2. INSTALLATION
2-6 Expansion Cards (continue…)
Both ISA and PCI expansion cards may need to 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 manually and then
install it in any available slot on the ISA bus. You may use
Microsoft’s Diagnostic (MSD.EXE) utility included in Windows
directory 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 “Resource” 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 card 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 INTA.
EP-PV12 User’s Manual
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