Folding Forum

I've got a DSL connection with nominal 128 Kbps upload speed. It looks like 100 Kbps or so at speed test web sites. I'm accepting WUs greater than 5 MB. When Folding at Home says it's "attempting to send results" my usable internet speed falls to dialup rates. When Folding at Home is sending results, the LEDs on my NIC and DSL modem go nuts and my internet connection becomes practically unusable. Since less than 100 Kbps is around 12 KBytes/second, sending 5 MB WUs means that my internet connection remains useless for quite some time.

I'm assuming that any other down traffic is getting killed because it takes forever to send an ACK or NACK for each packet received, due to Folding at Home hogging all the up bandwidth. Is there some way to drop Folding at Home's priority when accessing my NIC so I can still use the internet when F@H is sending results?

I've got a dual core CPU and Folding at Home uses 100% of one core when working. I generally don't mind that because I don't do much CPU-intensive stuff on my PC. I do mind effectively losing my internet connection when Folding at Home is sending results. For example, it's impossible to watch streaming video or listen to high bitrate streaming audio. Pages take forever to load.

Thanks in advance.

how's about checking the "ask before using network" tack in the configuration menu?

that way YOU decide when FAH is allowed to hog your bandwith

Maybe you should consider changing your preference to Normal or Small WUs ...

To fully utilize the two cores of your CPU, you have to install a second client on your machine.

Maybe you need something like: http://bandwidthcontroller.com/trafficShaperXp.html