Is device resource depletion *cumulative* ??

'Never heard of resource depletion for add-on devices until it happened to
my own PC. This concerns PCI expansion slots specifically. There is a chunk
of memory allocated to each add-on device, and an IRQ assignment, yes? My PC
has 3 PCI slots and I have been juggling a variety of add-ons in them for
years. Occasionally I have switched a device to a different slot for
reasons, and devices have come and gone.

Finally I must've gone too far! I removed a TV/FM card, forgetting to
explicitly direct Windows XP to Uninstall it first. Then I moved a modem
card from another slot to there. Windows was unable to init the modem,
balking about "insufficient resources" and the need to free up other
devices' resources. So I Uninstalled the modem, put back the TV/FM card
(seemlessly, for the New Hdwe Wizard did not even pop up), then Uninstalled
it explicitly, removed it and returned the modem card and after that it
initialized and worked just fine.

I am just curious if the problem was just about one device in one slot, or
was it a cumulative effect of precious resource depletion from years of my
perhaps occasionally being sloppy about the removal of PCI cards. I wish to
know the truth. Thank you!

An analogy is like mail forwarding.

An analogy is like mail forwarding. If you move next door do you expect
to get your mail without some form of intervention?

Well I do not think it cumulatively ran out of IRQ assignments because

Well I do not think it cumulatively ran out of IRQ assignments because the
modem is using #18 and I have heard that numbers 1 thru 15 are reserved
for the stock system usage. it is hard to believe it cumulatively  ran out of
memory chunks, unless they are constrained to a certain range, because I
have 1 GB of RAM. So maybe this dilemma just concerned one slot and
one card, rather than a cumulative effect. But hey, it begs the question,
JUNKED that TV/FM card!!??"

right_nice wrote:Simply rebooting without the cards in the slots will allow

Simply rebooting without the cards in the slots will allow Windows to
sort it out. Your problems were created by swapping all of them into the
other slots without Windows being booted up to see what was gone.