Any info on IRQ16 Communication Controller Conexant 1

[attagirls]

Hello,
This is my first time posting on this forum. I've searched around and found quite a bit of great information. Bummed that I couldn't find what I was looking for without asking a question. (usually the quiet type) However, that said:

Issue is on my ACPI multiprocessor PC from emachines model T3256. My computer will get random errors on the com while I am surfing the net. When I am using Power Director 5.0 for video encoding I will get a PDX.exe error. Then, randomly my screen will flicker, bounce in and out, the resolution will enlarge then come back to my settings and within minutes my PC will reboot.
The only commonality is that they--the video card and the conexant communications port are assigned to IRQ 16. I have looked for a way to change the IRQ but have failed to discover this secret. Does anyone know how I can test this theory of IRQ16 sharing being the fault for these errors?

Windows XP sp2
AMD Athlon 3200+
2.21 Ghz 896MB Ram
NForce2 IGP motherboard
Phonenix Award Bios ver 6.0

these are the two on IRQ16:
My video card:Geforce4 integrated GPU

conexant cx1156
This device is assigned 2F20 and is defined as a controller It is on a separate bus from the video card.

What is the purpose of this device? Is it a VOIP device?

I can't change it in the bios any other suggestions?

 

[Nelviticus]

Do you use a dial-up modem connected to a COM port? If so it sounds like the 'conexant cx1156' is just the controller chip for your COM ports.

If either of the devices (communications port or graphics card) was a PCI card you could just try moving them to a different slot but it sounds as though they are both integrated into the motherboard. This shouldn't be a problem though as IRQs can be shared.

Do you have the latest drivers for your motherboard and for your graphics card?

Nelviticus

 

[attagirls]

Yes, the drivers are the latest for my video card and my ACPI drivers are current. The video card is onboard while the modem is in slot one. I don't even use the modem. I went to device manager and disabled the stupid thing! So that gets rid of that! Hum, So I guess that wasn't the cause of my issue after all!

I did find out that the video driver for my nvidia card uses a service. It had stopped. I changed it to restart three times upon failure. I can see my screen correcting itself now when the service restarts. Wonder what is causing it to stop?

Am getting less errors in Power Director now and the com errors have gone away.

I also found a utility to change the pci latency on the video card from 255 to 64. My computer is running much faster at boot time and much faster launching applications.

Thanks for your response! Any suggestions are wlecomed!

 

[Nelviticus]

Well if you're not using the modem and it's removable then I suggest removing it, as even if you disable it in Device Manager that only comes into effect when Windows starts to load. If it's causing problems down at hardware level then things may be going amiss as soon as your BIOS allocates resources to it. It can't cause problems if it's not present and as a bonus you'll save a few pennies on your electricity bill.

Does Event Viewer give you any clues? You can find it in Control Panel under Administrative Tools - check the Application and System logs for yellow warnings or red errors.

Regards

Nelviticus

 

[attagirls]

I removed the modem from the slot and have not received any more com errors.
Yes, I did have red items in the system log:

The NVIDIA Display Driver Service service terminated unexpectedly. It has done this 1 time(s). The following corrective action will be taken in 60000 milliseconds: Restart the service.

My Geforce 4 Integrated GPU video has passed all the dxdiag tests running directx 9.0d but is still out dated for the latest nvidia drivers.

Seems that Vertex and Pixel Shading are not supported on my integrated video hence the rebooting issues. So I suppose this is why I am having other issues. Guess it's time to upgrade my hardware!

Hope I don't have the issues of new card not being recognized like other e-machine users have reported! Will update status once I have obtained and installed new card.