[mythtv-users] dropped frames on wlan access.

[Andrew Dodd]

Quoting Jason Ferrara <jason at discordia.org>:


> I looked a little more carefully. ssh itself isn't using up the cpu, 
> but the system cpu time
> shoots way up (to around 60%, with mythbackend and shh using up the 
> rest) and the idle time
> drops to zero. So I guess the prism2_pci driver is using up all the cpu?
> 
> I tried nicing ssh anyway and it didn't make a difference.
I sort of remember this back when I used prism2 cards.  They had unusually high
CPU usage.

It's been quite a while though.  Except for the Demarctech cards, your average
Prism2 card has a crap receiver.  My Prism2s won't get a signal in most rooms
upstairs in my house, while my Orinoco Silver gets excellent signal strength
anywhere in the house.

I'll check sometime to see what the CPU usage is like on my Orinoco again.

FYI, my experience has been that nearly all desktop WLAN solutions leave much to
be desired.  My experiences:

Integrated PCI Prism2.5-based card - 50%+ packet loss under Windows, 25%+ under
Linux, despite reporting 100% signal strength.  I think it was a D-Link DWL-520.
Orinoco in PCI-to-PCMCIA adapter - Would not function at all under Windows,
worked under Linux only if I passed some weird options to the PCMCIA bridge drivers.
Linksys WET11 Ethernet-to-802.11 bridge - Even with latest firmware and a
replacement unit, it crashes instantly if connected to a hub.

My advice, if it's a desktop machine (You mention PCI, so it must be), just run
some Cat5.  You won't regret it.

On the other hand, the Orinoco Silver I use in my Dell Inspiron 8200 is nearly
fast enough to play video recorded at 6.5 Mbit/s.  But only nearly, it's not
quite there.