Most of the components directly connected to the motherboard, including PCI slots, IDE controllers, serial ports, keyboard port, and even the motherboard CMOS, have individual interrupt requests (IRQs) assigned to them.
An interrupt request line, or IRQ, is a numbered hardware line through which a device can interrupt the normal flow of data to the processor, allowing the device to function.
Windows Vista and 7 let you prioritize one or more IRQs (which translate to one or more hardware devices), potentially improving the performance of those devices. Below are some basic registry editing tips that you can use to set IRQ priorities.
1. Start by opening the System Information utility (msinfo32.exe) and navigate to System Summary Hardware Resources IRQs to view the IRQs used on your system and the devices that use them.
Notice the IRQ13 (Numerical Data Processor) we will be using in this example:
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2. Then open Registry Editor and navigate to the next key. If the PriorityControl doesn’t exist, create a key in the Control section.
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE SYSTEM CurrentControlSet Control PriorityControl
3. Create a new DWORD value in this key and name it IRQ # Priority, where # is the IRQ of the device you want to prioritize (for example, IRQ13Priority for IRQ 13, which is your numeric processor).
4. Double-click the new value and enter its priority number. Enter 1 for the highest priority, 2 for the second, and so on. Make sure you don’t enter the same priority number for the two entries, and try to keep things simple by experimenting with only one or two values ??first.
5. Close Registry Editor and restart your computer when finished.
Some users have achieved good results by setting the IRQ priority to 8 (for system CMOS) and the IRQ appropriate for the video card, but the feedback has not been confirmed. Do you think this is a placebo setting? Leave your comments!
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