Bill,

I did everything you outlined below to remove all existing USB devices in order, and install just the card reader. No Luck.
As I was about to heave the card reader in the trash I went back to troubleshootiing the symptom of a driver conflict since I kept
experiencing an operational fault in APIX VXD. Finding this driver was used by my CD burner, I renamed the driver to prevent it from
loading. Rebooted and wala....the card reader that almost became part of my local landfill started working. If I enable the driver I can
recreate the poblem at will, rename to an unreconizable name for the system and the media card reader works. Definately a driver conflict,
now if I want to burn a CD I have to ensure the driver is named correctly, if I want to use the card reader, I have to ensure the driver name is changed
to something unrecognized. I can live with this if there is no other way, at least I have a work around. If you or anyone on this board has run into this
before, the driver is for the Adaptec CD Creator SW. I have not been to their website (yet) to search for new or updated drivers, thats where I am headed
next. The driver that came with my card reader says it is "Generic USB Card Reader" when it loads up. If there is a list of USB generic card read drivers
perhaps there may be one that will work with the CD burner intact.

Thanks,

Steve

: 1. Note the devices that are sharing the IRQ with the USB host controller. Look in System Information > Hardware resources > IRQs.
: 2. Boot to BIOS setup (press Del, F1, or F10 at initial boot).
: 3. Go to the "Integrated Peripherals" section and disable one or both serial (Com) ports if you are not using them. Disable the LPT port if you use a USB printer.
: 4. Go to the "PnP/PCI" section and enable "PnP OS", "Auto" and "Reset Configuration Data". The last is a momentary switch and will be disabled each time you return here. It releases the BIOS lock on IRQs and lets Windows take over and is VERY important.
: 5. Boot DIRECTLY to Windows Safe Mode (continue booting and press F8 repeatedly to get the boot menu) and unplug any USB devices. Remove all USB software in Add/Remove Programs. Open Device Manager. Remove the USB root hub and host controller *in that order*. Remove all USB drivers. Look for duplicate or erroneous drivers and *remove them all*. Windows will reinstall genuine devices.
: 6. If you have any SB16 emulation drivers, disable them in the hardware profile (do not remove). These are DOS sound drivers and most don't need them.
: 7. Lastly, remove the drivers for the devices sharing the IRQ with the host controller. Windows should reinstall the drivers automatically.

: At this point you have freed up 2 or 3 IRQs and reset Windows IRQ assignments. You can reboot and reinstall your devices *as per manufacturer's instructions*.

: Bill