IRQ tweaking comments

Discuss software and how to tweak more performance out of your system.
Mr Toastz
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IRQ tweaking comments

Post by Mr Toastz »

Post your results, successes, and lack thereof here! <p></p><i></i>
monaro327
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Re: IRQ tweaking comments

Post by monaro327 »

seems to have no effect on the vid card but helps the ide controllers a bit makes win feel better <p></p><i></i>
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monaro327
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Re: IRQ tweaking comments

Post by monaro327 »

anyoe else <p></p><i></i>
Athlon XP-M 2500+ 2444mhz
Geforce 6800le(16pp/6vp) OC 405/825mhz
wd800jb hdd
wd200bb hdd
40gig Seagate IV
1gig ddr ram
Epox 8RDA3+
sblive 5.1
Pioneer 110D DVD Burner
Logitech Z3e & MX518 + EVERGLIDE FUZE
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Mr Toastz
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Thanx Monaro!

Post by Mr Toastz »

Now we need some comments from other diehards out there. People want to know the effect of this tweak on your systems!<br><br>In my case, my 3dmark 2000 score picked up a bit, and browsing speed increased a bit. The system also seems a bit snappier as well...<br> <p>AMD K6III+ 550 @619 2.2v~ DFI K6BV3+/66 Rev B 2 MB~ Cardex GF2 MX 400 4ns GS 250/250~ 256 MB Micron PC133 CAS2~ Aureal SQ2500 (I will miss Aureal)~ Maxtor Diamond Max Plus 45 46.1gb ~ etc etc etc</p><i></i>
Old Elf
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Re: Thanx Monaro!

Post by Old Elf »

did'nt see IRQ tweek<br>Elf <p></p><i></i>
Mr Toastz
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IRQ tweaking article in articles section of website

Post by Mr Toastz »

check the K6Plus page Articles section for the tweaking notes. <p>AMD K6III+ 550 @619 2.2v~ DFI K6BV3+/66 Rev B 2 MB~ Cardex GF2 MX 400 4ns GS 250/250~ 256 MB Micron PC133 CAS2~ Aureal SQ2500 (I will miss Aureal)~ Maxtor Diamond Max Plus 45 46.1gb ~ etc etc etc</p><i></i>
spirits247
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Re: IRQ tweaking article in articles section of website

Post by spirits247 »

I've read the tweak, but it seems like a lot of memory to give away for performance that MAY be better.<br><br>I'll go and try it now and report back.<br><br>Mr Toast, have you still got your IRQ trick in place?<br><br>Why so much ram. I've only got 128mb, so will 512K for each IRQ still be beneficial? <p>Deanodarlo transformed into Spirits247. Come K6 brothers sing a k6 hymn from my book <a href=http://pub70.ezboard.com/fk6plus67153fr ... ic>Silicon Preacher</a><img src=http://homepage.ntlworld.com/deanodarlo ... ><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://pub70.ezboard.com/uspirits247.sh ... rits247</A> at: 8/1/01 8:28:39 am<br></i>
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Re: IRQ tweaking article in articles section of website

Post by BENCHMARKMAN »

Didn't make much of a difference for me either. <p><a href="http://benchmarkman.cjb.net">Site of the new 3D millennium</a></p><i></i>
Mr Toastz
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Remember guys, this is a stability tweak

Post by Mr Toastz »

I have seen it make some significant differences in the following areas...<br><br>Sandra Drive Benchmarks<br>Internet Browsing performance<br>Mouse gliding<br>Slight impact on 3dmark score; crashes much less often<br><br>That is what it does for me. <br><br>Spirits247,<br><br>I did this tweak on a win95 system with only 64 MB memory. We used 2048 for all the values and system performance improved. Try it and if you can't see a difference, then it is easy to remove again. It doesn't hurt to try it. <p>AMD K6III+ 550 @619 2.2v~ DFI K6BV3+/66 Rev B 2 MB~ Cardex GF2 MX 400 4ns GS 250/250~ 256 MB Micron PC133 CAS2~ Aureal SQ2500 (I will miss Aureal)~ Maxtor Diamond Max Plus 45 46.1gb ~ etc etc etc</p><i></i>
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Re: Remember guys, this is a stability tweak

Post by spirits247 »

