cpu @ 100% during file transfer

[saimike]

my fileserver is a 1.1ghz celery with a linksys nic and many huge hdd's connected via a pci ata133 controller (see below).

i've noticed that transfering files to/from the file server, my cpu load will be pegged at 100% or just slightly less. indeed, the cpu load seems proportional to the data rate. i'm currently getting about 48mbps to my laptop (prob limited by the hdd?) and 60mbps to my gaming rig.

any ideas? my bro suggested that the linksys nic could be chewing up the cpu cycles, and a higher end intel/3com nic could solve the prob.

edit: it's actually hitting ~90% sometimes ... and 100% other times.

 

[InlineFive]

First make sure that you have all the appropriate drivers installed and BusMaster is enabled in the BIOS (if it is there). See what that does.

 

[saimike]

i have the latest linksys drivers installed. not too sure about busmaster tho', it is a rather old bf6 ... does it do busmaster?

 

[saimike]

some process info ... seems like 2 processes r hogging the cpu:

smc.exe is hitting 48-60%
system is hitting 31-44%

the only things i have running are njstar, sygate firewall and antivir.

 

[InlineFive]

smc.exe is your firewall. Maybe it is bogging down the system by scanning all of the traffic.

 

[saimike]

after trying out sygate, kerio and zonealarm, it seems that zonealarm is my best choice ... this is what i measured:

sygate: 90-100% cpu and 48-58mbps
kerio: 100% cpu and <30mbps
zonealarm: 36% cpu and 73-78mbps

this is through a linksys hub ...

 

[spidey07]

Originally posted by: saimike
after trying out sygate, kerio and zonealarm, it seems that zonealarm is my best choice ... this is what i measured:

sygate: 90-100% cpu and 48-58mbps
kerio: 100% cpu and <30mbps
zonealarm: 36% cpu and 73-78mbps

this is through a linksys hub ...

nice test!

 

[InlineFive]

Originally posted by: spidey07

Originally posted by: saimike
after trying out sygate, kerio and zonealarm, it seems that zonealarm is my best choice ... this is what i measured:

sygate: 90-100% cpu and 48-58mbps
kerio: 100% cpu and <30mbps
zonealarm: 36% cpu and 73-78mbps

this is through a linksys hub ...

nice test!

I agree, well done. 🙂 If you have WinXP SP2 consider testing that firewall as it's pretty lightweight.

 

[JackMDS]

Originally posted by: saimike
after trying out sygate, kerio and zonealarm, it seems that zonealarm is my best choice ... this is what i measured:

sygate: 90-100% cpu and 48-58mbps
kerio: 100% cpu and <30mbps
zonealarm: 36% cpu and 73-78mbps

Nice info.

Did you measure while the Firewall is On for LAN traffic in all cases. I.e. your LAN computers are Not in the Trusted Zone one Firewall and In the Trusted Zone on another.

:sun:

 

[saimike]

thanks for the compliments everyone 🙂

this was with 2 pc's in the trusted zone ... they r connected via a linksys 8port hub. (cable router hangs off that) ... i only spent ~15min with kerio so i might hv not gotten that measurement right. but i used to use ZA so i'm very familiar with that and i've used sygate for a few months. so at least the measurements with those 2 firewalls r accurate.

i'm still on win2k so no winxp testing for now 🙂