III. INSTALLATION

To simplify this process, this motherboard complies 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 section of the BIOS setup utility can be used to assign which IRQs are being used by legacy cards. For older legacy cards that do not work with the BIOS, you may 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 contains a card requiring an IRQ. To install a PCI card, you need to set the INT (interrupt) assignment. Since all the PCI slots on this mother- board use an INTA #, set the jumpers on your PCI cards 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 earlier. You can select a DMA channel in the PCI and PnP configuration section of the BIOS Setup utility.

IMPORTANT: To avoid conflicts, reserve the necessary IRQs and DMAs for legacy ISA cards (under PNP AND PCI SETUP of the BIOS SOFTWARE, choose Yes in IRQ

xxUsed By ISA and DMA x Used By ISA for those IRQs and DMAs you want to reserve).

ISA Cards and Hardware Monitor

The onboard hardware monitor uses the address 290H-297H so legacy ISA cards must not use this address or else conflicts will occur.

Accelerated Graphics Port

This motherboard provides an accelerated graphics port (AGP) slot to support a new generation of graphics cards with ultra-high memory bandwidth, such as the ASUS AGP-V264GT3 and ASUS AGP-V3000ST.

III. INSTALLATION (DMA Channels)

P2L97 Accelerated Graphics Port (AGP)

ASUS P2L97 User’s Manual

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