Hi Mary,

According to the Abit Manual, the 2nd set of IDE controller shares one
interrupt with the PCI slot 3.  The software drivers that comes with the IDE
controller will handle the sharing, conditional on that the PCI card (if any)
in the slot support sharing of interrupts.

I think the same process happens with the IDE controller on the Creative AWE32
soundcard.  The interrupt is shared with the soundcard and you have to
configure the addresseing port for the IDE controller.

As I have not filled up that slot yet, I am not sure is there any issue with
sharing that PCI slot.


>
> I was thinking about buying the Abit BE6 motherboard but was concerned about
> how many IRQ's it would use if you have 4 controllers enabled.  Wouldn't it
> use 4 IRQ's?  Each IRQ on my current motherboards only support two IDE
> channels, primary and secondary,  not 4 as you have stated. On the
> motherboards I have used you have a primary and secondary controller, each
> supporting a master and slave ide device, and that requires 2 IRQ's, so if
> you have an ultra66 primary and secondary controller with a master and slave
> on each controller, and an ultra 33 primary and secondary controller with a
> master and slave on each controller, wouldn't you need 4 free IRQ's to be
> able to enable all of the controllers.  Is this how it is working on your
> Abit BP6 motherboard?
>
> Mary Wolden
>
>                          PCBUILD's List Owner's:
>                       Bob Wright<[log in to unmask]>
>                        Drew Dunn<[log in to unmask]>

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