wireless nic drops when cpu usage is high?

System is as follows:

-Soltek QBic EQ3801-300P with NForce 3 chipset, Bios Vers R1.8 (latest)
-apic is enabled in bios
-DLink DI-524 wireless router with newest firmware
-Trendnet TEW-424UB usb2.0 wireless NiC using driver 1.2.0.1 (latest)
-WinXp Pro SP2 with All updates
-Nforce driver version 5.10 (vers 5.11 causes bsod??) along with usb2.0 drivers


-i use windows wireless zero for my wireless config rather than the trendnet utility because the trendnet utility causes frequent random disconnects

-one wall and ~20-30 feet separate the wireless router from the adapter; signal strength is never an issue according to software

My problems?:

-wired networking using the onboard Nforce 3 nic seems to like dropping ip's... I recall reading somewhere that it sometimes helps to input the adapter's mac address in the "network address" box of the adapter's config, but no such luck with me. I thiiink i've also read somewhere that uninstalling the nforce ide drivers has helped but that's a distant memory and would like to avoid doing that if possible....

-my wireless network works fine until the cpu usage goes up (along with fan noise/rpm)....under heavy cpu intensive tasks the wireless network disconnects until the cpu usage goes down where it will again reconnect and work fine again..

any suggestions?? any insight/direction would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers,

Coho

Sounds like maybe your Wireless card and your video card are sharing an IRQ. It sounds nuts, but I've seen it happen. If you go into your device manager, you can view devices by resources and see if the video card is sharing an IRQ with the Network card.

If it is, you can probably go into the bios and reserve that particular IRQ for the video card. Windows likes to share IRQ's and sometimes doesn't choose wisely.

hey dfifo,

thanks for the tip,

yeah...i've noticed that despite disabling all unused devices in bios (floppy/ide/parallel/serial), my vid card is still sharing an irg with my network bus enumerator and my sata channel...

although i'm familiar with the concept of irq's... i've never ever had to deal with management so it's something new

- Wireless
You might remember the days of WinModems, where modems would offload packet processing and use CPU cycles instead of putting a chip on the modem to do it. Something similar is probably happening here with your wireless. Granted, packet processing should be nothing to the CPU. However other problems may compound it.

There's probably a driver problem lurking here somewhere. I would see about a PCI card, or trying a different USB wireless. Also, fiddle around with your USB settings in your bios.

I've had problems with Trendnet USB devices. It seems like they're kind of hit or miss. They either work or drive you insane with little glitches.

-Wired
A wired NIC should never drop an IP until the lease runs out. It's more likely that the router your plugging into is restarting for some reason. What are you connecting to ?


-Other random thoughts
I just looked up your Computer.. This a small form factor, so you've got to take heat or power problems into account here. What Video card are you running?

Try taking the case off and use it without the cover. Heat problems can manifest themselves in strange ways sometimes.

thanks again for the continued advice...

-as for usb settings in the bios...nothing much to set there... enable/disable.. and usb 2 versus 1.1.. naturally enable & 2 are where i'm at

-i would prefer to avoid using a pci nic as i only have 1 slot due to the sff case and at the moment i like it free because it's a vent for air to be drawn in for the cpu fan...and if i were to fill it it'd be with an aftermarket soundcard

-well...where i'm currently having the trouble (i'm housesitting for a while)...there is no router...direct connection to the adsl modem via cat5 using the onboard nic

-yeah the case is a sff but the results are the same with the temp at 16/17 deg celsius and at 22/23 (after i get home from work and turn the furnace on)...and similarly with the case on or off. I would also like to think that the thermalright xp90 and the panaflo 92mm fan cooling the cpu would be sufficient!?

-for what it's worth...the ip dropping problem has only manifested itself here at the housesitting place using cat5...it never occurred at home using the wireless.... BUT the problem with the entire network connection dropping (not simply the internet) occurs while using the wireless usb

-i do know that i was using my machine during christmastime at a friend's house through a router via cat5....and it was solid.... and i've since reformatted but everything is identical as newer official nforce3 drivers have not surfaced and i've formatted 1000 times before??? unless....somehow something weird may have happened during/after the install that i can't speculate on?