TBH I have not encountered any of the stated problems with my own SB Live! & KT7A-RAID (Northbridge - VIA KT133A, Southbridge - VIA 686B) nor on any of my friends systems (running a variation of Operating Systems). One thing that we all have done and that is to follow the following way of installing the IRQ resources & drivers for the systems.
Also the following IRQ resources are set to the PCI slots:-
  • "INT Pin 1": AGP card and PCI Slot 1
  • "INT Pin 2": PCI Slot 2 and PCI Slot 3 and ACPI (if enabled)
  • "INT Pin 3": PCI Slot 5 (and HPT370 controller in KT7/A-RAID)
  • "INT Pin 4": PCI Slot 4 and PCI Slot 6 and USB


Note you can force a particular IRQ number to be used by a particular "INT Pin #" using the PNP/PCI Configurations Setup in the BIOS. This allows you to force a certain slot to use a specific IRQ. You should not normally need to do this. Note that if you have ACPI enabled, Windows will ignore the assignments made in the BIOS and allow ACPI to determine this.

If you have an AGP card and two PCI devices, but no ACPI, USB or HPT370 enabled, you can put those devices in
  • slots 2 and 4, 5 or 6
  • slots 3 and 4, 5 or 6
  • slots 4 and 5
  • slots 5 and 6


If you have an AGP card, two PCI devices and ACPI, but no USB or HPT370 enabled, you can put those devices in
  • slots 4 and 5
  • slots 5 and 6


If you have an AGP card, two PCI devices and USB, but no ACPI or HPT370 enabled, you can put those devices in
  • slots 2 and 5
  • slots 3 and 5


If you have an AGP card, two PCI devices and HPT370, but no ACPI or USB enabled, you can put those devices in
  • slots 2 and 4 or 6
  • slots 3 and 4 or 6


If you have an AGP card and two PCI devices and ACPI and USB but no HPT370 enabled, then
  • slot 5 will have its own IRQ


AMD recommend installing cards one at a time, shutting down and powering off between the addition of each card. They recommend installing cards in the following order:
  • AGP card
  • Voodoo I or Voodoo II Cards: Since these cards do not require an IRQ address, it is recommended that they be installed after the successful installation of your operating system. They do require a PCI slot
  • Any ISA card
  • Internal Modem (PCI)
  • Sound Card (PCI or ISA)
  • Network Card, a.k.a. NIC (PCI or ISA)
  • DVD Devices requiring Dxr3 Decoder Board (PCI)Note: Some video decoder boards require two (2) IRQs for complete functionality. Check with your video decoder card manufacturer for video decoder support and requirements
  • SCSI Adapter (PCI)
  • Any others
I am not saying that the problem does not exist. I have a feeling that ACPI has a bit to do with it also. We (myself & friends) have all disabled ACPI & Power Management in both Hardware & Software. Using the drivers supplied with the Sound cards are also bad news (especially if you have an older version that uses LiveWare2), and installing Creatives 'Goodie (Baddie)' pack also is asking for troubles.

I will list my hardware list with PCI & IRQ allocations per item:-

PCI
  • AGP - ATI Radeon 32Mb SDR
  • PCI1 - EMPTY
  • PCI2 - 3Com 3C905CTX NIC
  • PCI3 - EMPTY
  • PCI4 - Creative Labs SB Live! Value (WDM)
  • PCI5 - EMPTY
  • PCI6 - EMPTY
  • ISA1 - EMPTY
  • ISA2 - 3Com EtherLink III (3C509b-TP)


IRQ
  • IRQ1 - PC/AT Enhanced PS/2 Keyboard
  • IRQ2 - Not Used
  • IRQ3 - Not Used
  • IRQ4 - Communications Port (Com2)
  • IRQ5 - 3Com Etherlink III (3C509b-TP)
  • IRQ6 - Standard Floppy Disk Controller
  • IRQ7(a) - VIA USB Controller
  • IRQ7(b) - VIA USB Controller
  • IRQ7(c) - Creative Labs SB Live! Value (WDM)
  • IRQ8 - System CMOS Realtime Clock
  • IRQ9 - Not Used
  • IRQ10 - 3Com 3C905CTX NIC
  • IRQ11 - HPT370 UDMA/ATA100 RAID Controller
  • IRQ12 - ATI Radeon 32Mb SDR
  • IRQ13 - Numeric Data Processor
  • IRQ14 - Primary IDE Channel
  • IRQ15 - Secondary IDE Cahnnel


All drivers for devices are latest Win2K releases from respective companies with Win2K SP1 & SP2 ATA100 Hot Fix installed. None of the rudimentory Creative Extras are installed (such as Launcher, Disc Detector, etc). System is running at 100Mhz FSB (200DDR) with 384Mb CAS2 PC100 Kingston SDRAM (4 Way Interleaving enabled), AGP4X enabled, Driving force set to Default. 3Com 3C905TX PCI NIC running Cable modem & Etherlink III card running LAN (10Mbps) to enable Internet access to second machine.

System Running Temps are CPU Idle - 51C (123F), CPU 100% Load - 57C (134F), System Temp - 36C (96F).