Since users can’t control those resources anymore, there’s seemingly no solution on the horizon.
Fortunately, there is.
What Does the Windows IRQ Issue Affect?
What Does “IRQ” Mean?
As PCs kept evolving, they gained extra functionality through new hardware.
What Is “IRQ Sharing”?
Thankfully, modern hardware is designed to avoid such problems.
The suggested solution is to disable another piece of hardware to free resources.
Remove Your Soundcard
In the past, you could control IRQs through the PC’s BIOS.
Today’s PCs handle all IRQ assignments automatically, with their UEFI and OS controlling which IRQ goes where.
So, the first step is, removing a piece of hardware: the soundcard itself.
Start with the steps we saw in our guide onhow to enable or disable sound output devices in Windows.
Then, it’s time for the more challenging part: physically removing the actual sound card.
With your sound card still unplugged, turn on your PC’s power supply.
Then, power on your PC.
Enter Windows as usual.
Check theDevice ManagerandAdd/Remove Softwarepanel again to ensure it’s gone while everything else works correctly.
With that out of the way, it’s time to bring your sound back.
It also helps to plug it into a different expansion slot if your motherboard has more than one available.
PressWin + Xand revisit theDevice Manager.
Your sound card should be active and working, with no mention of any problem finding resources.
If not, repeat the last steps:
Rinse and repeat until the problem’s solved.
However, they’re not the only IRQ-related issue you may face.
A faulty driver can make your PC crash with anIRQ_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUALproblem.
The case we covered in this article is similar, even if it sounds even more ridiculous.
