saltfish

Ok, Quick Question:

I have a K62-266 running XP Pro/256MB/190GB/10-100PCI-Nic/ATA133-Raid-PCI

Would I get better tranfer rates from/to the drives if I used a ISA 10/100 Nic? Thus not saturating the PCI bus?

I know there is a 66MHZ bus for the PCI and I am using approx 33Mbps for the NIC off the network and 33Mbps for the IDE controller to store the data. Would changing to an ISA nic help to divert some of the load off the PCI bus?

All in all, I'm trying to avoid spending more money to build a machine that is faster than my main box, just for it to sit and eat data...

Suggestions?



-SF

jfranco13

That's an interesting question. I want to say that it doesn't work that way, that PCI somehow shares access to the MoBo such that all the slots get 66mhz, but I can't say that I know for sure.

Certainly, if it was possible, replacing the video card with one that has lots of on-board RAM, or upgrading to an AGP card, might help clear things up.,

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arch13

Often the first PCI slot and the AGP bus share their bus though not neccisarily at the same bus speed, then the next three PCI slots share a bus, and then the last PCI slot (if there is one) shares it with a legacy ISA slot.
Thus the last PCI slot on ISA boards is where you never want a fast peripheral.
Likewise, many Intel boards freak out if you make the AGP card share the AGP/ 1st PCI bus with a hardware based nic since both demand similar interupts.
Also, if you place a Vid card in Pci 0 (ie the first pci slot) the motherboard will shut off the AGP slot, thus making PCI 0 a single slot with an independant bus since it needs to make up for the slower bus speed of PCI compared to the AGP.
Since bus speeds are controlled by the chipset, you can have the AGP and PCI 0 share a bus but use different speeds since the chipset will utilize the programed bus speed of the in use peripheral as needed. You just have to make sure that you don't use similar interupts in each bus.
Therfore, keep your NIC or modem one bus away from your Video card and let the system assign resources if your making anything less than a server grade machine where all variables must be controlled exactly.
Hope this helps a little

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yotta

ISA will only get you about 20mpbs at the the most, if you manage to find a 10/100 ISA card.

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cliche

Generally speaking; ISA is not a good idea as it slows things down and uses the CPU lots... just keep the PCI cards away from each other as in arch13's explanation.

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saltfish

Good Ideas Guys! Thanks!

I really wish that this stuff was covered on the A+ when I took it 8 years ago.. ..assembling top of the line, 1st Gen Pentiums and not following PCI load balancing rules may have attributed to lackluster performance. I will have to keep this in mind for the future.
I've also played with a few more ideas. The AMD k6-266 is not server material. I've got a nice little PII-450 that is calling for the 'server' transformation.
All in all, when transfering oddles and gobs (several gigs of data at a time) across the network, over the day, the difference between 20Mps thuroughput and 75+Mps thuroughput will make quite a difference.

Thanks Again



-SF