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1996-08-05
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Rosenthal Engineering P.O.Box 1650, San Luis Obispo CA USA 93406
U.S. Patent No. 5,359,659, Copyright 1996 all rights reserved.
WWW http://slonet.org/~doren/ e-mail doren@slonet.org
Rosenthal Engineering Conflict Resolver (tm)
Hardware and software diagnostics combine to identify, resolve and prevent
all PC system conflicts for DOS, Windows, Windows 95, Windows NT and OS/2.
From the earliest PCs to today's most sophisticated Plug-and-Play
components, all are supported even when systems mix old and new
technologies.
A special "Analyzer" circuit board (included with registration) plugs into
any standard (ISA or EISA) card slot and monitors the actual DMA (direct
memory access) and IRQ (interrupt request) electrical signals directly,
assuring absolute accuracy. The "Analyzer" is totally transparent to the
system and not affected by software, operating system, or configuration
errors, allowing normal operation while collecting IRQ and DMA usage.
The test diskette remains in the floppy drive during system reset which
loads a special diagnostic program ahead of the operating system without
modifying the hard drive boot sector. True hardware measurements made by
the "Analyzer" board are the most accurate, but this diagnostic program is
useful with or without the "Analyzer" circuit board installed.
Suspecting Conflict Problems
Today's complex computers employ a large variety of dedicated circuits and
software, each designed to perform their own specific tasks. Every circuit
board that plugs into the computer and software program that supports that
board must cooperate with the others. Unless every portion of the system
is correctly configured, conflicts between different devices will cause
problems.
Configuration conflicts range from subtle sluggish or unreliable
performance, to unexplained system crashes, data loss, programs that won't
work properly, and even dead systems. Some conflicts will be obvious and
crash the system when a particular device is used with another, or display
error messages like:
"Device Failure. Try changing the driver for this device".
"Windows cannot determine which resources this device is using."
"This device is not present, not working properly, or does not have all
the drivers installed."
Rosenthal Conflict Resolver insures systems are configured correctly or
optimized before installing additional new devices, peripherals, or
operating systems like Windows 95, NT or OS/2.
DMA, IRQ and I/O
The terms DMA, IRQ and I/O and interrupts are used throughout this and the
manuals included with periperals being installed, so a basic understanding
of what they mean will help considerably. When a circuit board plugs into
one of the slots within the computer, the edge connector, where the board
and computer contact each other, passes electrical signals between the
card and the other components of the computer. Each different contact
carries an electrical signal dedicated to a specific function. These
electrical signal levels change millions of times a second.
Address lines, for example, select different input and output (I/O) device
registers, so circuit boards are configured to each appear at a different
address.
People are used to ten digit numbers, because our number system is based
on us having ten fingers. Since it only takes four fingers (or bits) to
represent a number from zero through fifteen, computers make the most
efficient use of each address line by employing a hexadecimal numbering
system for I/O addresses.
Bits Decimal Hex Bits Decimal Hex
0000 0 0 1000 8 8
0001 1 1 1001 9 9
0010 2 2 1010 10 A
0011 3 3 1011 11 B
0100 4 4 1100 12 C
0101 5 5 1101 13 D
0110 6 6 1110 14 E
0111 7 7 1111 15 F
When the computer needs to address a circuit board plugged into one of the
card slots, it sets the electrical levels of each address line to a number
that corresponds to where it expects to find the device. Both the device
driver servicing the board, and the board itself need to be set to the
same address. It's important that the correct device (and only that
device) resides at each address or an I/O conflict will result.
Other connector pins carry Interrupt ReQuest (IRQ) electrical signals
between the computer and the circuit boards. IRQ lines allow the different
components to signal the processor to interrupt what it's currently doing,
and service the device demanding attention.
Direct Memory Access (DMA) allows devices to move large blocks of
information directly in and out of memory without going through the
processor. DMA electrical signals also appear on pins of the connector.
Originally, only short XT card connector slots were available, but with AT
class systems a second longer connector was added so additional pins could
be used to support an increased number of IRQ and DMA channels. There are
only a limited number of IRQ and DMA lines, and many are already dedicated
to service components on the motherboard.
To assign a device to an IRQ and/or DMA channel, an electrical contact
needs to carry the voltage between the appropriate pin of the edge
connector and the electronic circuit on the board exchanging the IRQ or
DMA signal. Depending on the design of each plug in circuit board, IRQ and
DMA channels get selected by routing them electrically to the appropriate
connector pins using jumpers, switch positions, or electronic
configuration.
Each DMA, IRQ and I/O address must correctly correspond to the electrical
circuit on the plug-in board and the software that supports it.
Conflicts
The two causes for the majority of today's lock-ups and system crashes are
resource conflicts and related device driver incompatibilities. Resource
conflicts occur because different peripherals demand exclusive use of IRQ
and DMA which may have been assigned to another device at the same time.
Device driver incompatibilities are quite common in Windows 95. For
example Windows 95 may accept an old driver for an existing card that will
only works under Windows 3.1, or may incorrectly identify a card or the
IRQ and DMA lines it uses and supply the wrong driver.
Finding a free IRQ or DMA available can often be difficult, especially
when some cards will only accept a specific IRQ or DMA which may have
already been assigned elsewhere. With some cards requiring several of the
limited number IRQ and DMA lines, conflicts are often difficult to avoid
and correcting was an extremely frustrating experience. Before the
Rosenthal Conflict Resolver was developed, there was no practical way to
observe and identify IRQ and DMA activity within a system during use.
Pre-existing Mixed with Plug-and-Play
As demands for faster and more complex hardware and software have grown,
getting them all to cooperate has been an increasingly difficult task.
For example, it's now quite common among on-line users for modems, mouse,
sound cards, video graphics and disk drives to all require DMA and IRQ
service at the same time.
In an effort to relieve some of the configuration problems, the industry
has developed new design specifications called "Plug-and-Play". Ideally,
it should be possible to just plug in a new board, turn on the system and
have everything work. The reality is that not everything will recognize or
confor