Author Topic: Need some help reducing CPU useage (Read 1823 times)

tig · « **on:** November 06, 2005, 11:04:40 am »

hey all, thanks again for the great site.
I have connected as a primary and replace zonealarm with sygate and everything it running smoothly.
I realised my cpu was running hotter than expected, and then realised that winmx and sherwood were taking up about 50% cpu time between them.
I have winxp, celeron 1.8 running 2, 640 meg of ram
winmx 3.54, mxmonitor and sherwood.
primary connection, with 9out and 13.5 in.
at the time i had 7primaries and 13secondaries
winmx is having an effect on my encoding
I read a few other posts and tried that ipconfig /flushdns command but the cmd line came back that the execution failed.
winmx search thread duty cycle is 40%
can someone help me reduce the cpu time being used.
what does the winmx main thread priority setting do?
cheers for any help you can provide.

Me Here · « **Reply #1 on:** November 06, 2005, 07:45:57 pm »

Hey Silicon_toad2000
First off, thanks

The CPU is something that some folks have more trouble with then others, this has to do with your system set up but also with your activity on the Network.

Sounds like the set up is not the problem, so then I would start looking at the extra programs you have running.

So here are a few ?s for you.

Are you on the 1.9 dll patch, if so that has a block function built in and maybe you wouldnt need to run sherwood on top of the WinMX.
We share virtually the same block list, and I dont see the need for both.

If your not on the .dll, sometimes using a hosts file solution can also increase resources needed, and I have had a few folks tell me the cpu usage is high with a hosts file fix.

Knowing what little I do about encoding, I do know it may be difficult to run WinMX to full capacity while your doing this. If youre like most that I know of, not running WinMX is not an option.. lol. But if your not uploading or downloading you might consider RoboMX for just chat functions.
If you are downloading and uploading then I would turn down the Allocated Bandwidth to the network in times of encoding. Also you might want to limit your outgoing Bandwidth at these times.

As for the Search Thread Priority and the Search Thread Duty Cycle. They should be set at 40% and IDLE (recommended) as you have them now.

What are the Search Thread Priority settings for:
They effect only Primary users. They determine how much processor time is devoted to managing search requests.

Thats about the extent of settings that I can think of that might help increase your performance and decrease your CPU usage with the three programs..

tig · « **Reply #2 on:** November 06, 2005, 09:00:58 pm »

I've downloaded quite a few things in regard to winmx, how can I double check if the dll was one of them, where should it be?

I have a few things running in the background, but winmx is the hog.

what about the main thread priority in the misc menu on settings, what does that do?

I did use a patch from vladds page that had to do with a hosts file.

Me Here · « **Reply #3 on:** November 06, 2005, 09:47:16 pm »

Okay

The Install 1.9 Patch is the .dll and it would be located in your C:\Program Files\WinMX folder. The file name is ws2_32.dll.

The Main Thread Priority is this:

This determines how much processor time is devoted to the entire WinMX program.

To be honest there is not alot of information regarding the settings for this and in theory it sounds like you could increase performance by lowering this, however not knowing enough about the pros and cons of that action I cant recommend it at this time. I will look into this further when I can.

The Patch offered on that site is the hosts file. Again its up to you if you decide to try the dll its not difficult to go back to a hosts file if you decide your not happy with the 1.9 patch.

The 1.9 Patch can be found here along with some further information.
https://www.winmxworld.com/tutorials/winmx_fix.html

Let me know if you have any other questions..

Neutron · « **Reply #4 on:** November 07, 2005, 01:42:34 am »

When you are running a primary connection, you get a lot of traffic from many IPs at once.
I think Sygate could be the issue, because it has to check the block/don't block rules for every single IP you are in contact with on the network. I tried Sygate myself, and it had some problems with handling lots of traffic from different IPs. You can try deactivating sygate for just a minute to see if it lowers the CPU usage.
- Also make sure you have the RPC/blaster worm patch from windows update before deactivating it, or you may get your computer infected. If sygate seems to be the issue, well, you'll probably have to find another firewall, (or not use one at all :p ) but that is up to you. Please tell me if this seems to the the cause, I always wanted to know if others have had issues with sygate too. And good luck!

tig · « **Reply #5 on:** November 07, 2005, 09:41:25 am »

ok, I have the 1.9 patch. So you say this means I don't need to run sherwood? Does the .dll get regular upgraded IP's?

I downloaded the hosts file fix before I installed the 1.9 patch, do I need to delete those host files or undo the hosts file fix? I'm pretty sure I remeber where it went coz its the same place I put the IP addy's of my favourites to save on DNS lookup time. Do you think if I delete the hosts file it may decrease winmx's cpu needs? I'll give it a go and see what happens.

I had a think about the main thread priority, I think it's not the priority thats the problem, its winmx's greedy needs, if its high priority or not, winmx will still need that number of cpu cycles.

I tried turning off sygate, I didn't make any difference, winmx was still as needy as ever. sygate doesn't seem to be needing much cpu time, its winmx and sherwood to a lesser extent. I am now confident I can shut down sherwood without exposing the winmx community to a greater risk from the RIAA as I have the 1.9 patch.

tig · « **Reply #6 on:** November 07, 2005, 10:01:33 am »

actually I think it might be best to wait till I hear back before I go deleting stuff.

Neutron · « **Reply #7 on:** November 07, 2005, 01:36:29 pm »

You can undo the changes to the hosts file just fine as long as you know what you're doing

Just delete any line ending in .winmx.com, and leave the loopback IP and comments there like they are. if you've already done manual changes to the hosts file before, then it should be easy for you.

tig · « **Reply #8 on:** November 08, 2005, 10:26:00 am »

well I went through and deleted all the winmx entries from the hosts files, problem is that I can't give an accurate comparrison for another 15days, my damn ISP has my data useage shaped. So i dont have the dandwidth to support the same activity level, I'll let you guys know how it compares when its all back to normal