We have two SR5s in a RB532. One is providing backhaul and the other is connecting 7 wireless clients. Both SR5s are acting as APs using WDS. We are seeing about 70-85% CPU load even when nearly no traffic is going across the link! This RB532 is running 2.9.20 w/330MHz CPU frequency set.

The other end of the backhaul is a RB512 running at 330MHz and shows 30-40% CPU load. This is running NStreme on all routerboards.

The bridge interface on the RB532 is showing less than 10Kbps of traffic and less than 10p/s!

Why is the CPU utilization so high?

The link is still able to pass >20Mbps of traffic and we plan on moving the backhaul to a dedicated routerboard in the near future but we want to make sure everything is working well.

turn off nstreme.for nstreme you need at least 800 Mhz x86 CPU

turn off nstreme.for nstreme you need at least 800 Mhz x86 CPU

I can not confirm that ... I have a P3 600 running 2 nstream 802.11a and 1 normal 802.11a just fine. No peaks at 100% CPU utilization with full blast traffic.

What i have noticed is that if you turn on nstream, depending on CPU you use, you constantly have a proportional % overhead on CPU utilization no matter what. On the other hand when you traffic test or you have the link going at full blast you will only see a bit of extra utilization (% again proportional to the CPU used).

What i can agree to is that RBs are not that fast but they perform well with 2 802.11a max 3 links (always thinking that you will never need the full blast of 802.11a) or a nstream for backbone and one or maybe more b AP interfaces. Always have in mind that some b cards utilize more the processor than others.

MT we need power on RBs. It whould be nice to have something around 1GHz, with a daughter board for more IFs. Nice powerfull and compact...

I would like to hear some comments from others… share your experiences

Yeah, may be good a RB with a power mobile CPU like a Centrino, Sempron or a new Viiv

I use Nstreme on Routerboard 532's. It works pretty good as long as you are not wanting to push more than 17-20 mbit. Anyway, as for high CPU usage; if nstreme is for a point-to-point link then turn polling off and set framer-policy to best-fit. It will significantly reduce your CPU usage.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure you only need polling if you are running point-to-multipoint.

Eric

Check here... at the little new RB100 can work with nstreme, a 800Mhz CPU is required if you need traffic about 80Mbps

http://forum.mikrotik.com//viewtopic.php?t=7582

Regards!
Alessio