Author: David Dory
Date: 00:30:34 03/18/03
Go up one level in this thread
On March 17, 2003 at 21:50:41, Bob Durrett wrote: > >I am thinking about purchasing a new computer and have a bunch of peripherals I >would like to use with the new computer in addition to my chess software. > >My current computer has two USB2 ports and I have several peripheral devices. >In other words, the computer I have is not good enough. Currently, my color >printer and my Chessbase software interfere with each other. Chessbase ran fine >until I installed the color printer driver and started using the printer. > >My impression is that CB8 uses an IRQ. Does anybody know if that's right? My >current computer, using Windows XP Home, shows only twelve IRQs in the device >manager. Is that standard for Windows XP Home, or is that hardware driven? > >If a computer has eight USB2 ports, it seems to me that that computer ought to >have more IRQs to handle all the extra peripherals. > >I sure would appreciate any help with this. Do I misunderstand this stuff? I >am not a computer Guru. > >Bob D. The number of interrupts is hardware - restricted, but not to worry, Windows knows how to have more than one device share the same interrupt. For instance, on this laptop, int #9 is used by the PCI bus host controller, the WinModem, and the USB and 1394 (Firewire) controller hosts. No problem. Windows knows when I need to print, it goes to the USB that happens to be hooked up to the printer at that time. It doesn't send the data to the modem, the PCI bus host controller, or to even the wrong USB port. Your problem might be resolved by Windows and here's how. Install and connect to your USB port, all your hardware. Printer, everything, and turn your printer ON. Load up all your device drivers. You may want to see if your printer has any newer, better drivers for XP at their website. Sometimes this makes all the difference. You can see the resources used by clicking on Start, Settings, Control Panel, System, Hardware, Device Manager, and View. This is on Win2K, but XP is very similar. You can look at the installed hardware, interrupts used by each, DMA resources, etc. What you don't want to see is a yellow exclamation point or question mark next to anything. That's trouble. If you have trouble, read up in your help section on resolving conflicts, and give Windows a try to fix it. Windows will analyze the problem within your system's current paramaters, and try to make it work. If it can find a fix (some rebooting will be required to see if it works), fine. In a recent computer I built up, (a mid tower, not this laptop), that wouldn't work. There was no fix that could be found within the system's CURRENT parameters. Next step, is to reinstall your XP operating system. This may allow XP to re-initiate your system's parameters. In my case, Win2k wanted to use the same settings as the last install, so it didn't work. I had to re-install Win2K from a bare disk before it could find the correct system parameters. It finally did and all's well. This was last year, no problem since. There are other issues which involve the BIOS settings. But if you do the above, and it doesn't work, you should take it to a shop and have the work done for you. Good luck and I hope this is helpful. Dave
This page took 0 seconds to execute
Last modified: Thu, 15 Apr 21 08:11:13 -0700
Current Computer Chess Club Forums at Talkchess. This site by Sean Mintz.