ACPI Implementation -- Evil or Merely Stupid?

geo · 03-30-2001, 05:57 PM

Is it just me, or is it either evil or extremely short-sighted that ACPI:

1). Can only be turned off or on at install. If you need to change (i.e. disable or enable) you have to completely reinstall the OS. This is nowhere obvious until you start researching why your system or some peripheral isn't working right and try to manually change the resource settings from having everything on IRQ 9.

2). Once you are hooked (either voluntarily or when you weren't looking since it doesn't give you an obvious choice whether to do it or not) you cannot modify any of the settings manually. You have totally given up your ability to manually change IRQ or Memory settings to resolve hardware conflicts. . .even motherboard BIOS settings of PCI IRQs will be ignored unless you go back to #1 above.

This came up with me because I'm doing HPNA 2.0 networking to use ICS to share a broadband account on my home network. NIC is USB and ADSL modem is internal PCI. Well, ACPI put both on IRQ 9 and locks up solid (have to poweroff or hit reset --no mouse, no ctrl-alt-del, no nothin' else will work after it locks up) whenever I start my internet and use it for a minute or two. But if I pull the USB network NIC out of the machine everything works fine except my wife then has no internet in her office. This setup was peachy-keen in Win98SE and WinME.

At any rate, I was puzzled why all the add-in periphs were on IRQ 9 and tried to move them around to the 3 or 4 open IRQs my system has available. No dice, no way. Did some research and discovered the joy of ACPI. In other words, "That's not a bug, that's a feature!"

Anyone else had a similar experience? Now I'm thinking of using another HPNA 2.0 adapter I have that is an internal PCI one and see if that works (maybe it is only USB adapters that have this problem in ACPI?). If that doesn't work I'm going to have to blow up my Win2k install and re-do it with the hoaky procedure MS has for telling your machine NOT to do ACPI at install.

Fyi -- The HPNA USB adapter is a Netgear PA101. The DSL modem is an internal 3Com Homeconnect and the internal PCI HPNA 2.0 adapter I'm going to try is a Dlink HPN-520.

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Mushkin Rules · 03-30-2001, 07:40 PM

Maybe will help, why don't you click over here:

http://cusl2.efront.com/vbulletin/sh...?threadid=2502

http://cusl2.efront.com/vbulletin/sh...?threadid=2499

http://cusl2.efront.com/vbulletin/sh...?threadid=2501

geo · 03-31-2001, 03:27 PM

Thanks for the tip. It didn't solve my problem, but it is always nice to get the latest drivers.

I tried the internal PCI HPNA 2.0 adapter and still had the same problem (locking up solid when the internal PCI DSL modem and the home network are in use at the same time). So I went ahead and reinstalled Win2k using the advice from MS knowledgebase article Q216251 to avoid ACPI being installed and designated "Standard PC Hal" instead.

This resulted in the IRQs being assigned pretty much the same way they would be for Win9x, and fixed my problem without any further intervention on my part. I'm back to using the Netgear USB HPNA 2.0 adapter as I did under WinME. The downside is you lose the advanced power management features of ACPI as well. That's a trade I'm willing to make to get my network running.

Geo

03-30-2001, 07:40 PM	#2
Mushkin Rules Registered User Join Date: Mar 2001 Location: Mushkin Tropical Island Posts: 2,563	Maybe will help, why don't you click over here: http://cusl2.efront.com/vbulletin/sh...?threadid=2502 http://cusl2.efront.com/vbulletin/sh...?threadid=2499 http://cusl2.efront.com/vbulletin/sh...?threadid=2501 __________________ Show Your Supports by Clicking This Advertisers...
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03-31-2001, 03:27 PM	#3
geo Registered User Join Date: Mar 2001 Posts: 7	Thanks for the tip. It didn't solve my problem, but it is always nice to get the latest drivers. I tried the internal PCI HPNA 2.0 adapter and still had the same problem (locking up solid when the internal PCI DSL modem and the home network are in use at the same time). So I went ahead and reinstalled Win2k using the advice from MS knowledgebase article Q216251 to avoid ACPI being installed and designated "Standard PC Hal" instead. This resulted in the IRQs being assigned pretty much the same way they would be for Win9x, and fixed my problem without any further intervention on my part. I'm back to using the Netgear USB HPNA 2.0 adapter as I did under WinME. The downside is you lose the advanced power management features of ACPI as well. That's a trade I'm willing to make to get my network running. Geo
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03-30-2001, 05:57 PM	#1
geo Registered User Join Date: Mar 2001 Posts: 7	Is it just me, or is it either evil or extremely short-sighted that ACPI: 1). Can only be turned off or on at install. If you need to change (i.e. disable or enable) you have to completely reinstall the OS. This is nowhere obvious until you start researching why your system or some peripheral isn't working right and try to manually change the resource settings from having everything on IRQ 9. 2). Once you are hooked (either voluntarily or when you weren't looking since it doesn't give you an obvious choice whether to do it or not) you cannot modify any of the settings manually. You have totally given up your ability to manually change IRQ or Memory settings to resolve hardware conflicts. . .even motherboard BIOS settings of PCI IRQs will be ignored unless you go back to #1 above. This came up with me because I'm doing HPNA 2.0 networking to use ICS to share a broadband account on my home network. NIC is USB and ADSL modem is internal PCI. Well, ACPI put both on IRQ 9 and locks up solid (have to poweroff or hit reset --no mouse, no ctrl-alt-del, no nothin' else will work after it locks up) whenever I start my internet and use it for a minute or two. But if I pull the USB network NIC out of the machine everything works fine except my wife then has no internet in her office. This setup was peachy-keen in Win98SE and WinME. At any rate, I was puzzled why all the add-in periphs were on IRQ 9 and tried to move them around to the 3 or 4 open IRQs my system has available. No dice, no way. Did some research and discovered the joy of ACPI. In other words, "That's not a bug, that's a feature!" Anyone else had a similar experience? Now I'm thinking of using another HPNA 2.0 adapter I have that is an internal PCI one and see if that works (maybe it is only USB adapters that have this problem in ACPI?). If that doesn't work I'm going to have to blow up my Win2k install and re-do it with the hoaky procedure MS has for telling your machine NOT to do ACPI at install. Fyi -- The HPNA USB adapter is a Netgear PA101. The DSL modem is an internal 3Com Homeconnect and the internal PCI HPNA 2.0 adapter I'm going to try is a Dlink HPN-520.
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