Chapter 3 - BIOS Utility 3-31
PCI Device Latency Timer
This parameter allows you to set the length of time for a PCI device to use the PCI
bus.
A PCI master can burst indefinitely as long as the target can source/sink the data,
and no other agent requests for the bus. If another PCI device requests for the use
of the PCI bus, a PCI bus arbitration takes place, and the tenure of the device
currently using the PCI bus cannot go over the PCI latency time set in BIOS. This
setting depends on your application.
For example, if you install a high bandwidth block I/O card, e.g., FDDI, the longer
the latency time the better. This setting only affects the primary PCI components
(PCI slots 1, 2, 3, 4, and onboard LAN). The secondary PCI components (PCI slots
4) are always set to 20 PCI clocks. The default setting is 20.
PCI IRQ Sharing
Setting this parameter to Yes allows you to assign the same IRQ to two diffe rent
devices. To disable the feature, select No. The default setting is No.
If there are no IRQs available to assign for
the remaining device function, we
recommend that you enable this parameter.