PCA Forums

Hi guys,
Just wanted to see what everyone is using for this parameter in their BIOS. I've heard that it should be set to "NO", so the BIOS will handle the PnP stuff instead of Windows.

I've found that setting this to "No" is a bad idea. Windows likes to share system resources among different devices and in order to do that it needs full control of the hardware.

Win 9x/ME = Yes
WinNT/2k/XP = No

In general for any version of Windows except 3.1 and NT you want it set to YES so that Windows assigns resources.

However, there are times when Windows gets stupid about assigning resources, and it's better to let BIOS manage it. Win95 is notorious for goofing up resource assignments for modems and COM ports and often it's better to let BIOS manage it.

No (= no problems) in W2K.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.as ... US;q252420

"The Plug and Play operating system settings in the computer's BIOS should not affect how Windows handles the hardware in general. However, Microsoft recommends that you set this setting to "No" or "Disabled" in the computer's BIOS." (next-to-last paragragh)

Ah, good link. So it looks like it's a non-issue if ACPI is enabled. Windows has control of resources via ACPI.

If you need to manually assign IRQ addresses through the BIOS to a device on an ACPI motherboard, you will need to re-install Windows to force the installation to use a Standard PC HAL. For additional information, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

I think FP has it right it being a non issue. When I first read this thread I had it set to NO after reading it I tried YES and I can see no difference with it either way.