Subject: Communicator performance degragation on DHCP client

From: Gene Woltz <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 19 Nov 1998 15:48:29 -0500 (EST)

Subject: Communicator performance degradation on DHCP client

We recently reconfigured our computer system as a DHCP
client (what a bitch that was) in order to subscribe to
US West's ADSL MegaBit service (wanted things to go faster).
We converted from a PPP/serial modem connection to an ethernet/ADSL
modem connection.

After converting to a DHCP client Communicator
exhibited a very significant performance degradation
(it's really really slow), though it functions correctly.
This increased utilization of system resources by the browser
also impacts other system processes (can't do anything else).
There appears to be a significant increase in disk activity
(the disks are going crazy), but this has not been confirmed or
quantified (drives are making more noise than usual).

System performance appears to be normal (though performance
and 725/50 should not be used in the same sentence) when
Communicator is not operating, but no benchmarks were
taken before the conversion to a DHCP client
(who would have figured DHCP would kill Communicator).

Any input would be most appreciated (help!).

Reference Information:

System:   HP 725/50 Workstation
OS:       UNIX - HP-UX 11.00 (latest patches applied)
Netscape: Communicator v4.50

Thanks,
Gene

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From: [email-masked] (by way of Ralph Droms)
Date: Thu, 19 Nov 1998 21:06:09 -0500 (EST)

message sent to [email-masked] by [email-masked] follows.
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Is it possible that your machine is getting different parameters
through the DHCP client than it was getting through the PPP server,
and that these parameters are suboptimal?   What leads you to suspect
the DHCP client in particular, BTW - you've changed your network
access method as well, and that could also be causing some sort of
problem, couldn't it?

			       _MelloN_

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From: "Robert Breen" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 1998 22:41:35 -0500 (EST)

Just a wild guess, but could the lease time be so short that the DHCP
client is spending much of it's time renewing leases?

Bob Breen

----------
> From: Gene Woltz <[email-masked]>
> To: Multiple recipients of list <[email-masked]>
> Subject: Communicator performance degragation on DHCP client
> Date: Thursday, November 19, 1998 2:50 PM
> 
>

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From: Biswajit Tripathy <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1998 00:31:16 -0500 (EST)

Yes, I also have same feeling about this whole thing as Bob.

   Let me get it  correctly,  you  are  saying  that  you  system
   performence  is  bad  _only_  when  you  are  running  netscape.
   Otherwise it is okay.  Right? My experience with netscape 4.04
   is that it's pretty slow when you open more than couple of
   communicators.

   At the end of your  mail, you have  said  that you have  HP-UX
   11.0 with latest patch.  What's the patch number?  Because I'm
   the owner of DHCP in HP and I don't  remember  giving any DHCP
   patch for 11.0 (though I will be giving one in near future).

--
Regards,
Biswajit Tripathy, HP-UX Networking
Hewlett Packard   Ph +91 (80) 225 1554, Xtn 1271
Bangalore, INDIA