Avaya Partner 18, Connection Manual

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Appendix B: PC Serial Ports
Workarounds and Solutions to the
IRQ Conflict Problem
It is important to remember that the IRQ conflict is a problem in hardware; it
cannot be resolved in software alone. Consequently, there are only three
alternatives for working around or resolving it:
Workaround 1: Configure your serial devices such that you use only two
at any one time, and those two use serial ports with unique IRQs.
This is the simplest workaround to the IRQ conflict problem, but it does not
solve the underlying conflict. The idea is to assign your peripheral devices to
your available serial ports in such a way as to avoid using any devices
simultaneously which might conflict. For example, if you have a serial mouse
on COM1 (IRQ4), a fax/modem card on COM2 (IRQ3), and your PassageWay
adapter on COM3 (IRQ4), you cannot effectively use PassageWay Solution
since you need to use your mouse under Windows while PassageWay
applications are running.
A better arrangement would be to move PassageWay Solution to COM4
(IRQ3), which could then be safely used with your mouse on COM1 (IRQ4). In
this case, the workaround is to avoid trying to use PassageWay Solution at the
same time you use the fax/modem on COM2, since the conflict now would be
over IRQ3 (COM2 and COM4).
Workaround 2: Replace one or more of your serial peripherals with
equivalent devices which do not require a serial port.
The idea with this approach is to eliminate the conflict by reducing the number
of peripherals in your system which require serial ports. For example,
replacing a serial mouse with a bus mouse (that is, a mouse which requires its
own add-in card) would make another serial port available that could then be
used by another device.
B-7