CM_PROB_NORMAL_CONFLICT
Text that is displayed in Device Manager:
This device cannot find enough free resources that it can use. If you want to use this device, you will need to disable one of the other devices on this system. (Code 12)
Solution button: Hardware Troubleshooter
Cause
This error message is also one of the most commonly encountered error messages in Windows 2000. Although it means exactly what it says, the source of the resource conflict may not be readily apparent.
Troubleshooting
• In the same properties page where the error message occurs, click the Resources tab. Windows 2000 attempts to flag the associated device that is in conflict with the device in question. You should avoid manually assigning resources in a Plug and Play system, because this can create potential problems in the future as Plug and Play attempts to do its job at a later time. Either disable or remove the device that is in conflict to see if the device reporting the error message starts. You can then add the device you removed back into the system and see if the device can take new resources on its own. The following information describes how this may occur:
Plug and Play attempts to automatically assign resources to devices. It examines a "form" that defines the resources that a device can use and draws its choices from that list. In that same form (actually a structure in the configuration memory space of the device) is a list of resources that the device prefers to use. When two devices contain identical "preferred" settings, something commonly referred to as "resource affinity" occurs. Devices fight for possession of a specific resource, which causes a deadlock. A similar situation is created by resource dependency configurations. In that same form mentioned earlier, devices may define resource dependencies. For example, "If this device is assigned x IRQ, then use y I/O port address." The dependent resource may be in conflict with another device causing a failure. Disabling the working (but conflicting) device changes the order of enumeration and may force the other device to take on new settings that are not in conflict. This behavior occurs more often in Windows 95/98 where device enumeration occurs in a specific order, whereas Windows 2000 multithreads enumeration enumerates all device at once. Although multithreading helps to alleviate this problem, it may not resolve the problem. If the procedures outlined here do not resolve the problem, check for updated device drivers from the manufacturer before attempting to manually assign resources to the device.
• Sometimes Windows 2000 cannot detect which device is actually in conflict. This behavior can occur because errors in the IRQ routing tables or I/O port conflicts are created by an improperly configured PCI-to-ISA bridge. Complete coverage of each of these concepts is outside the scope of this article. The most common method for resolving this problem is to update the system BIOS. On non-ACPI systems, you may be able to select an alternate IRQ routing table source. Refer to the Microsoft Knowledge Base for articles explaining IRQ routing in Windows 2000 and how to edit the registry to select an alternate method. Because the most common resolution in any system BIOS update is to resolve error messages in IRQ routing, you should resolve this problem by checking with the manufacturer of the device for an updated system BIOS.
• This behavior may also occur because of irresolvable conflicts in an ISA/PCI mixed environment. The ISA bus is not designed with Plug and Play in mind. Because of this, the PCI bus has no reliable way of detecting the resource settings of ISA devices. Try removing any unneeded ISA devices in the system to see if the device in question properly configures itself. If this works, check the System Information tool for free resources and set the ISA device for the appropriate configuration. In the case of a Plug and Play ISA device, try replacing the device in an alternate ISA slot. If this does not resolve the issue, check with the manufacturer for a digitally signed Windows 2000 device driver for the ISA device. You can also try starting into the system BIOS and setting the resources for the ISA device as Reserved by (or for) ISA. This action may manually remove the use of the resource in question from the Plug and Play equation. If none of these recommendations resolves the problem, you may have to find a PCI version of the ISA device.
