NIC and heavy use - pc rebooting - help

[psteudlein]

Sorry there is so much here, just trying to fix this crap pc/problem...

Specs:
win98se
Asus A7V133
AMD 1.2 266/133
Corsair 256K ram cas 2
ata/100 HD - on ide 0 - master
cd rom - on ide 1 - master
nothing on ultra promise controller
Santa Cruz sound card - pci slot 3, irq 5
Linksys PCI II NIC - pci slot 5
ps/2 ms mouse
not usb devices, usb disabled
3d prophet geforce 2 mx - agp
Linksys 4 port router/hub
300 watt amd approved power supply
Internet modem connected to NIC

All patches and latest drivers loaded on all...
Drive has formatetd and windows loaded from scratch

IRQS:
0 - system time
1 - keyboard
2 - programmable int controller
3 - linksys PCI NIC adapter
3 - VIA tech 3038 PCI to USB universal host controller
4 - com1
5 - santa cruz PCI sound card
6 - floppy
7 - lpt1
8 - system cmos/real time clock
9 - sci irq used by acpi bus
10 - win95-98 promise ultra 1-- ide controller
11 - video card
11 - acpi irq holder for pci irq steering
12 - mouse
13 - numeric data processor
14 - via bus master pci ide controller
14 - primary ide controller
15 - via bus master pci ide controller
15 - secondary ide controller

Question 1:
What is irq 9?

Question 2:
Should I get the NIC an IRQ all its own, if so, where?

Question 3:
Should I put the cdrom on ide 0 with the HD as a slave to save an IRQ from the secondary ide controller?

Question 4:
Do I need the promise ultra controller loaded and taking an IRQ if I dont use it?

This new PC has been nothing but problems...latest problem...the NIC:
Whenever the NIC gets used alot, the PC just ups and reboots for no reason.
Crusing the internet, download something big and REBOOT.
Connect my other old PC to this one to play a motorcycle game head to head and as soon as the new PC tries to sync/transfer data, strange sounds from speakers and REBOOT. I have not tried to transfer large files from old PC to new one to see if it REBOOTS. Games play ok on the new PC as far as I have seen and tested.


Any help would be great, thanks to all in advance,
Paul

[YeOldeStonecat]

Good to see someone post so much useful detail on a problem seek. I see too many people say "PC runs slow, what's wrong?" and give no details.

So if games runs well, chances are your CPU and memory are fine.

Question1) IRQ 2 and 9 are always related, IRQ2 does what's called "Cascade from IRQ9", and IRQ9, on top of other sharing options, does what's called "Redirection to IRQ2".

Question2) It's ideal to have each device you demand lots of work from to be on it's own interrupt, Such as video, you never want your video card to share an IRQ, which is why I always leave the top PCI slot empty. Even though your vid card is AGP, AGP is still just a redesigned PCI slot, and it will often share an IRQ with anything that you put in that top PCI slot. I prefer to put NICs in the 2nd PCI slot.

Question3) I probably wouldn't, unless you have a very very new cd-rom, or an older hard drive. If you have say an ATA-100 hard drive, and you put a cd-rom on it that is just old EIDE, your IDE bus will default to the slowest device attatched, so your hard drive will be kicked down to match the cd-rom. Better performance leaving the hard drive solo, so it can run at full speed. Another drawback from sharing is data transfers from cd to hd will suffer.

Question4) I don't know, if you have a Promise controller, why aren't you using it? I guess you have your HD plugged into your mobo then? If nothing is plugged into the Promise, then yeah, yank it. Is it a RAID controller? NICs will often take IRQ 5,9,10, or 11. Yours taking 3 is rare, 3 is usually for COM2, which you must have disabled. But I have the same setup, my 3COM 905 is sharing IRQ 3 with my PCI to USB just like yours. And no problems.

I have the Asus CUSL2-C. My NIC is in PCI slot 2, try moving it up there on yours. If the same problem happens, try a different NIC, perhaps it's bad. And, I've always sworn my 3COM and Intel NICs only.

[Storm90]

Go with a 3com or some other kind of nic. I had two of those linksys nic's did not like them . They are a pain to me. 3 com accepts about every computer and works great. But before you do this just try moveing it to a different slot. The only network cards I have ever seen use IRQ 3 is ISA cards. #com usally use IRQ11 most of the time. ;)