Topic: Speed of cpu affect bandwidth?

[Doug McCaughan]

Hello All!

I am using e-smith server purely as a gateway that routes ip from my cable modem to my lan. However, my connection seems significantly slower when I have the e-smith server connect as opposed to connecting a machine directly to the cable modem. My e-smith server is set up on a P-166+ Cyrix.

Does the speed of the processor affect transfer speed?

Many thanks!
Doug

[Franck PIERRE]

My e-smith box is an AMD K5-133 with 64 MB of RAM.
I have a DSL connection (512/128 kbps) and i really do not have any problem to download files at more than 60 kB/s

My CPU stats show that only 7 or 8 % of the CPU time is used !
So, I don't think your problem comes from your P166+.

Regards.

[Paul]

Doug McCaughan wrote:
>
> Hello All!
>
> I am using e-smith server purely as a gateway that routes ip
> from my cable modem to my lan. However, my connection seems
> significantly slower when I have the e-smith server connect
> as opposed to connecting a machine directly to the cable
> modem. My e-smith server is set up on a P-166+ Cyrix.
>
> Does the speed of the processor affect transfer speed?

Short answer is no.  Packet routing/filtering requires very little overhead.  Usually a slowdown such as this is related to the ethernet -- by placing an e-smith server between your computer and cable modem you have just introduced two ethernet adapters (and most likely a hub/switch) into the equation.  Changing network cards often fixes this problem.  If you are using a hub, use a cross-over cable to patch directly into the server and see if that improves your connection.

HTH,
Paul