Is there any way to optimize your ethernet card for better performance?

[kismatic]

Just wondering if anyone know any way to optimize your network card?

Mines an AOpen NE2000
I use Windows 98

[cyberskye]

On this site there is a description of how to allocate resources to your NIC -- helps some configurations but not others.

Check out the tweaking/patching section off the main page.

[YeOldeStonecat]

I've yet to see those IRQ memory assignments work, but the best way is to spend some money and get a good NIC. I believe in 3COM and Intel only cards. (3COM 905 series is my favorite)

Download and install the latest drivers is a rule of thumb for anything.

Better network cards have drivers that let you choose optimization of CPU usage vs network throughput.

A network card is not just a network card, it's like any other peripheral in your computer, you can get the cheap 9 dollar version from some catalog, or a honkin unit that costs more, but performs much better.

[Stef]

An Interrupt Request is issued by a hardware device when it needs its registers to be processed by the CPU. Assigning memory to an IRQ of a hardware device (if the firware permits it so) would actually decrease the efficientcy of the device.

Some ethernet cards, like 3Com and Intel, permit you to change the maximum number of processes before calling an interrupt. This can only be done through the devices firmware (driver) since an OS has no conceptual idea about a devices physical capabilities.

Ex: I have a 3Com 3c509B card running under Debian GNU/Linux. This device is connected to my DSL connection.

It is stated in the drivers documentation that the driver can pre-alocate 1536 bytes to a receiving network buffer. The card can also do up to 32 send/receive functions within an interrupt loop. These settings are factury default and are usually satisfactory for a normal 10/100Mbps network connection.

I have found, that if I reduce my network cards firware settings to compensate for a high-latency network connection (DSL compared to a LAN) I get better performance.

I have set my receive buffer to 640bytes and also reduce the number to functions within an interrupt to 20 and have found this to work much better.

BTW, NE2000 cards and there clones aren't exactly the best network cards. Most arent capable of holding a "true" full-duplex conversation and don't handle flow control very well either.

Stef

Ohh!! I almost forgot, Microsoft has absolutely no documentation whatsoever about Speedguide's famouns IRQ setting under SYSTEM.INI

:D