Filter
Top Products
P/I-P6NP5 User's Manual
17
III. INSTALLATION
(DMA Channels)
III. INSTALLATION
Both ISA and PCI expansion cards may need to use IRQs. System IRQs are
available to cards installed in the ISA expansion bus first, and any
remaining IRQs are then used by PCI cards. Currently, there are two types
of ISA cards. The original ISA expansion card design, now referred to as
“Legacy” ISA cards, requires that you configure the card’s jumpers manu-
ally and then install it in any available slot on the ISA bus. You may use
Microsoft's Diagnostic (MSD.EXE) utility included in the Windows direc-
tory to see a map of your used and free IRQs. For Windows 95 users, the
"Control Panel" icon in "My Computer," contains a "System" icon which
gives you a "Device Manager" tab. Double clicking on a specific device
give you "Resources" tab which shows the Interrupt number and address.
Make sure that no two devices use the same IRQs or your computer will
experience problems when those two devices are in use at the same time.
To simplify this process this motherboard has complied with the Plug and
Play (PNP) specification which was developed to allow automatic system
configuration whenever a PNP-compliant card is added to the system. For
PNP cards, IRQs are assigned automatically from those available.
If the system has both Legacy and PNP ISA cards installed, IRQs are
assigned to PNP cards from those not used by Legacy cards. The PCI and
PNP configuration of the BIOS setup utility can be used to indicate which
IRQs are being used by Legacy cards. For older Legacy cards that does not
work with the BIOS, you can contact your vendor for an ISA Configuration
Utility.
An IRQ number is automatically assigned to PCI expansion cards after those
used by Legacy and PNP ISA cards. In the PCI bus design, the BIOS
automatically assigns an IRQ to a PCI slot that has a card in it that requires
an IRQ. To install a PCI card, you need to set something called the INT
(interrupt) assignment. Since all the PCI slots on this motherboard use an
INTA #, be sure that the jumpers on your PCI cards are set to INT A.
Assigning DMA Channels for ISA Cards
Some ISA cards, both Legacy and PNP may also need to use a DMA (Direct
Memory Access) channel. DMA assignments for this motherboard are
handled the same way as the IRQ assignment process described above. You
can select a DMA channel in the PCI and PNP configuration section of the
BIOS Setup utility.
IMPORTANT: In the BIOS setup, you should choose "Yes" for those
IRQ's and DMA's you wish to reserve for Legacy cards.