INSTALLATION .III Channels) (DMA

III. INSTALLATION

To simplify this process, the 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. Leave all PCI INT assignments on “A.” PCI slot 1 automatically assigns an INT letter starting from AB -C-D, PCI slot 2 assigns B-C-D-A, slot 3 assigns C-D-A-B, and slot 4 assigns D- A-B-C in these orders, therefore manual offsetting is not necessary.

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

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ASUS TXP4-X User’s Manual