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    Netbook (Atom) wifi and CPU load

    Discussion in 'Hardware Components and Aftermarket Upgrades' started by swiego, Jul 17, 2009.

  1. swiego

    swiego Notebook Consultant

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    I have a Toshiba nb205 with Wifi enabled. I happen to be running Windows 7 (all auto drivers).

    What I've noticed, when copying files to or from this netbook, CPU gets pegged at 100%. I get decent bandwidth, in fact transfers of 8 to 9 megabytes per second, but I'm pegging out the CPU. Half or more of this shows up as kernel time in task manager.

    I'm trying to figure out which is the case:

    - My particular netbook and Windows 7 RC combination has unfinished wifi drivers that just aren't optimized, or

    - Atom N280 does not have the horsepower to handle packet management for a 100mbit wireless connection. (which would be scary.)

    Could any N270/N280 owners here post your CPU load under either XP or W7 under a network stress test, and let me know? I am trying to determine whether I have a config issue to work out, or whether the Atom is just limited in this way.
     
    swiego, Jul 17, 2009
    #1
  2. namaiki

    namaiki "basically rocks" Super Moderator

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    I would understand if there was high CPU usage with transfers to USB devices, but what do you mean by 100mbit wireless connection? Do you mean some wireless-n thing?
     
    namaiki, Jul 17, 2009
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  3. jackluo923

    jackluo923 Notebook Virtuoso

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    100% cpu usage transferring at 12Mbps
     
    jackluo923, Jul 17, 2009
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  4. swiego

    swiego Notebook Consultant

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    Yikes, okay.

    Well I guess that answers the other person's question about why there is no wireless N on netbooks. Atom just doesn't have the horsepower for that kind of bandwidth.
     
    swiego, Jul 17, 2009
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  5. paper_wastage

    paper_wastage Beat this 7x7x7 Cube

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    no.. it might be the RAM or HDD issues...
     
    paper_wastage, Jul 17, 2009
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  6. jackluo923

    jackluo923 Notebook Virtuoso

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    First of all, the CPu doesn't control the RAM, thus there's virtually no cpu load when accessing the ram. RAM is controlled by the NB.

    Unless the HDD is set in PIO mode, there's virtually no CPU load when accessing HDD either. Since the HDD in normal condition are set to access in DMA mode, most of the processing is done on the NB as well.
     
    jackluo923, Jul 17, 2009
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  7. swiego

    swiego Notebook Consultant

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    It's wifi.

    I can use hdtach and get 50-60MB/sec on my netbook hard drive.

    Wireless, 8MB/sec caps it out.

    Interestingly, as a consequence, I get better performance watching hulu over a wired connection where the CPU overhead seems to be lower.
     
    swiego, Jul 19, 2009
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  8. jackluo923

    jackluo923 Notebook Virtuoso

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    I use a wireless lan adapter (asus wl 330ge). I can get more than 28Mbps transfer rate through the lan port on my wifi network.
     
    jackluo923, Jul 19, 2009
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  9. zOne31

    zOne31 Notebook Consultant

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    Okay. Can someone explain his in easier terms because I do not understand what most of this meant, lol. I too have the Toshiba NB205 with 2 GB RAM and Windows 7 RC and I too see the CPU hit 100% and there are lag times between loading programs (I do basic netbook activity). So, from what I understand, you're saying is that the Atom processor can't handle the Wifi transfer rate while using Windows 7? or am I completely wrong?
     
    zOne31, Jul 21, 2009
    #9