All right, so how do you move IRQ's around?

[Alfie]

I think Jorden is also dealing with irq's and his conclusions would be a logical starting point.
If the promise card becomes the sole controller,would irq 15 become available?
If it does,wouldn't that give us more to play with?
It's quite true many conflicts and problems start at the hd level and it follows logic to get that sorted away as neatly as possible ,before continuing.
Here we could try to change everything,only to discover,that we didn't cover our bases.
Get your ide devices on the promise card,and then we can eliminate this as a possible problem.
Sound card should be on 5 and modem on 3,leaving g400 and irq holder on 11 by themselves.Now if we could only get into gateway's bios!What about trying to reconfigure in window's?
All we are saying...

[RAB]

Your turn McRhea. Time for a progress report. We've given you enough ideas to last you through the weekend.

RAB

(I like the idea of trying to force the Promise onto IRQ14, but I still think card swapping is the ultimate answer. But I've been wrong many times. Right, guys? )

[Bixler]

Guys!!!

Trust one who owns one. Our hapless G400 owner also has another addon. Believe it or not, not all problems that occur when you put in a new video card are the fault of the video card!!! In the age of open architecture, other devices can be at fault.

Jorden has alluded above that it may not (this time) be an IRQ issue.--it aint always so!

Our hapless upgrader has a Promise Ultra 66 IDE controller, and they have a bug...this bug corrupts the entire system--especially with a high end card that pushes busmastering, and until he deals with it, IRQ's are a side issue. Trust one who went through all of the "common wisdom" until he found out that THEY (Promise) were the problem. Promise suggests disabling their S.M.A.R.T vxD. I have solved my problem, (by doing so!) and it wasn't Matrox--unless you want to blame a card that pushes the limits of performance ;-).

I now dutifully quote from the Promise FAQ's...

"A temporarily solution, however, is to rename the Ultra66 S.M.A.R.T. driver. S.M.A.R.T. is used for problem notification of HDDs which, although unlikely, could occur at some point in the HDD's life span; it is not performance related. The Ultra66
S.M.A.R.T. driver should be located in the C:\Windows\System\Iosubsys" directory. Rename the "PU66VSD.VXD" file to "PU66VSD.PTI" and reboot the system."

-------
A Happy G200 (Marvel!) Owner with Promise card and (gasp) a working Zoran daughter card!!!!

[This message has been edited by Bixler (edited 17 November 1999).]

[This message has been edited by Bixler (edited 17 November 1999).]

[Alfie]

Bixler has a point and I would say the first person to listen to is the person who has been there and done that.
As I said in my previous post get the promise card and ide devices squared away and then if there is still a problem we'll go after the irq's and if all this fails ship the computer back to Gateway and tell them goan ,spelled G.O.A.N.

[McRhea]

JEEZ!!! LOTS info! I really appreciate all your help guys, but PLEASE!! Keep it simple for my sake!

All right.... I’m going to start answering stuff from the top:

I'm going to start with Jordan: You said,
"Why aren't you using the primary IDE controller (IRQ 14) ?? Yet you do use the secondary IDE Controller (IRQ 15), right?
What's on that one then? Why not use the Promise Ultra66 for both the IDE ports?"

Umm... I’m not sure? I don't even know what you're talking about... isn't my primary controller the Ultra 66? I'm still learning about comps, so I don't really have a good idea as to what you're talking about...

And this goes to Jordan as well: Quote,
"McRhea, have you tried running all your drives from off the Promise only?"

No, how do you do that? By disabling in the Device manager?

Reply to Bixler:
"How many IDE devices do you have, and how are they cabled?"

I have 2 IDE devices, and I’m not sure how they are cabled, how would I check?

To ALBPM:
"Hey McRhea, list what slots your cards are in. Looks like we'll have to move cards around to free up IRQ 11."

My comp is a mid-tower; it has 5 PCI, 1 AGP. The PCI start at the bottom and goes up, and then comes the AGP... so counting from the BOTTOM... PCI's 1 and 2 are free, 3, 4, are taken, by the sound card and modem respectively, 5 is open, and the AGP is the G400.

To Bixler:
"He needs to get that Primary Onboard IDE occupied or fully disabled."

How? How do I do either? By the way, what does an IDE do anyway? Do I really need it?

(Skipping a couple posts here....)

To Alfie:
"Get your IDE devices on the promise card,and then we can eliminate this as a possible problem.
Sound card should be on 5 and modem on 3,leaving g400 and irq holder on 11 by themselves.Now if we could only get into gateway's bios! What about trying to reconfigure in window's?"

I wish I could do all that, but Gateway's BIOS won't let me, and neither would Device manager... How would I get the IDE devices on the Promise card?

(Skipping RAB's post... no offense! )

Bixler:
A couple of days ago you told me to upgrade the drivers, which I did... and that seemed to help, but then it delayed the "hanging" and when it did hang, it hanged for about
2-3 seconds instead of the 1-2 secs.

