Re: 2.4.12-ac4 10Mbit NE2k interrupt load kills p166

[Samium Gromoff]

"  Urban Widmark wrote:"
> >        Hello folks...
> > 
> > 	Host A: p166, ISA NE2K, linux-2.4.12-ac4
> > 	Host B: p2-400, rtl-8129, WinXP (heh, not my box though ;)
> > 
> > 	Load: smbmount connection from host A to the host B, and getting
> >      large files.
> 
> You don't say if any of the tests you did are related to smbfs. I suspect
> this reasoning is completely irrelevant (not, that it has stopped me
> before ... :)
> 
> smbfs is not the fastest thing around. I think the slowness on some
> operations is related to how it waits after sending each request.
> 
>      process A				  process B
>    get semaphore
>    request 4096 bytes			wait on semaphore
>    ... wait for network ...
>    read packet
>    read packet
>    read packet
>    release semaphore
> 					get semaphore
> 					request 4096 bytes
> 
> It could send the second request without waiting for the first to complete
> (if it knew how to separate the responses). Doing that should speed things
> up.
> 
> If you play mp3's over smbfs while also doing something else I suppose the
> delay could become noticable. I can't explain the other effects, so
> possibly this is unrelated to smbfs.
> 
> You could make me happy by repeating the tests, but generating the network
> load with something else (http?).
> 
> /Urban
> 
> 
> 
        1. /dev/hda is -u1d1 `ed, and the disc load is near to not existent
	2. mp3 is placed locally

cheers, Samium Gromoff