Cable modem causing low benchmark scores?

[M Powered]

This is weird, this has been happening for a while, and I can't figure out why.

My guess is that when my cable modem is on, it is constantly sending and recieving data causing my benchmarks to slow down.

With the modem on upon reboot, I get 86,xxx Aquamark3 scores, when the modem is off I get about 99,xxx.

This effects all the benchmarks, 3dmark is no exception.

Can someone tell me why this is happening? or what can I do to fix it? I don't want to turn my modem off and on every time I boot.

For Aqua Mark, the scores are as follows

Modem On GFX = 12,875
Modem Off GFX = 18,232

The CPU for both events are almost identical. 12,xxx

So obviously the modem has a lot to do with the GFX scores.

[gashman]

Is this a USB modem? If so maybe the modem has some software monitoring thing installed. Either way USB = CPU usage. If the modem has a network cable you might want to try connecting to the modem with that instead so it uses your network card to do some of the work (you might need to power down the modem before plugging it in if you do).

Alternatively you can do what I did and get a cheap NAT router and plug the modem into that, then the pc into the router. That way you dont have the hassle of the cable modem and you get the added bonus of a hardware NAT firewall.

[M Powered]

Is this a USB modem? If so maybe the modem has some software monitoring thing installed. Either way USB = CPU usage. If the modem has a network cable you might want to try connecting to the modem with that instead so it uses your network card to do some of the work (you might need to power down the modem before plugging it in if you do).

Alternatively you can do what I did and get a cheap NAT router and plug the modem into that, then the pc into the router. That way you dont have the hassle of the cable modem and you get the added bonus of a hardware NAT firewall.

No actually, the modem has its own AC plug, and a Cat 5 cable plugs into my network port.

[sir_pyro]

It sounds like you have some process running out your computer sucking up performance... Like, oh, spyware downloading it's little crap? If you plug in over Cat5, the modem should not use any of the comptuer's resources because it's its own little box that can take care of it's self. Only thing could be a program on your computer USING the cable modem.

[EternalX]

This is interesting. I will try turning my cable modem off and retest again use 3dmark05. My scores were a bit low from what I expected. Maybe itll help? I dont see how or why the network connection would have anything to do with benchmarking scores.

Instead of turning your modem off and waiting for it to resynch when you turn it on, just go into network connections and disable your LAN card. that might work a little better than the powercycling process.

[Illyest]

Network traffic does incurr a small CPU utilization penatly fyi. How much dependant on the amount of traffic and efficiency of the NIC controller.

An example of this is seen here...
http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=2671&p=12

[Nexus Realized]

I'm pretty sure your mobo has two LAN ports. On my DFI if I have a port that is enabled and nothing plugged into it I will see 3-5% CPU usage. Once I disabled the one that has nothing plugged into it, it stops. Go into your connection manager and disable either one that isn't being used. Hope this helps.

[M Powered]

I'm pretty sure your mobo has two LAN ports. On my DFI if I have a port that is enabled and nothing plugged into it I will see 3-5% CPU usage. Once I disabled the one that has nothing plugged into it, it stops. Go into your connection manager and disable either one that isn't being used. Hope this helps.

Actually, that did the trick. I just had to disable my 1394 LAN connection.