First of all I would like to thank you for writing the IRQ article Mr Toast and must admit I'd never heard of this tweak!<br><br>It seems to be one of those controversial tweaks, a category so many fall into, where some people notice benefits and others do not. As for it primarily being a stability tweak, I've never had a problem with stability so I can't comment in this area. For this reason I've looked for performance gains.<br><br>After doing some reading around the web, most people seem to believe that the faster your system, the less likely you will notice the performance gains from this tweak. Stability may still be improved however.<br><br>First of all I must point out that I'm using Windows Me (all performance reducing crap disabled), which has better web browsing speed than earlier operating systems in my opinion, when comparing the same IE versions.<br><br>In order to use this tweak in WinMe, go to start>run and type msconfig (no sysinfo in WinME). Click the system.ini tab, find 386Enh and make the IRQ changes there.<br><br>I've been experimenting and yes some slight performance gains were noticed in drive benchmark scores, but we are talking very small increases. The others I'm not too sure about. 3D mark has never crashed for me anyway and the results were not outside that of experimental error with the tweak in place. As for web browsing, it ‘seemed’ faster, but that’s not a good scientific term and could be down to imagination. If an improvement was there it’s hard to notice, but that may be due to my system using WinMe with its superior browsing performance over the articles test set-up of Win95. More research must be undertaken before I conclude there is a definite improvement.<br><br>Experiments by more people need to be applied in this area before absolute benefits are realised. Since many k6ers complain that they're no tweaks left, many should enjoy this new (or is it old?) challenge.<br><br>Major hurdles are quantifying the stability/performance gains and, more importantly, asking just how much ram do you need for each irq? Those numbers quoted seem a little high for my 128mb system without knowing the true gains; still with ram being so cheap these days perhaps I should just go out and buy another 256mb.<br><br>Come on K6ers, Mr Toast has been good enough to write the article - try this tweak out and let’s get some answers!<br><br>Remember, however, this is a stability tweak first, performance tweak second!<br> <p>Deanodarlo transformed into Spirits247. Come K6 brothers sing a k6 hymn from my book <a href=http://pub70.ezboard.com/fk6plus67153fr ... ic>Silicon Preacher</a><img src=http://homepage.ntlworld.com/deanodarlo ... </p><i></i>
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kylesb
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Re: Remember guys, this is a stability tweak

Post by kylesb »

OK gents, I've played with the tweak and really did not see any performance changes.<br><br>In regard to speculation as to what this tweak does for your system, I believe a buffer is used by win9x to store hardware interrupt information (interrupts are hardware signals intended to stop the cpu in its tracks and force a switch to an "interrupt handler" to immediately address the hardware interrupt signal and exchange data with the hardware device that produced the interrupt signal). It is possible for more interrupts to occur than the cpu can handle or "service" in an effective fashion before the next flurry of interrupts are received. Thus, buffering interrupt data and handling that data at a later time is one mechanism for overcoming the time critical requirement for servicing interrupts. It is farily common that when an interrupt service routine is "active", it will disable interrupts during the time the IRQ servicing code is executing so that the state of the system will not change during the execution of the IRQ service routine. If another interrupt occurs while interrupts are disabled, the operation of the system is then dependent upon how the OS sets up the PIC (programmable interrupt controller) circuit. It seems to me that the interrupt controller can keep track of a limited number of additional interrupts (perhaps only 1) before subsequent interrupts from the same hardware device are lost and never addressed.<br><br>In the original IBM PC, this interrupt controller chip was an Intel 8259. In modern mobos, the 8259 circuitry is incorporated into the mobo chipset (actually the modern chipset includes circuitry for 2 8259s, as going back to the original IBM AT design now prevelant in all PC clones, the number of interrupts was doubled to 16, requiring 2 8259 chips cascaded together via IRQ 2). It's been some time since I have poured over the docs for the operation of the 8259, but I do recall it can operate in several IRQ priority modes, thus the OS designers may choose how interrupts priority will be handled. Some interrupts have a higher priority, e.g., if IRQ15 has a higher priority than IRQ8, and if both are activated simultaneously, the IRQ15 service routine will run before the IRQ8 service routine. Further, the interrupt controller can be setup so that if an IRQ8 occurs and servicing is taking place, and an IRQ15 interrupt then occurs, the IRQ8 routine is put on "hold" while the irq15 routine executes.<br><br>Internal readable registers of the interrupt controller are accessed after an interrupt occurs in order to ascertain which hardware device has generated the interrupt signal, and the appropriate interrupt service routine is then activated. If an interrupt service routine is not able to process the I/O operations with the hardware device that caused the interrupt within a reasonble time period (say 50 microseconds), then alternative mechanisms must be implemented so that the rest of the system is not clogged up. It is my guess that the IRQ buffers are used to store data for "non-time-critical" processing that may take place after the interrupt service routine has completed servicing the interrupt and reenabled interrupts. For example, a block of data may be retrieved from the hardware device during the servicing of the interrupt, and the actual processing of that data does not take place until a later time. <br><br>This is all logical speculation on my part, and I could be very wrong on some of these guesses, but maybe this will enlighten some as to how interrupts are handled in a pc. <p>Best regards,KyleK6speed URL:Coming Soon: www.kylebrant.com/k6speed.htm</p><i></i>
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Re: Remember guys, this is a stability tweak

Post by Nohr »

