Undocumented problem solved with 16-bit pcmcia and irq error.

[NSchindler]

I'm using a DAQ Card (AI-16E-4), which didn't work properly in MAX. MAX complained that the card didn't respond to an interrupt request.
I've had this issue for a while, but dropped it, since NI support told me nothing could be done about it. Meanwhile, a seemingly unrelated problem with a wireless pcmcia network card arose. Cisco had no clue what was wrong with their card either, but I found Microsoft Knowledge Base Article Q327947. It seems that Win2k (they claim SP3 and up) disables ISA to PCI routing, which is what causes this problem.
To fix it, open regedit and navigate to "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Pcmcia\Parameters"
edit or create the DWORD value "DisableIsaToPc
iRouting" and set the value data to 0.
See Microsoft's article for further details: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;327947

[whiner01]

I'd like to add this report somewhere in these forums.

PCMCIA card in a PCMCIA to PCI adapter a.k.a. "PC-Card drive".
"The device is not responding to the first IRQ level."

Competing Solutions:
Setting "DisableIsaToPciRouting" to 0 in the Registry did not work for me.
My system needed a dedicated driver to make the interrupts work.
In fact, this registry-change fix cannot be used with the driver. The driver works, but the registry change blocks the driver from working. Evidently the registry change makes Windows 2000 try to route the interrupt. Even if Windows can't route the interrupt, it will still try hard enough that it blocks the driver from routing the interrupt. (At least that's how i try to make sense of it.)

Identifying the hardware and finding the driver:
I have a Carry PCD-RP-220S "PCI Bus PC Card Drive". There are few markings on the board. "FCC 190N00025V403" didn't help. (I hate unmarked cards.) Also there's a label saying "Elan Digital Systems Ltd / Technology License". Elan does not make the card, but they told me who did.
The card is made by Carry Computer Eng. Co. Ltd.,
http://www.carryusa.com or http://www.carry.com.tw
I had to write to Carry in Taiwan as they advised. I volunteered the serial number, etc. The driver they sent me is called Softex Winroute v1.3. The files are dated 20020710. [I needed to download WinRAR to extract it.]

History of the problem:
I did not do the initial install, so I'm not sure why the system worked originally.
The National Instruments PCMCIA card was working in this PC-Card Drive until i reinstalled Windows 2000 after the hard-drive failed. Our re-installed data acquisition program wouldn't acquire any samples. Also, National Instruments Measurement and Instrumentation Explorer, when i ran the "Test Panel", said "The device is not responding to the first IRQ level. Would you like to continue anyway?" When I did, the Test Panel got data from the card. (Only in the bottom slot. In the top slot, however, the card was not recognized at all.)
Clearly our software needed that missing IRQ from the card; it was not missing before. It looked like either a hardware failure (cable failure or ESD) or a driver problem.
Windows 2000 automatically detected the card as a "Ricoh R/RL/5C476(II) or Compatible CardBus Controller".
Evidently the "native" driver was not enough.
After installing the Winroute driver, the interrupts work and are detected by Measurement & Automation Explorer. The data acquisition program runs again.

The rest of the details:
PC/motherboard model and manufacturer: ASUS P4B ACPI BIOS v1012 (05/03/2002)
Chipset: I845
CPU: P4-2000
BIOS brand: Award Medallion BIOS v6.0
Operating System: Windows 2000 sp3 (direct SP3 install, not an upgrade.)
PCMCIA Cards: National Instruments DAQCard-AI-16XE-50
NI-DAQ v6.9.2 for 9598Me NT2KXP p20020207
LabVIEW Run-Time 6.1