> Conventional > wisdom would be that irq sharing is the surest way to a crash in a pc. Some would argue that conventional wisdom is that interrupt sharing works just fine ... and indeed it often does ... with a modern operating system (unlike DOS) that is designed for it. On the other hand, DOS experience is what says that it is sure to crash a PC.
PCI interrupts are open-drain and level-sensitive, which means there is no electrical problem sharing interrupts. Since each PCI slot has four interrupts, sharing is a virtual necessity. The catch is that interrupt drivers must be written to support interrupt sharing. They do this by first checking to see whether the physical device they support, needs to be serviced (i.e., whether it was the one that signalled the interrupt), and then passing control on to the next interrupt driver in the chain. It's all supposed to work, and indeed it does work when all the players play by the rules, which I think is most of the time with newer versions of Windows, and Linux. Sorry this probably doesn't help. Andy -- Author: Ingraham, Andrew INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Fat City Network Services -- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com San Diego, California -- Mailing list and web hosting services --------------------------------------------------------------------- To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB CHIPDIR-L (or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from). You may also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).
