IRQ
Technology & Computing abbreviation · Computer Hardware
| Stands for | Interrupt request |
|---|---|
| Categories | Technology & Computing |
IRQ stands for Interrupt request, a computer hardware abbreviation.
Hardware signal that a device such as a keyboard, disk controller or network card sends to the processor to demand immediate attention, pausing the current task. In older PCs, each device needed its own IRQ line.
Example: In 1995 the sound card only worked after we moved it to IRQ 5.
Usage notes
The IBM PC/AT had 16 IRQ lines, numbered 0 to 15, and assigning them by jumper caused frequent conflicts in the DOS era, one reason Plug and Play was created. Modern systems use advanced interrupt controllers and message-signaled interrupts over PCI Express. The Windows error IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL refers to the interrupt request level, usually pointing to a faulty driver.
Related abbreviations
More computer hardware abbreviations
- HW – Hardware
- IDE – Integrated Drive Electronics
- iGPU – Integrated graphics processing unit
- IOPS – Input/output operations per second
- IPC – Instructions per clock
- IPMI – Intelligent Platform Management Interface
- ISA – Instruction set architecture
- JBOD – Just a bunch of disks
- KVM – Keyboard, video and mouse switch
- LBA – Logical block addressing
- LGA – Land grid array
- LPDDR – Low-Power Double Data Rate