Yes. It's normal. Check the
K7S5A FAQ for K7S5A-specific ACPI-related info.
Also, here is a bit of (borrowed) ACPI info: (not my writing, but good stuff anyway)
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ACPI Overview
Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) is an open industry specification that defines a flexible and extensible hardware interface for the system board.
Software designers use this specification to integrate power management features throughout a computer system, including hardware, the operating system, and application software. This integration enables Windows to determine which applications are active and handle all of the power management resources for computer subsystems and peripherals.
ACPI enables the operating system to direct power management on a wide range of mobile, desktop and server computers, and peripherals.
ACPI is the foundation for the OnNow industry initiative that allows system manufacturers to deliver computers that start at the touch of a key on a keyboard.
ACPI design is essential to take full advantage of power management and Plug and Play in Windows. If you are not sure whether your computer is ACPI-compliant, check your manufacturer's documentation.
To change power settings that take advantage of ACPI, use Power Options in Control Panel.
During Windows Setup, ACPI is installed only if all components present during Setup support power management.
Some components, especially legacy components, do not support power management and can cause erratic behavior with Advanced Power Management (APM), or may prevent ACPI from being installed. Examples of such components are Industry Standard Architecture (ISA) components and an out-of-date BIOS.
http://www.tweakersasylum.com/Guides...k/00000009.htm
ACPI stands for Advanced Configuration and Power Interface. In a nutshell, this allows the OS to do a few things.
First off, it handles things like standby mode, hibernation, and all kinds of power saving features. It also allows Windows to turn off your computer for you when you shut the system down.
These features really don’t affect your system performance much, but Windows 2000 and Windows XP use the IRQ sharing capabilities of ACPI to put most of your devices on only one or two IRQs.
“Bloody hell, you’re right! All of my devices are set to use IRQ 4!” Of course I’m right. Now NORMALLY, your video card is going to want to hog its own IRQ. It makes sense considering the incredible amount of stuff your video card does when you fire up Quake 3 and decide to snipe someone’s head off when playing Urban Terror on Railbait.
Here are the technical details straight from Windows XP:
“Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) is an open industry specification that defines a flexible and extensible hardware interface for the system board. Software designers use this specification to integrate power management features throughout a computer system, including hardware, the operating system, and application software.
This integration enables Windows to determine which applications are active and handle all of the power management resources for computer subsystems and peripherals.
ACPI enables the operating system to direct power management on a wide range of mobile, desktop and server computers, and peripherals.
ACPI is the foundation for the OnNow industry initiative that allows system manufacturers to deliver computers that start at the touch of a key on a keyboard.
ACPI design is essential to take full advantage of power management and Plug and Play in Windows. If you are not sure whether your computer is ACPI-compliant, check your manufacturer's documentation.
To change power settings that take advantage of ACPI, use Power Options in Control Panel.
During Windows Setup, ACPI is installed only if all components present during Setup support power management. Some components, especially legacy components, do not support power management and can cause erratic behavior with Advanced Power Management (APM), or may prevent ACPI from being installed.
Examples of such components are Industry Standard Architecture (ISA) components and an out-of-date BIOS.”
So now that you know what ACPI is, and what it does, let’s find out what the side effects of disabling it would be.
There will definitely be some side effects by disabling ACPI, I just wanted to get that out into the open. First off, you will lose some Plug and Play functionality by disabling ACPI.
When installing new computer hardware you will have to re-install the drivers to support your new hardware. Here is some cut and paste that helps give you an idea of this problem;
“Because Windows controls your computer's resources and configuration, you can install Plug and Play hardware devices without restarting the computer.
Windows automatically identifies the new hardware and installs the drivers it needs.
If you are using any other type of computer, you may need to perform some setup steps manually and restart your computer when installing new hardware devices.”
Another problem you will find is with a lot of your power management functions. You will probably lose most of the stand by, suspend, and hibernation modes. While some users don’t normally use these power saving options, some obviously rely pretty heavily on them.
Personally I don't use any power management functions on my desktop, I leave the damn thing on 24/7.
Now my notebook is another story. I am constantly using the power saving functions in order to extend my battery life while on the go. Losing some of the power saving functionality is definitely on thing I would not tolerate with my notebook.
Now that you have been thoroughly warned of the dangers and perils of disabling ACPI, let’s take a look at exactly how you can go about doing it.
Disableing ACPI:
First off, BE SURE TO GET ALL OF THE DRIVERS YOU WILL NEED FOR ALL OF YOUR HARDWARE BECAUSE YOU WILL MOST LIKELY BE REINSTALLING ALL OF YOUR DRIVERS. Right click on My Computer and select Manage (This can also be done in the “new and improved” start menu).
After the MMC pops up, go to the Device Manager submenu on the left. In the right side of the MMC, open the Computer submenu and you will see something like ACPI PC.
Right click on this, select Properties and go to the Driver page. Click Update Driver. When the Hardware Update Wizard opens, select Install from a list or specific location (Advanced).
On the next page, tell the wizard Don’t search. I will choose the driver to install. The wizard should now show you a list of devices.
Uncheck the Show compatible hardware box to see the whole list.
Select Standard PC from the list, finish the wizard, and reboot. When your system finishes rebooting, you may have to reinstall a lot of your system drivers. It’s a good thing you got them all handy when I told you to, huh?
After disabling Windows ACPI on my Athlon Test System, the system rebooted normally and began installing all of my system’s hardware. I did notice however that Windows XP replaced the NVIDIA 21.81 Detonators with their own cheesy WHQL version.
My lame ass 56k ESS modem also required assistance in reinstalling the drivers. Other than those mentioned, everything installed nicely and without any problems.
When restarting the system I noticed that I did not have the option to anymore. It was darkened out and wouldn’t allow selection.
Personally I never use any of the lame suspend or hibernation functions, it’s either always on, or off. Other than a few power management functions, I really didn’t notice anything different. As you can see from the below benchmarks, I did gain a little bit of performance from disabling ACPI. Just how much did I gain? Let’s check out the test system first.
Another option you may consider is creating two separate hardware profiles, one for ACPI, and another for ACPI Disabled. The process involved with creating a new hardware profile is actually a fairly simple one. First you will need to right click on MY COMPUTER and select the PROPERTIES option. Now click on the HARDWARE tab and you should see something like this;
Now click on the HARDWARE PROFILES button. From here you will want to highlight the only hardware profile listed and click on RENAME. Now think of a name for your profile such as “ACPI Enabled”.
After you have renamed the profile click on OK. Now click on the COPY option, and type in a name for your new hardware profile like “ACPI Disabled”. Click on OK again and you will come up with something like this;
Now you can right click on each of the of the profiles and select PROPERTIES. Click the check box that says “Always include this profile as an option when Windows starts”, and finally click on OK. Now when you return to the main HARDWARE PROFILES window select the option that says “Wait until I select a hardware profile”. Now everytime Windows loads you can select which profile you want enabled.
This would be useful if you wanted to switch back and forth between gaming and normal operation, etc. Well, that’s about it. I hope you get the same kind of performance gains that we achieved. Make sure you click on the forum link at the top of the page to give us the details on your experiences with disabling ACPI.
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Tnx!
==>> Def
;)
