ST AUDIO DSP3000 M-Port (DSP24 + ADC&DAC3000)
the PCI device listing table. If you will see the title screen of Windows 9x/Me or the boot manager
of Windows NT/2000/XP, you somehow missed the correct moment and you can repeat the
process (first boot the operating system and perform a normal shutdown). Note that a few(!) PCs
do not display this table (see below).
The list in the example screen the IDE Controller (usually onboard), the USB controller (Serial
bus), two Multimedia devices (usally soundcards, but also for example TV-cards) and the graphic
card (Display controller). In each line, the assigned IRQ is displayed in the last column. The
DSP24 can be identified by the Vendor ID 1412 and Device ID 1712. In the screen above, you can
see that the card uses IRQ 10 (in this example). If this table is displayed but there is no entry with
this Vendor and Device IDs, the card is probably not installed correctly (double check that!) in the
PCI slot or maybe even defective.
How to avoid IRQ sharing
If the same IRQ number that has been assigned to the DSP24 PCI card is shown also on other
entries in the PCI device listing table, the two (or more) devices are sharing one IRQ. This can
affect the performance and in some situations, depending on the other devices with the same IRQ,
even create major stability problems. For example, if you use a graphic card with nVidia chipset,
you should avoid IRQ sharing (especially under Windows 2000/XP) with the DSP24 card.
As mentioned before, the IRQs are assigned depending on the PCI-slot. This means that you need
to install the card into a different PCI-slot when you want to assign a different IRQ that is not
shared. Some mainboard manufacturers (e.g. ASUS) have lists in the printed documentation that
are showing the PCI slots / IRQ assignments. If you do not have that, you will need to try it. On
most mainboards with VIA or AMD chipset, the third PCI slot is the best one to use, on most
mainboards with Intel chipset, the second PCI slot is optimal. However, this is not a general rule as
every mainboard can be different.
Please note that the IRQ number itself (e.g. 9, 10, 11, etc.) is not important. The DSP24 card will
work on any of them. Also: if your BIOS allows you to assign certain IRQs to certain PCI slots,
you can try this function before you review the PCI device listing table. In most cases however, all
devices that share the same IRQ will use the assigned one (shared) after you change that setting.
This would mean that the card has to be installed into a different PCI-slot as described above.
No PCI device listing table?
Some PCs do not display the PCI device listing table. This may have several reasons:
" The BIOS of your mainboard is very old (e.g. it does not fully support the PCI 2.1 specs).
Please check with your mainboard vendor if there is a newer version and install it. This
usually only happens with very old mainboards (older than about three years).
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