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Date:      Tue, 1 Mar 2005 16:12:23 -0800
From:      "Loren M. Lang" <lorenl@alzatex.com>
To:        Christopher Kelley <bsd@kelleycows.com>
Cc:        freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: Does 802.11b use a lot of resources?
Message-ID:  <20050302001223.GA30896@alzatex.com>
In-Reply-To: <421EB26B.5050608@kelleycows.com>
References:  <421EB26B.5050608@kelleycows.com>

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On Thu, Feb 24, 2005 at 09:06:51PM -0800, Christopher Kelley wrote:
> Have I tried too hard to squeeze usability out of an old computer?
> 
> I have a Pentium-166 that has been a faithful router & firewall (FreeBSD 
> 5.3 and pf) for a couple years now.  It has no trouble with the 3 to 4 
> Mbps I get from my broadband connection, at least not with ethernet.
> 
> I wanted wireless, so I could use my laptop around the house.  I 
> dutifully read the section in the manual about setting up FreeBSD as an 
> access point. I'm using a Netgear MA311 802.11b card (Prism 2.5 
> chipset).  And it does work, except it's very slow.  Now I know that I 
> can only expect about 50% of the rated speed with wireless, but I 

I thought it was more like only 10% of the rated bandwidth.

> figured even if I got only 4Mbps, I'd be fine.  But I get less than 
> 1Mbps.  I've updated the firmware, added a signal booster and hi-gain 
> antenna, and I have "excellent" signal strength throughout my house.
> 
> So my question is, is there more overhead with wireless than with 
> ethernet?  TOP doesn't seem to show that I'm taxing it too hard, idle 
> never goes below about 70% with polling enabled (Hz=1000), and never 
> below about 80% with polling disabled.  Am I expecting too much out of 
> an old Pentium-166?
> 
> Thanks for your help.
> 
> Christopher
> 
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-- 
I sense much NT in you.
NT leads to Bluescreen.
Bluescreen leads to downtime.
Downtime leads to suffering.
NT is the path to the darkside.
Powerful Unix is.

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