cards I'm using only allow for one in each 2-card slot (big bumps on them). My thought now is just to put a USB2-only card in the dock, and use my firewire Cardbus card. There's already a SATA-2 Cardbus card in the docks Cardbus slots.

- Tim