In need of IRQs

Boot into windows in SAFE MODE, go to CONTROL PANEL,
to SYSTEM, and click on DEVICE MANAGER, click on the +
beside DISPLAY ADAPTER, and REMOVE any and ALL entries
listed here.  DO NOT RESTART YOUR COMPUTER, EVEN IF ASKED
TO DO SO.  ANSWER NO EACH TIME, YOU ARE ASKED.

Next click on the + beside PORTS (COM and LPT), and
REMOVE ALL listings for COM1 and COM 2. DO NOT RESTART
YOUR COMPUTER EVEN IS ASKED TO DO SO. ANSWER NO EACH
TIME.

Next  click on the + beside SOUND, VIDEO, and GAME CONTROLLERS, highlight and remove every ENTRY LISTED
HERE.  DO THIS ONE BY ONE.  DO NOT RESTART YOUR COMPUTER IF TOLD TO DO SO.  ANSWER NO EACH TIME,
YOU ARE ASKED TO RESTART.

Once ALL this is removed, and you no longer have COM1 & COM2, DISPLAY ADAPTER or SOUND, VIDEO, and GAME CONTROLLER listed,  SHUTDOWN DEVICE MANAGER, CLOSE CONTROL PANEL and return to the Windows desktop.

Shut down your computer normally,  Turn Off your computer.

Turn your computer back on, go into CMOS SETUP, before
the computer has time to boot to windows.

In CMOS SETUP do the following:

DISABLE COM 1 and COM 2 or SERIAL 1 and SERIAL 2,
depending on how they are listed.

Disable USE IRQ FOR VGA, also.  You may have to search for
this one.  On some computers it is in INTERGRATED PERIPHERALS, on other computers it is listed in BIOS in
ADVANCED CHIP SETUP or PLUG and PLAY CONFIGURATION.

Make sure that PLUG and PLAY OPERATING SYSTEM is set to
YES.

SAVE SETTINGS and EXIT CMOS SETUP.

Continue with a normal boot up.

Windows should now FIND NEW HARDWARE, insert your
driver disks if you have to, and let windows set up all this
NEW Hardware with drivers.

If folloed correctly you should now have a seperate IRQ and
memory address for everything, and all your items should be
working correctly.

I'd suggest Mattcei's way, because it's much shorter and requires much less tampering with computer settings. Personally I hate the idea of correct working drivers being reinstalled.
Anyway, satwa is correct in his suggestion too, but you can very much shorten it :
1) use Mattcei's suggestion as to remove COM2 and if need and nothing connected then also COM1 from BIOS.
2) Make sure Plug&Play OS is enabled in BIOS.
3) remove all the ports from Windows in safe mode (if they still stay when you boot in normal mode - they can disappear if everything's correct).
4) if still need an IRQ - which I suppose won't happen, but anyway you can disable IRQ for your video card in BIOS (just check before that your card works correctly without IRQ), but I would not do this as it lowers the card compatibility with a lot of software, especially games and also if your card is a progressive one, like Riva, or Voodoo, or just a good fast card (not
meaning all the 30$-40$ cheap ATIs).
5) if you took my suggestion and didn't disable IRQ for video card - then, if you have anything newer than 5 year old hardware, you can also disable IRQ for USB..which is nice since most people don't use USB anyway, especially those with Win95 since they can't even if want to..:-) It will free you 3 IRQs till now - which is A LOT.
6) Also, if you have a scanner connected through a card (SCSI scanner), you can find a driver for that scanner which works without using IRQ - Hewlett-Packard released such drivers for DeskScan 2,3,4 about a year ago...
hope my suggestions help.

If you're using a PS/2 mouse, then IRQ 12 is used, if not and you're using a serial type of mouse you'll need one of the serial ports.  Non PS/2 mouse assignments are frequently IRQ 4/com1.

This helped a friend quite a bit in a similar situation:

http://support.microsoft.com/support/ServiceWare/Windows/Win95/33BK7JB8.ASP
-
IRQ conflicts involving serial and parallel ports

IRQ is an abbreviation for Interrupt Request Lines. According to the Microsoft Press Computer Dictionary, IRQs are 'hardware lines over which devices such as input/output ports, the keyboard, and disk drives can send interrupts (requests for service) to the microprocessor.' Device IRQ conflicts occur when two or more devices attempt to use the same interrupt simultaneously.

There are 4 COM ports, but only 2 can be used simultaneously. COM1 and COM3 share interrupt 4; COM 2 and COM 4 share interrupt 3.

The following are Industry Standard Port Configurations:
SERIAL PORT
Port Address Interrupt
COM1 03F8h IRQ4
COM2 02F8h IRQ3
COM3 * 03E8h IRQ4
COM4 * 02E8h IRQ3
* Available only with DOS 3.3 and later.
PARALLEL PORTS
Port Address Interrupt
LPT1 3BCh IRQ7
LPT2 378h IRQ5
LPT3 278h None
---

I hasten to add that on one system there's a SoundBlaster 64 AWE Gold, probably quite similar, and they can work quite nicely on other IRQs.

Mattcei's initial comment should have resolved any conflicts unless there's more going on not listed.  

Thanks for everbody's help...

Glad I could help,chess.Is your problem solved?

Good morning all.  Glad Mattcei helped you resolve; sure thought it should.

Yep it did work. Disabled the com ports in the BIOS, rebooted and heard the Win98 start up sound right away.