🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <4k2tid$b7l@news.megalink.net>, scharles@megalink.net says...
>
>I have the EXACT same motherboard AND the Microfirmware PnP BIOS
>upgrade that you have!!  I tried the PnP OPTION for the Sportster (The
>PnP Version can EITHER be PnP (Take off all the Jumpers) OR you can
>set it up the old fashion way with setting the Jumpers and IRQ.  Well
>of course I tried PnP...DID NOT WORK!!! The modem and the mouse (I had
>my mouse on COM1...I don't the ps/2 mouse port on my JX-30G).  I
>worked on it for s long time...but the PnP did work (At one point the
>modem worked but I had to keep the mouse moving for the data to pass
>through the modem...weird!!  Anyway..I ran the Com POrt program that
>came with the sportster, it said set you modem on COM3 IRQ5...I put
>the jumpers on and I was back in business!!  No Problems since...LOVE
>the modem!!  Good luck
>

If you already have (motherboard) devices on COM1 and COM2, A PnP BIOS is going 
to have problems finding somewhere to put a third serial device which does not 
cause trouble, unless it is smarter than (it seems) most are. The problem is 
that, by default, COM1 shares IRQ 4 with COM3 and COM2 shares IRQ 3 with COM4. 
If the PnP BIOS simply assigns the modem the next free COM port, with the 
default IRQ, it ends up sharing this with whatever was there first. This is 
legal (which is why the PnP BIOSes allow it, presumably), but frequently 
doesn't work very well! The symptom you describe (having to move the mouse to 
get data through the modem) is classical for a shared IRQ between mouse and 
modem.

The answer, as you found, is to assign a non-default free IRQ to the COM port 
that the modem is to use. As long as any program which has a "need to know" 
knows where the modem is, the non-standard assignment will cause no trouble, 
and the modem will work fine.

Peter Fletcher