From owner-freebsd-hackers  Thu Nov  6 19:30:55 1997
Return-Path: <owner-freebsd-hackers>
Received: (from root@localhost)
          by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id TAA04966
          for hackers-outgoing; Thu, 6 Nov 1997 19:30:55 -0800 (PST)
          (envelope-from owner-freebsd-hackers)
Received: from monk.via.net (monk.via.net [140.174.204.10])
          by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id TAA04958
          for <hackers@freebsd.org>; Thu, 6 Nov 1997 19:30:53 -0800 (PST)
          (envelope-from joe@via.net)
Received: (from joe@localhost) by monk.via.net (8.6.11/8.6.12) id TAA11526 for hackers@freebsd.org; Thu, 6 Nov 1997 19:20:38 -0800
Date: Thu, 6 Nov 1997 19:20:38 -0800
From: Joe McGuckin <joe@via.net>
Message-Id: <199711070320.TAA11526@monk.via.net>
To: hackers@freebsd.org
Subject: Resolution of: 'sys' is consuming %50 of cpu
X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII
Sender: owner-freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org
X-Loop: FreeBSD.org
Precedence: bulk


After replacing the 3COM 3C509 with an Intel Etherexpress 100/B card, 
system usage dropped from  75% to 30%.

I've noticed something else: The load average hovers around 5-10. On the old
machine (200Mhz MMX Pentium) is stayed pegged at 50. The 300Mhz Pentium II
is supposed to be twice as fast as the 200Mhz MMX Pentium. I was expecting 
load values in the 25-30 range.

This makes me think that there's some kernel resource that I was running out
of - that once I hit that limit, the kernel would get bogged down.

Joe