CPU Usage in a Home Network Setup

[pmistry 0]

I have setup 2 computers to connected via a crossover cable. My main PC an Athlon 750 has Windows XP Pro Corp along with a Linksys 10/100 USB Adapter connected to my cable modem, and a Dlink 530TX network card. Both are running fine using Windows XP's detected drivers.

 

 

The Dlink is connected to my older PC which runs Windows 98 SE, and has a Belkin PCI adapter. Both PC's are running fine, I ran the Home Networking Wizard and both PC's can see each other and can share files. Except sometimes and only sometimes, when we copy files across the network CPU usage jumps to 100 % and I get bogged, doesn't happen to the other PC. If I run a program sometimes it will get real choppy due for some reason and task manager reports near 100 % CPU, I don't really understand why? It only happens sometimes and always with the network enabled.

[insaNity 0]

how fast are you transferring files?

 

In the taskmanager networking tab, whats the 'Network Utilization' percentage? I find that if I hit around 50% on a 100mb connection, the computer that is uploading grinds to a halt.

 

I guess the hard disks (DMA 33) Just cant keep up with the network speed. But that doesn't explain why it's only the computer sending.

 

Anyway, I wish there was some way to limit the speed that windows file sharing can run at.

 

Make sure your hard disks are running in DMA mode. I also saw a tweak somewhere about using the NIC's processor rathere than the CPU (DMA Network cards)....

[pmistry 0]

thanks for the suggestions.

 

I will look for that NIC processor tweak and look into DMA for my Network card.

 

As for the CPU usage it tops up when we transfer fairly large files/directories, 50 megs or higher. Network utilization is still low though, but CPU is high, strange...after I enabled full duplex it has been running a lot better with high CPU usage not showing up as much.

 

The LAN speed is 100 mbs. My hard disk is ATA66, 7200RPM, but can run at ATA100 if I add an ATA100 card. All CD drives are DMA as well.

[pcdabbler 0]

I have three systems, all win XP PRO networked thro a switch and ADSL Modem, two of them really fly on large file transfers PC to PC (80% network utilisation)one is a P4 the other Athlon 1600+

but the third is at 100% CPU and 18% on large files. WIERD .. All have 3com 3C905's.

 

The slow machine is a 1G P3 with loads of RAM. I expected it would be slower, but not this much ? I have not installed QOS on any of them and have added the reg entry to disable QOS in software . .Anybody any ideas ?

[uboofer 0]

Make sure if you change controllers on your XP box you have a way of editing the BOOT.INI. NT uses it to locate the windows directory and if it cannot find it right away it will start lokking for it which will make loading very slow.

[pcdabbler 0]

I have fond the later 3com 509C's give better performance on Windows XP. Roughly ..

 

3com 3com 509-TX 80% network utilisation 60% CPU (on 2G P4)

 

3Com 509C-TX 80% Network utilisation 25% CPU (on 2G P4)

 

The later "C" cards are quite a bit better ....

 

Also just swapping the NIC PCI slots on one box reduced CPU utilisation dramatically, so may have been a slight conflict there, but nothing showing in control panel nor any other problems ?

[pcdabbler 0]

Just to clarify, swapping the network card on the P3 system to a different slot cleared up the 100% CPU usage problem. Must have been a conflict. Network cards can be fussy, but apart from the CPU usage, there were no other symptoms . .