kiosk
12-31-2003, 10:18 PM
First of all, sorry for being so long-winded... :)
-I'm running a PII system with a mainboard based on an Intel I440EX chipset. It has an Award modular bios v4.51PGM.
-There are four disk drives connected to two onboard IDE controllers.
-I just acquired an old IDE controller card (ISA bus, scavenged from a discarded 386 computer) and wish to use it as a auxilary disk controller. It has only one IDE channel for two disk drives. The card functions flawlessly, however...
-IDE controller on the expansion card can only use IRQ 14, and there aren't any possibilities to change this setting via jumpers.
-When I try to use all three controllers at the same time (two controllers from the mainboard, and this one), all four disk drives connected to the mainboard controller get properly recognized during POST operation, and then it just stops, when it should be detecting 5th drive connected to the expansion controller. Not that the machine locks up, it just keeps waiting there for something that apparently isn't going to happen (you can normally enter Bios setup from this state though).
-Unfortunately, two controllers are trying to use IRQ 14 at the same time and my poor little computer gets all confused.
-Needless to say, when primary mobo controller is disabled (the IRQ 14 one), the controller on the expansion card works like magic.
-Then I tried a different approach; I tried to use the expansion IDE controller as a primary disk controller, allowing it to master IRQ 14. This setting is hardcoded in the card and it makes no sense trying to set it the other way.
Thus, I wanted to assign some other IRQs to the controllers on the mainboard, (it's supposed to be more flexible, right?) ...but failed ultimatively at doing so. Although BIOS does enables individual IRQs to be assigned to Legacy ISA devices, setting IRQ 14 (and 15) to be used by ISA made absolutely no difference. IDE controllers on the mobo keep using the same IRQs, conflicting with the controller on the expansion card.
Now, is there a different approach I could try? Can IRQs 14 and 15 be reassigned at all?
And another thing. Generally speaking, can I doctor anything on the old expansion card to make it use IRQ other than 14? I'm kind of handy with soldering iron :)
-I'm running a PII system with a mainboard based on an Intel I440EX chipset. It has an Award modular bios v4.51PGM.
-There are four disk drives connected to two onboard IDE controllers.
-I just acquired an old IDE controller card (ISA bus, scavenged from a discarded 386 computer) and wish to use it as a auxilary disk controller. It has only one IDE channel for two disk drives. The card functions flawlessly, however...
-IDE controller on the expansion card can only use IRQ 14, and there aren't any possibilities to change this setting via jumpers.
-When I try to use all three controllers at the same time (two controllers from the mainboard, and this one), all four disk drives connected to the mainboard controller get properly recognized during POST operation, and then it just stops, when it should be detecting 5th drive connected to the expansion controller. Not that the machine locks up, it just keeps waiting there for something that apparently isn't going to happen (you can normally enter Bios setup from this state though).
-Unfortunately, two controllers are trying to use IRQ 14 at the same time and my poor little computer gets all confused.
-Needless to say, when primary mobo controller is disabled (the IRQ 14 one), the controller on the expansion card works like magic.
-Then I tried a different approach; I tried to use the expansion IDE controller as a primary disk controller, allowing it to master IRQ 14. This setting is hardcoded in the card and it makes no sense trying to set it the other way.
Thus, I wanted to assign some other IRQs to the controllers on the mainboard, (it's supposed to be more flexible, right?) ...but failed ultimatively at doing so. Although BIOS does enables individual IRQs to be assigned to Legacy ISA devices, setting IRQ 14 (and 15) to be used by ISA made absolutely no difference. IDE controllers on the mobo keep using the same IRQs, conflicting with the controller on the expansion card.
Now, is there a different approach I could try? Can IRQs 14 and 15 be reassigned at all?
And another thing. Generally speaking, can I doctor anything on the old expansion card to make it use IRQ other than 14? I'm kind of handy with soldering iron :)