2.4.12-ac4 10Mbit NE2k interrupt load kills p166

Samium Gromoff
2001-10-25T19:56:18Z

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.

Result:
a) modem dies completely - drops ppp packets at the rate of 75%,
irqtune doesnt affect this behaviour at all

b) mpg123 sound becomes corrupted, as if its interrupted
with rate of 100Hz for a very little amount of time,
irqtune doesnt affect this behaviour at all

c) CPU load does not depend on whether mpg123 is started,
ie at the moment mpg123 exits, system cpu usage pops up.

d) complete stopping sound (killing esd which leads to
the fact that soundcard stops to emit interrupts), increases
network copy performance by the factor of 1.2

e) renicing ksoftirqd doesnt affect the behaviour at all

f) renicing mc increases copy performance my the factor of 1.2

Now i`m compiling the 2.4.13-linus to test it either...

cheers, Samium Gromoff