I did some benchmarking on my Tbird to test the IDE IRQ tweaks. I used the hard drive benchmark in SiSoft Sandra Standard v2001.5.8.11. The system is a Tbird 1359 (9x151), Iwill KK266, 256MB memory, Maxtor Diamondmax 40 20GB 7200rpm ATA100, Windows 98. The system was scandisked and defragged prior to the tests, and it was rebooted before each benchmark. The Maxtor is the only drive on IDE0, an Asus 40X CD-ROM drive is the only drive on IDE1.<br><br><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><b> No IRQ tweaks</b><!--EZCODE BOLD END--><br>15629<br><br><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><b> IRQ14</b><!--EZCODE BOLD END--> (Primary IDE Controller)<br>2048: 15668<br>4096: 15627<br>8192: 15615<br><br><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><b> IRQ14 & 15</b><!--EZCODE BOLD END--> (Both IDE Controllers)<br>2048: 15633<br>4096: 15608<br>8192: 15701<br><br>Well, I think I can safely say that this tweak has had no effect. The scores don't follow any pattern and there are not any significant changes. I figure the results are within the program's margin of error.<br><br>Anyway, I know it's not a K6 system, but I thought I'd let everyone know how this tweak would work on a high end system. <p>---------------------<br>Does the noise in my head bother you?<br><a href="http://www.anandtech.com/mysystemrig.html?id=2249">My Rigs</a><br><a href="http://stats.distributed.net/rc5-64/psu ... 27482">RC5 Stats</a></p><i></i>
Mr Toastz
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Been thinking about this...

Post by Mr Toastz »

As I have said before, this is more of a stability tweak than a performance tweak...<br><br>If your system is already stable, then you probably won't see much of a gain tweaking your IDE. But, if you like to tweak your timings right to the edge (such as I do), then there is a better chance that this tweak will result in performance gains for you.<br><br>Bronx and I have both seen the gains possible using this tweak. In my case I saw 3dmark crash a lot less often at higher CPU speeds, and also saw my score rise a bit. Also, my disk access times have improved a bit, but again understand that I lower my hard disk timings as low as possible, so anything that will help interrupts is a plus...<br><br>My 2 cents anyways. Keep the reports coming in! <p>AMD K6III+ 550 @619 2.2v~ DFI K6BV3+/66 Rev B 2 MB~ Cardex GF2 MX 400 4ns GS 250/250~ 256 MB Micron PC133 CAS2~ Aureal SQ2500 (I will miss Aureal)~ Maxtor Diamond Max Plus 45 46.1gb ~ etc etc etc</p><i></i>
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Re: IRQ tweaking comments

Post by Neutron »

<br>According to your article I have done the following tweaks:<br><br>IRQ 05 : 4096<br>IRQ 10 : 4096<br>IRQ 11 : 4096<br>IRQ 13 : 4096<br>IRQ 14 : 4096<br>IRQ 15 : 4096<br><br>Well what should I say ? These Tweaks are great on my System !<br><br>My Memory Benchmarks in Sandra raised from CPU=187 MB/s to CPU=211 MB/s <br>and the values from FPU=194 MB/s raised to FPU=216 MB/s<br>After adding some tweaks with WPCREDIT I got finally CPU=225 MB/s and FPU=230 MB/s<br>The whole System was and is still rocksolid.<br><br>In 3DMark 99 I could increase the Points from 3500 to 4100 !!<br>In 3DMark 2000 the Points moved from 1650 to 1880 !!<br>In Quake 3 my results raised from 34 FPS to 41 FPS in 1024 x 768 x 16 Bit<br><br>My System<br><br>Epox MVPG-M with 2MB Bios <br>AMD K6-2+500@560 ( 5 x 112 MHz )<br>256 MB Ram PC133@112 Timings 2-2-2<br>Windows 98<br>3dfx Voodoo3<br><br> <p></p><i></i>
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Re: IRQ tweaking comments

Post by spirits247 »

Glad to see you found benefit in the tweaks, Mr Toast will be ecstatic! <!--EZCODE EMOTICON START :) --><img src=http://www.ezboard.com/intl/aenglish/im ... /smile.gif ALT=":)"><!--EZCODE EMOTICON END--> <br><br>Congrats on your first post.<br><br>As K6 Preacher it's my duty to welcome you to the K6 plus! site. I'm known as the nut case around here, and if you read some of my previous posts you'll know why!<br><br>The truth is I'm a bit fanatical; how can I be a true preacher without being slightly insane?<br><br>Don't forget to include your system in the k6 world leader board for national pride.<br><br>Now, use my link below to finish your enrolment by singing the official K6 hymn. All good beliefs have a song to support their faith and this is ours.......................<br> <p>Deanodarlo transformed into Spirits247. Come K6 brothers sing a k6 hymn from my book <a href=http://pub70.ezboard.com/fk6plus67153fr ... ic>Silicon Preacher</a><img src=http://homepage.ntlworld.com/deanodarlo ... ><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://pub70.ezboard.com/uspirits247.sh ... rits247</A> at: 8/3/01 6:18:54 am<br></i>
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