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Reducing CPU utilization for better system performance

BTRY B 529th FA BN

BTRY B 529th FA BN

Lifer
I'm looking to reduce my CPU utilization as much as I can. I can feel my system's responsiveness change while my network activity increases. Is there a network card to help this, or specific network adapter settings that help reduce CPU utilization?
 
Well... I have seen a max of 4% CPU utilization on Nehalm based Xeons when loading 6 ports with iSCSI (moving well over 650MB/s to the SAN so I would be very surprised if this is nothing more than a driver issue or even a figment of you imagination really. What often happen is the loading is causing latency on your internet connection or the application generating the network load itself is eating CPU. Processing a pure TCP/IP frame is not a lot of CPU on the home scale.

If that last 1-2% (I am being really generous here) is important when you are pushing 120MB/s out of the gig port then pick up something like the Intel 1000PT with an offloading engine.
 
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imagoon said:
If that last 1-2% (I am being really generous here) is important when you are pushing 120MB/s out of the gig port then pick up something like the Intel 1000PT with an offloading engine.
Click to expand...

What else are these puppies offloading besides checksums?
Pretty much any NIC shipped in the last ~4 years (even on-board realtek nics) have been offloading TCP checksums with Vista or newer (which can offer a nice performance boost if you're pushing TONS of packets through older/slower CPUs - much less important in modern chips).
 
dawks said:
What else are these puppies offloading besides checksums?
Pretty much any NIC shipped in the last ~4 years (even on-board realtek nics) have been offloading TCP checksums with Vista or newer (which can offer a nice performance boost if you're pushing TONS of packets through older/slower CPUs - much less important in modern chips).
Click to expand...

There is TCP offload, UDP offload, IPv4 offload, large send offload, interrupt offload (ie the NIC can receive a ton of sequential frames and generate only 1 interrupt per 4 / 16 / 256 frames etc and move them to the system in bulk.)

The TCP / UDP / IPv4 stuff is checksum offloading. The load on the CPU in these cases is minimal but when working in the server world eeking out another 5% can scale up based hosts. IE 5% CPU released scaled to 1000 boxes = 5000% "cpu" released to something else.
 
I am not sure that using expensive hardware that might alleviated some issue on complicated High traffic Networks is going to do any thing for and Enthusiasts that thinks (Feels) that is computer is a little sluggish because one of the task data screen show high CPU utilization that might or might even be relevant to the "Feeling" of Slow.



😎
 
JackMDS said:
I am not sure that using expensive hardware that might alleviated some issue on complicated High traffic Networks is going to do any thing for and Enthusiasts that thinks (Feels) that is computer is a little sluggish because one of the task data screen show high CPU utilization that might or might even be relevant to the "Feeling" of Slow.



😎
Click to expand...

Me either, hence me mentioning that in post #2 😉
 
This is an App that Optimizes the NIC's TCP/IP configuration to max Network traffic.


😎
 
The one you posted doesn't do full offloading so it will still be using the CPU. As other people mentioned, if that 1-2% CPU usage really matters to you, you'll have to pay the big bucks for a network adapter that is capable of making a difference, such as the one that imagoon posted.
 
Fardringle said:
The one you posted doesn't do full offloading so it will still be using the CPU. As other people mentioned, if that 1-2% CPU usage really matters to you, you'll have to pay the big bucks for a network adapter that is capable of making a difference, such as the one that imagoon posted.
Click to expand...

Is there an onboard processor on that thing? How does it better the one I have? just curios

thanks 🙂
 
BTRY B 529th FA BN said:
Is there an onboard processor on that thing? How does it better the one I have? just curios

thanks 🙂
Click to expand...

Yes, the PT / MT lines have a dedicated IO Processor and are "server class" (has the ability to boot iSCSI etc not that it is relevant here.) CT lines are desktop adapters that only have portions of the offload engines and sometimes requires the CPU to pull the strings similar to CPU based RAID Chips.
 
If you have crazy dirty signal for eg from a CAT line going over a failing light ballest or oxidize RJ45 connector and plug, you can get lag that would seem high CPU util.

Check all your droplines and remove/replace POS patch cables, Its a free peace of mind.

Just sayin.
 
BTRY B 529th FA BN said:
I'm looking to reduce my CPU utilization as much as I can. I can feel my system's responsiveness change while my network activity increases. Is there a network card to help this, or specific network adapter settings that help reduce CPU utilization?
Click to expand...

Are you sure its your cpu slowing down due to network demands making your cpu unresponsive?
What OS are you using? XP did have that half open connection limit which would make browsing very slow if you are running some file sharing app. Vista SP2/Win7 don't have that problem any more I think. Or it could be your router being overloaded and slowing down.
 
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