Really HAVE searched but ...

Hello fellahs Sorry it's taken a while to get back and thank you for your comments, all of which I'll check out. But the original question was ' how do I get into BIOS and change my IRQ settings'. It's one of those ' really should know this ...' topics but I've never had to do it. Can you help? --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The how do I get into BIOS question! To get into the BIOS you need to know what BIOS you are running because different BIOS have different activating key strokes. ie. some are by hitting F8 some are F2 some are combination of keys. Some BIOS are helpful in that in the boot sequence they will tell you (usually down the bottom left of screen) what you need to do to enter the setup. You will need to know who's bios and version you have. Cheers

Most boards these days, "Delete" will get you there. Usually you'll see instructions at the bottom of the screen on boot, ie. <DEL> to enter Setup.

I think it's worth mentioning that if you're using an USB keyboard, you may not be able to get into your BIOS. I have a friend whose computer now has two keyboards; one PS2 for getting into his BIOS and the other USB for everything else. Oddly enough, once he's accessed his BIOS with the PS2 keyboard, he can use the USB keyboard to make BIOS changes. I don't know who came up with this design but it really does defy logic.

It seems to, but i think tehre's a good reason. If you can access the BIOS to alter settings etc, your system isnt actually booted yet. And with that booting it will become "smarter". When you just turn it on it will only know to start reading from that location from th HD, load it into memory and execute it. And after a few steps like that your system will be clever enough to be able to run a BIOS setup-program. But at that point its very well possible all the drivers and stuff for the USB-ports and the USB-keyboard itself hasn't loaded yet. Hope this clears it up for ya...