So my ethernet card worked with linux fine, it was autodetected....etc.
Then I tried to restart the computer instead of shutting down, and turning it on again. The system hung at the rebooting the computer. Forcing me to force it off.

Now whenever I reboot I get a "IRQ5: nobody cared" followed by a bunch of random lines with [] and [] where xxxxxx are random hex. Then handlers: []
disabling IRQ5 (which is apparently the same irq my ethernet card works on)
I was fine with that for a while, because I was using wireless drivers also...But this continued for some time, even if i normally shutdown the computer and boot it.

Finally after a day or two, I decided to just reinstall zenwalk 2.2, since I have already learned how to install the wireless card, the the services I wanted cleanly. (Thinking maybe this was something I picked up while messing with the system.) But I still have the IRQ5 error. I am not sure what to do....the device still works under windows. I formatted the partition through the zenwalk installer, and used the same installation disc. The device worked perfectly the first install....
Anyone have any ideas?


btw it also disables IRQ 9 in the same manner...I don't know what I have running on that, but for the most part, the system didn't have any other noticeable changes since I first installed. Also, it says to boot with irqpoll. How can I do this? I am guessing I need to boot with the disc and boot: linux irqpoll (is that right?)

  It looks like you have an IRQ conflict.

First : Never disable Irq9. It is a pass-trough to irq's 10 -> 15 so when you disable it, your Bios will try to assign irq's 2 -> 8 to your installed cards and many times this is the best call for troubles.

  A simple solution would be to move your network card to another PCI slot and reinstall the driver. It would be better to move to a slot more away from the CPU, if you have one free, or - the worst case - switch 3 cards between them and check the Irq assignment. Many times problems appear especially between network-sound card or network-wifi cards sharing the same Irq. Of course, after that you will need to reinstall the drivers or, if it is more easy, Zenwalk.
  Also in your Bios you have a setting named "PnPbios". Set in to No, at least durring install. It is still not so good implemented.

  Hope that helped.

Correction : The Bios setting is "PnP OS Installed".

For obvious reasons i couldn't enter my bios while was typing the previous reply.

irqpoll is a kernel boot parameter; you can put it in the lilo.conf
append="irqpoll" and don't forget to call lilo afterwards.
you see your current interrupt assignment with
cat /proc/interrupts

I would start with minimal pci cards plugged in and different bios settings;
then proceed card by card...
good luck.
til