Is device resource depletion *cumulative* ??

  • Thread starter Thread starter right_nice
  • Start date Start date
R

right_nice

'Never heard of resource depletion for add-on devices until it happened to
my own PC. This concerns PCI expansion slots specifically. There's a chunk
of memory allocated to each add-on device, and an IRQ assignment, yes? My PC
has 3 PCI slots and I've been juggling a variety of add-ons in them for
years. Occasionally I have switched a device to a different slot for
reasons, and devices have come and gone.

Finally I must've gone too far! I removed a TV/FM card, forgetting to
explicitly direct Windows XP to Uninstall it first. Then I moved a modem
card from another slot to there. Windows was unable to init the modem,
balking about "insufficient resources" and the need to free up other
devices' resources. So I Uninstalled the modem, put back the TV/FM card
(seemlessly, for the New Hdwe Wizard didn't even pop up), then Uninstalled
it explicitly, removed it and returned the modem card and after that it
initialized and worked just fine.

I'm just curious if the problem was just about one device in one slot, or
was it a cumulative effect of precious resource depletion from years of my
perhaps occasionally being sloppy about the removal of PCI cards. I wish to
know the truth. Thank you!
 
An analogy is like mail forwarding. If you move next door do you expect
to get your mail without some form of intervention?
 
Bob I said:
An analogy is like mail forwarding. If you move next door do you expect to
get your mail without some form of intervention?
Click to expand...

Well I don't think it cumulatively ran out of IRQ assignments because the
modem is using #18 and I've heard that numbers 1 thru 15 are reserved
for the stock system usage. It's hard to believe it cumulatively ran out of
memory chunks, unless they're constrained to a certain range, because I
have 1 GB of RAM. So maybe this dilemma just concerned one slot and
one card, rather than a cumulative effect. But hey, it begs the question,
"What remedy would have been available had I for example already
JUNKED that TV/FM card!!??"
 
right_nice said:
Well I don't think it cumulatively ran out of IRQ assignments because the
modem is using #18 and I've heard that numbers 1 thru 15 are reserved
for the stock system usage. It's hard to believe it cumulatively ran out of
memory chunks, unless they're constrained to a certain range, because I
have 1 GB of RAM. So maybe this dilemma just concerned one slot and
one card, rather than a cumulative effect. But hey, it begs the question,
"What remedy would have been available had I for example already
JUNKED that TV/FM card!!??"
Click to expand...

Simply rebooting without the cards in the slots will allow Windows to
sort it out. Your problems were created by swapping all of them into the
other slots without Windows being booted up to see what was gone.
 
Back
Top