I just read your message and quote from Promise, and renamed that file to what it should be. I've just rebooted and am now replying... so I don't know if it has helped... but thanks for ALL that info!

And last but not least, Alfie:
"As I said in my previous post get the promise card and IDE devices squared away and then if there is still a problem we'll go after the irq's and if all this fails ship the computer back to Gateway and tell them goan ,spelled G.O.A.N."

How do I get the Promise card and the IDE devices squared away? And what is G.O.A.N.?

I'll get back to you guys after I see if renaming that file for the Promise does anything! THANKS TO ALL OF YOU!

And please don't get upset that I didn't include some of you in my adress(?), it's just that I was answering questions that were directed at me directly...

Thanks again guys, I'll be back.

[Bixler]

Hey, McRhea,

Don't rush off yet!!!

All of the other advice that you were recieving was for the most part very valid, and should be attended to if you want to push the performance of your machine. It was pushing performance (by upgrading) that created your first problem, and what ALPBM, Jorden, and all of the others were talking about are very well known and far more common causes of problems--particularly if you are into gaming (which I am not!)

"Free beer on IRQ 11" will cause you problems, and the advice about IDE cabling should be attended to as well for optimum performance.

And do yourself a favor, Stay on this thread to keep the confusion down, since the rest of the issues are probably "On Topic."

You might want to call Gateway (perhaps even fax them this thread) and one of their techs can get you started on how to fiddle with your BIOS--most of us have custom machines that probably don't act the same.

I will now exit (but keep checking back) on the hope that someone else out there has a standard "cut and paste" on IDE configuration and IRQ issues.

[McRhea]

Sounds good to me! What should i do about the IDE controllers, and the mess on IRQ 11? Anyone want to tackle either one?

I'm so happy the system doesn't hang anymore!

[ALBPM]

Way to go Bixler!!!

Now since you can't assign IRQ's in your Bios, it looks like you may have to move a card or two.
You may want to move your modem or sound card down to the very bottom PCI slot. Reboot and check your IRQ assignments. We'll see what happens and then maybe move the other card down as well.
I take it that your Promise ATA/66 controllers are integrated with the mobo since you haven't mentioned any cards other than the modem and sound card.

Paul

[Bixler]

ALBPM

Yeah! It feels good to help, and I want to keep my brownie points up. Really it's just payback for the good help Y'all experts gave me a couple of weeks ago.

RE: your question about his Promise being Onboard, I don't think so (based on his IRQ listings), but McRhea, you should answer the question before we go much further. If it is onboard, then I'm really confused about the presence of empty IRQ 14--Isn't that usually the first IDE channel?

McRhea: Follow ALBPM's advice carefully, and you should be able to resolve the IRQ issues, and I'll send you a step by step post on the IDE thing if you can't figure it out on your own. (always the best way, don't you think?)

[Jorden]

Hi McRhea, here's a picture of an Ultra66 card:

Do you see those two things on top of the card?? That's your IDE-slots on the Promise Ultra66.

If you don't have such a card, but as Pauly says, the Ultra66 integrated into your motherboard, it'll probably look like this:
I used my Asus P2B as example...

See those black slots in the lower right corner?? That's from left to right, the floppy connector, Primary IDE connector and Secondary IDE connector.

If you have the add-on Ultra66 card (as in the first picture), and it seems that way to me, then the middle connector is free on your motherboard. The right one should have a cable on it, or is free as well??

What I do wonder, and maybe Bixler can answer that, is: does the Promise card automatically disable the IDE 1 controller or not?

Jorden.

[This message has been edited by Jorden (edited 17 November 1999).]

[Bixler]

Jorden,

Wow! Neat Pictures!

Your post just blew away a step by step IDE recableing post I was composing, but pictures are, as they say, worth a thousand words. I'll hold my post on that until McRhea asks.

The answer is No, the add-on version doesn't disable or re-config anything, and it tries to install itself on IRQ 9 or 10. I do recall that they recommend disabling any unused IDE channels that are onboard. Even GATEWAY (surely) will allow for that in the BIOS?

If not, then McRhea should probably occupy the primary onboard IDE with his CD or whatever his second IDE Device is.

I can tell you that the Promise card has no problem with it's second channel being empty, and there is a CHANCE that plugging his second IDE Device (if it's a CD) will cause some performance problems with the HDD that is there. Any opinions on this?

[ALBPM]

I have used both the Integrated ATA/66 (ABIT BE6) and the ABIT Hot Rod Controller card on the BX6 rev2. On both systems I left the CD Rom on the Secondary IDE and disabled the Primary IDE to prevent conflicts and to free the IRQ.
There are no problems with not having anything connected to the Secondary ATA/66 channel.

Paul

[Bixler]

ALBPM: I've had about the same experience with my Ultra66.

Alfie: I didn't thank you for the support earler in this thread and I should have. Now let's help this guy get his machine screamin!


