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Fozz 21 March 2002

This is an open book test for those who have the Asus P4B266 mother board User Guide and maybe and RME User Manual.

References are:

  • Asus User Guide: http://download.asus.comtw/mb_dl_menu.asp?l1=1&l2=15&l3=1&mid=6
  • RME User Guide: The URL for the RME manual is: LINKI'm wondering if there is a scientific way to determine which PCI slots one should use for the audio cards, as oppossed to using the plug-and-pray technique.

    I went to the Asus site a while back and downloaded their User Guide for the P4B266. Page ii at the top says:
    - E884
    - First Edition November 2001

    Page 2-14 shows two tables:

  • Standard Interrupt Assignments: which indicates what IRQ is assigned to various pieces of hardware and other mysterios things.
  • IRQ assignments for this motherboard:
    The rows of that second table represent the PCI slots and, I guess, other things that use IRQs.

    The columns are labeled A through F.

  • Column F, for example has "shared" on these rows:
    - PCI slot 1
    - PCI slot 4
    - Onboard USB 2.0 controller
    - Onboard Audio
  • Column C has "used" on these rows:
    - PCI slot 6
    - Onboard USB controller HC0
    Questions:
  • Is column F interpreted as saying "IRQ xyz is shared among those two PCI slots and the Onboard USB and Audio"?
  • What does the "used" mean?
  • Page 2-14 of the P4B266 User Guide talks about drivers supporting IRQ sharing.
    I searched for "IRQ" in the RME DIGI96/8 User's Guide (Board Rev. 1.6, Hardware version 004). On page 19 it says: "If the device 'DIGI96/8 PAD' is marked with a yellow exclamation mark then either an address conflict or an IRQ conflict is present."

    Is this the indicatation that the RME board, as I should have expected, does not support IRQ sharing?

  • Is this a correct interpretation of the IRQ assignment table:

    - PCI slot 1: if you put your audio card here then
    - don't use slot 5 at all
    - don't use (disable?) the Onboard USB 2.0 controller (what ever that means)
    - don't use (disable?) the onboard audio.

    - PCI slot 2: maybe it can be used because it has "used" in column G and "used" and "shared" don't appear in column G for any other slots.

    - PCI slot 3: maybe it can be used because it has "shared" in column H and "used" and "shared" don't appear in column G for any other slots.

    - PCI slot 4: if you put your audio card here then
    - don't use the CNR LAN thing

    - PCI slot 5: if you put your audio card here then
    - don't use slot 1 at all
    - don't use (disable?) the Onboard USB 2.0 controller (what ever that means)
    - don't use (disable?) the onboard audio.

    - PCI slot 6: this has me confused because I don't know how to interpret the "used" for slot 6 and the Onboard USV controller HC0.

    • Topic Tags

    Comments

    Opus2000 Thu, 03/21/2002 - 16:08

    Plain and simple...
    In BIOS diable both Serial Ports...
    In Device manager disable any or all USB ports if not using them at all...
    PCI slot ONE and FIVE share IRQ's...so, if you plan on using two RME 9652 cards they MUST GO IN THOSE SLOTS!! Trust me..been there done that..
    I have my SCSI card in slot four and my audio card in slot three....works fine for me..
    It also depends on what other cards you have..
    read all you want but sometimes that dont do much for actual placement...
    Opus

    Fozz Fri, 03/22/2002 - 02:50

    Opus,

    Thanks for the repsonse. I'm flying blind here since I don't have a real system to play with yet.

    Disabling the Serial Ports via the "AwardBIOS Setup Utility", "I/O Device Configuration" screen (pg 4-21, Onboard Serial Port) apparently frees up IRQs 3 & 4.

    (Dead Link Removed)

    Question: Is it the Auto option on the "PCI Configuration" menu (pg 4-23) that then finds those available IRQs 3 and 4 for your audio and scsi card?

    Question: Regarding using 2 RME cards, I hadn't even thought of that. But going one step further, if one needed 3 audio cards, is one out of luck with this motherboard, or just out of luck in general with any Intel motherboard because of the limited number of available IRQs?

    Opus2000 Fri, 03/22/2002 - 05:44

    Originally posted by Fozz:
    Opus,

    Question: Is it the Auto option on the "PCI Configuration" menu (pg 4-23) that then finds those available IRQs 3 and 4 for your audio and scsi card?

    Answer: Always have Plug and Play OS OFF in the BIOS..let Windows take care of that for you..Once the serial ports are disabled if needed they will be used for IRQ assignments.

    Question: Regarding using 2 RME cards, I hadn't even thought of that. But going one step further, if one needed 3 audio cards, is one out of luck with this motherboard, or just out of luck in general with any Intel motherboard because of the limited number of available IRQs?

    Answer: I'm not sure about that one...three RME cards is a hell of a lot of audio in and out that's for sure..not sure if I've heard of anyone doing that or not..couldnt answer that one for you as I dont know how the machine or how other device drivers would handle that one..experimentation is the only way to find that answer out!

    Good questions to get you ready for your install..altho once you get your stuff and do the install you'll find it's a lot easier than you think
    Opus

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