IRQ Priority Boost
April 6, 2008
IRQ Priority Boost
All you have to do is copy/paste the following (between the —– ) into notepad and save with a .reg extension.
——–
REGEDIT4
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\PriorityControl]
“IRQ8Priority”=dword:00000001
———
To undo the tweak copy/paste the following (between the —– ) into notepad and save with a .reg extension.
——–
REGEDIT4
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\PriorityControl]
“IRQ8Priority”=dword:00000000
———
Note: Make sure your System CMOS/Real Time Clock are on IRQ 8
To get the actual IRQ# go to: Control Panel -> System -> Device Manager -> System Devices -> System CMOS/real time clock -> Properties -> Resources tab -> default IRQ# is 8 on all IBM PC clones.
Now you can add other IRQ’s for multiple entries, but real-time priority doesn’t like to share so if your going to, be aware of what your adding since the main tweak boosts almost all performance of your system.
You could boost your network card, or your video card if you wanted. Run msinfo32 to find the IRQ’s that you feel necessary to give this to.
NOTE: ALWAYS BACKUP YOUR REGISTRY BEFORE MAKING ANY CHANGES TO IT.
Popularity: 19% [?]
THIS IS A MYTH
This tweak does absolutely nothing. There are many problems with this, not the least of which is the choice of IRQ8. The CMOS is a hardware device that holds the systems boot configuration and system clock. After startup XP has little reason to access either. The real time clock has no performance implications. It is hard to imagine how increasing the priority of this IRQ would improve performance.
The original author of this tweak is unknown but it has been passed from one uninformed web site to another for a long time.
Larry Miller
Microsoft MCSA
CompTIA Network+, A+