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A-7
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 telephone on
COM3 (IRQ4), you cannot effectively use the PassageWay Service Provider
since you need to use your mouse under Windows while TAPI applications are
running.
A better arrangement would be to move the PassageWay Service Provider to
COM4 (IRQ3), which then could be safely used with your mouse on COM1
(IRQ4). In this case, the workaround is to avoid trying to use the PassageWay
Service Provider 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 that 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 that require serial ports. For example,
replacing a serial mouse with a bus mouse (that is, a mouse that requires its
own add-on card) would make another serial port available that then could be
used by another device.