Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!casbah.acns.nwu.edu!hayes.ims.alaska.edu!acad3.alaska.edu!fsjcb1
From: fsjcb1@acad3.alaska.edu (Curt Beavers)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.ms
Subject: Windows & Comm programs
Message-ID: <1991Feb13.233743.1@acad3.alaska.edu>
Date: 14 Feb 91 03:37:43 GMT
Sender: usenet@ims.alaska.edu (J Random USENET)
Organization: University of Alaska Fairbanks
Lines: 39
Nntp-Posting-Host: acad3.alaska.edu


    I'm looking for some information on what may be causing a serious speed
problem in communications under Windows.  I'm running a Micronics 486/25 with
an internal 2400 baud modem, and if I use Telix, a dos app, through Windows
with no other apps running, I get jerks when my screen is updating.  Windows
will write out half a line, pause for half a second, and then continue writing. 
This isn't the occasional pause, but a pause about every line.
 
    At first I thought it was the speed decrease from having my pifs set wrong
& my timeslice set too high, but I tried all the combinations I could & nothing
seemed to help.  Then I thought maybe it was using a dos comm program that was
the problem, so I tried Windows Terminal and WinQVT and experienced the same
problems.  Running only WinQVT with no dos apps and no other windows app other
than program manager running, I still experienced the same jerkiness.
 
 
    Then, I thought I'd try and figure out what was going on, so I installed
CPUUSE & CPUGRAPH (the program that graphs processor use on its icon?). 
Running these two things, clock, program manager, & Telix showed me idling at
around 40% CPU use.  Once I started using my comm program, that went up to 50%
and when a full screen update was taking place it would jumpy to 70%, and
sometimes even reach into the 90% range!
 
    Now running a 486/25 rated at 11.4 Vax 11/780 MIPS, that tells me that
windows is using 20% of 11.4 or over 2 Vax MIPS to write data coming in over
COM 2 at 2400 baud?  Something smells in Denmark here folks!  What's up? 
Possible solutions...Windows 3.1 may or may not address this extremely annoying
problem.  Get an advanced UART chip with a 16 bit buffer?  I've heard this may
not work through Windows.  So what's left?  Am I missing something fundamental
in my Windows setup here?  I really can't see Microsoft using so much overhead
that a 486/25 is slower than my Apple ][c.
 
   Extremely confused in Fairbanks,
                                  
-- 
Curt Beavers
Microcomputer Technician
University of Alaska -- Fairbanks
FSJCB1@Acad3.Alaska.Edu