Does a PCI to USB 2.0 card really need 3 Interrupts?

[Jon_J]

I Bought a USB 2.0 card, it is:
VIA Tech 3080 PCI to USB Enhanced Controller.

Funny thing is when looking in device manager, there are now:
3 Root hubs, (one is 2.0, the other two have no number)
3 controllers, (one is enhanced, the other two are "General")

When checking these, each controller uses an interrupt, which are shared with other devices.
I have 3 IRQs which are "free" as shown in MSInfo.

Q1 Why do I need 3 controllers installed?
Q2 If I have 3 free IRQs, why wouldn't the setup program use them instead?

I tried deleting the "extra" controllers, but windows 98 insists on installing them when I reboot.

Thanks for reading this,
Jon

[Action Jackson]

My IOGear 5 port USB 2.0 PCI card requires 2 interrupts. It uses the NEC chipset.

Honestly I try to avoid products with "VIA" on them.

Be glad that you don't have a USB 2.0 and Firewire card which I've read that it can take 5 interrupts!

You probably have 3 controllers installed b/c you probably still have USB 1.1 on your motherboard as well.

As for the free IRQ's, you can specify which IRQ's are used by whatever you want in the BIOS, otherwise Win98 will automatically allocate the resources as it sees fit.

But if everything is working okay it's probably not necessary to change it.

[Jon_J]

Action Jackson, Thank you for your quick reply,
I wanted to get the IOGear card that Best Buy advertises on their web site, but unfortunately the area where I live, Best Buy always seems to be ½ year behind everywhere else, and are always "out" of this or that, or don't stock them.
I have the onboard USB 1.1 chip disabled in BIOS.
I'll see if I can re-allocate the the interrupts. I don't plan on upgrading this old machine any more, so I don't plan on using my 3 "free" interrupts for anything else.

Thanks again,
Jon