Apologies in advance to experts on this thread for the extreme simplicity and detail that follows. And I'm not a tecchie in any real sense, so anyone who wants to correct any information below will be appreciated. No offense McRhea, but some of your questions about IDE indicate that you are new to this, so here are some basics--and refer to Jorden's nice pictures above if you need to.

To give you a little basic background, IDE is one of the protocols (SCSI is another) that Comps use to read/write Hard disks and other storage devices. It's a pretty basic function that, when not optimized, can affect the performance of a lot of other systems on your machine. Each IDE connector on most Mainboards can handle two IDE devices "y"ed together on the same IDE cable as ‘master' and ‘slave' devices, but you don't want or need to do that, since you have plenty of potential IDE channels on your rig. I'll make an assumption (dangerous, I know) that you installed an add-on Promise Card, (it isn't built on to your board) and that you disconnected the Primary IDE cable plugged into your Motherboard, and plugged that drive's cable into your Promise card. This would leave your Primary IDE Channel open on the main board. That MIGHT NOT be a problem, but it isn't optimal either. You said that you have two IDE devices. I'm assuming that the second IDE is a CD Rom or DVD player.

You can do one of two things IDE-wise and then move on to IRQ assignments:

1. Unplug the IDE cable running to your CD/DVD (that's the ribbon cable running out of the back of your IDE device) from where it is now (IDE 2), and re-plug it into the connector where your Hard Drive was originally on the mainboard before the Promise card showed up(IDE 1). These two plug connectors should be side by side on the mainboard.(See Jorden's pictures, but they vary from board to board as to location) Check on the mainboard, the empty connector you're plugging into should be labled or marked IDE 1., and the one you are unplugging from should be IDE 2.

OR

2. As Jorden, Alfie, and ALPBM suggested, plug both of your IDE devices into the Promise Card, with your HDD on the primary IDE on the card, and your CD/DVD as the secondary, thus leaving both connectors on your mainboard empty.

At this point, make sure that the CD/DVD is jumpered as Master/No slave present. Your manual that came with your Gateway or the manual for the CD/DVD should have a diagram to show you how set that jumper, or it will be stamped on the metal body of the CD. My guess is it's already configed that way..

After doing all of this, you'll need to reboot. As you are booting, the first text screens that appear prior to the Windoze splash will usually display what the BIOS is picking up and on what IRQ. Keep your finger near the pause/break key and stop and check this info as it scrolls by. (Hit enter to continue after pressing pause/break)

It's also a good housekeeping practice to disable any completely open IDE channels. You should have an option to do this in your BIOS (even on a Gateway.) Set your Secondary IDE to ‘disable' if there's nothing plugged in. If you put both IDE devices on your Promise card, then also set your Primary IDE to ‘disable.' You don't have to worry about open or unused channels on the Promise card, just make sure your HDD is plugged into the Primary channel (IDE 1) on the Promise.

At the end of this process, (by whatever means) you should have two IDE devices plugged into their own connectors with no ‘slave' devices daisychained, and any empty IDE channels on the mainboard disabled in the BIOS. From there, you can proceed on to the IRQ issues. You really need to end that party going on on IRQ 11. Swapping the Modem and Soundcard from slot to slot as suggested above should do the trick. If not, there are some other ways to force IRQs and you'll get lots of help if that is necessary on this Forum. There are many far more qualified than I to recommend which IRQ's will be optimal for which device.

A suggestion: Do some swapping before you post again, and take notes about what IRQ is assigned for which card in which slot. That will probably help Alfie, ALBPM or Jorden speed up a final solution. For the sake of clarity, refer to your PCI slots numbered from top to bottom, starting with number 1 being the closest to the AGP Slot where your G400 is.

Good luck, and be careful about O/C ing without some fans--you'll find a great thread on that subject nearby.!
http://forums.murc.ws/ubb/Forum5/HTML/006070.html

[Jorden]

What can I say, Bixler? Good non-too-technical explanation of what's going on inside the PC.

McRhea might have a problem that Gateway doesn't allow him to rummage inside his PC on his own though. He could lose his guarantee (bull ofcourse, but okay).

I would only add: Do turn off your PC, but leave the PC connected to the mains, before you start swapping cards. Also, touch the metal casing of your PC with one hand to discharge your body of static electricity.

Damn shame Gateway doesn't say what kind of mobo's they use. Could help alot.

Jorden.

[Bixler]

Thanks Jorden, Just trying to pay back the forum for the help I recieved.

I'm really on a mission here to remind newbies and others that High performance hardware forces us to look at all possibilities before dissing the newly installed device---I found out the hard way, and this company, and this forum are a real resource that should be protected, promoted, and encouraged. You guys are Great!!

McRhea: Jorden is Dutch--When he refers to "The Mains" he means the power cord--leave it plugged in so your machine is well grounded...and he's giving crucial important advice (DO IT!) about grounding yourself to the machine when you handle the boards as you are swapping about.