High CPU utilization

Posted by: Anonymous

High CPU utilization - 06/27/05 04:11 PM

Is it normal that multiping takes all CPU and computer runnign multiping becomes unusable when we monitor up to 300 hosts in Multiping?
Posted by: Pete Ness

Re: High CPU utilization - 06/27/05 04:16 PM

Under most conditions, this is not normal, although there are some possible reasons why this could happen.

1) Windows 9x machines don't behave well with a lot of targets. The standard ICMP mechanism in Windows 9x takes a lot of CPU for each outstanding thread. Windows NT based systems are recommended for a lot of targets.
2) Really fast ping intervals, coupled with sorted target lists means that the target list changes a lot, which can cause excessive CPU use. This is particularly a problem where the sort order of the target list changes a lot (ie: you're sorting by latency or packet loss).

If you let us know a bit about your configuration, we'll be happy to help you get this solved.

- Pete
Posted by: Anonymous

Re: High CPU utilization - 06/27/05 04:19 PM

I can send a configuration.... it is very big problem for us. We need to ping with packet size about 512 bytes, with frequency up to 10-30s per host and we need to sort it by packetlose and time of reply.
Posted by: Pete Ness

Re: High CPU utilization - 06/27/05 04:22 PM

Please send your MultiPing.ini file and your workspace file (File -> Save Workspace) to support@nessoft.com.
Posted by: Anonymous

Re: High CPU utilization - 06/27/05 04:32 PM

sent...
Posted by: Pete Ness

Re: High CPU utilization - 06/27/05 05:01 PM

With that many targets (257), you really don't want to default to showing time graphs for all your targets. That's going to be a significant issue because each new sample causes a repaint for all time graphs, so you're going to be constantly recalculating and repainting time graphs that aren't displayed.

For best results, hide all your time graphs, and then manually turn on time graphs when you want to compare a few.

This will get your startup time down to pretty much instantaneous (although MultiPing will still use all its available threads to resolve the names of all these targets - which will take a few seconds, although it won't take a lot of CPU time). (Turn off "Auto-Show added graphs" as well, to keep things under control easily).

Then, you can drop your "Time interval between pings" down to about 50 (which will exercise about 20 pings a second instead of the 3 per second you currently have). Note that with 512 byte packets, your going to need to understand your bandwidth limit, but that's a pretty easily calculation.

This should help *significantly* with CPU time. For regular data collection, just sort by IP or name - then when you're reviewing results, sort it by packet loss or latency - this shouldn't really cause you any CPU problems.

Let us know how this works (I'm duplicating this back to you via email).

- Pete