The IRQ Book

You'll find basic troubleshooting doctrine explained in this book, along with some fundamental concepts of hardware interaction and lots of reference material (including tables of which devices typically use which IRQs and other resources). The most valuable information is Chase's "Troubleshooting Practicum" in which she walks the reader through the logic and process of identifying and fixing hardware problems. In this section, she covers the complete procedure for resolving conflicts with the Hardware Manager before devoting significantly more space to problems that can't be solved with that utility.

You'll also find a fine overview of the Windows 95/98 Registry and some discussion of well-known problems, like resource conflicts that center on 3-D video cards. The minimal companion CD-ROM contains a hardware diagnostics program (which won't run under Windows NT) and a Registry backup utility. --David Wall

Book Description
Coverage of PC99 standards and USB devices. Quick guide to how the Registry ('95 and '98) manages devices. In-depth coverage of troubleshooting PnP devices.

Synopsis
As a quick guide to how the Registry ('95 and '98) manages devices, "The IRQ Book" supplies in-depth coverage of troubleshooting PnP devices. The CD-ROM contains diagnostic utilities to help the user detect and fix problems.

From the Back Cover
The IRQ Book. Error messages and system freezes are all common to PCs as they try to cope with the techno-weight of modems, printers, scanners, video boards, sound cards, and other multiple devices heaped on top of the buggy versions of Windows. This indispensable text/CD-ROM package offers you up-to-the-minute preventive guidance and troubleshooting solutions to the many hardware conflicts that can plague your PC. The IRQ Bookfirst emphasizes the importance of proper configuration to your PC prductivity, giving you all the basics of how to configure system components and manage configuration to minimize conflicts, maximize performance, and reduce the downtime troubleshooting through a tricky setup. It them offers you a solid body of troubleshooting techniques, including how to identify and resolve fatal errors, use configuration files and logs in troubleshooting, troubleshoot through Windows Protection Errors at boot, and troubleshoot Plug-and-Play devices. You'll also find clarifying coverage of the new PC99 specs, USB technology, device-management workings of the Windows Registry, and a lot more. Highlighted by a chapter that helps you resolve the 12 most common hardware conflicts and problems, The IRQ Book guides you expertly through the maze of system interrupts to help you ensure your PC is as problem-free as possible.