Coping some files with a ne2k card on linux, pentium 133mhz caused mp3 playing to go bonkers from being overload. Switching to a better card fixed it.
Was it the hw, or the driver? Shrug, I don't know. But the experience sucked.
Was it the hw, or the driver? Shrug, I don't know. But the experience sucked.
You could have even ended up with a double whammy if not careful. Your hard drive and network might both have relied on the CPU for data transfer in which case the system would really have ground to a halt.
I could be completely wrong, though. But yes we knew then that ISA was crap, relatively speaking. :-)
Shared memory or bus master cards are easier on the CPU. Some compute and pass checksums too, which offloads more cpu.
PCI made most of that go away with its introduction, hence me wondering what the replacement card was.