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Windows 2000 slows down after installing PCI card

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First post, by jwt27

Posted on 
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Got this SW1000XG card today, but I'm having some issues with it. It makes cool
sounds all right, but Windows is now unusably slow. The 3D Pipes screensaver
runs at about one frame per *three* seconds.

Now I noticed it assigned the graphics card, USB controller, network adapter,
and the SW1000XG all to one IRQ. I'm guessing one of those drivers doesn't
play nice with shared IRQs. But unlike with ISA cards, there doesn't appear to
be any way to change them.

I read about /PCILOCK so I enabled that and assigned separate IRQs in BIOS
setup. It didn't do anything, except move everything from IRQ 7 to 10 (which I
didn't assign to anything).

Apparently the only way to gain manual control, is by disabling ACPI, and then
reinstalling the whole OS in non-ACPI mode? Surely there must be an easier
option?

Or, maybe it's another issue entirely. Any ideas?

Reply 2 of 2, by jwt27

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That was one of the first things I tried yesterday, and didn't make any difference, either in IRQ assignment or speed.

But I just tried it again, hoping /PCILOCK would help, and after rebooting I noticed the card got assigned its own IRQ. Got excited for a moment, rebooted again, and everything is back on IRQ 7...

But... it's no longer slow now? What the hell?

Man, computers are weird beasts sometimes.

Should mention, when I first plugged it in I noticed the slowdown even before I had the driver installed. It does seem a bit strange that the card would generate so many IRQs, without even having a driver installed, that it could slow down other drivers. Besides wouldn't Windows just crash, or at least complain, if it received an IRQ from an unknown device?

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