strange problem -- please help!

[Seraph42]

I have a question, and I was hoping you could help me...
I recently went to a LAN party, and everything worked fine for a few hours. Then, all of a sudden, three of us (all with the A7n8x or A7N8X-X motherboard) started having the same problem.
When plugged into any sort of network, Cpu usage fluctuated steadily from 0% to 60%. One second it would be fine, the next it'd be using 60% of my CPU, then fine, etc... A fourth person had the same motherboard, but was using a separate Network card instead of the onboard one. his computer worked fine.
One of us even got so annoyed as to reformat and re-install windows, but that didn't fix the problem... we downloaded all the latest nForce drivers, even the new Catalyst drivers (though that probably had nothing to do with the problem).
Neither Norton nor AVG, both with the latest definitions, turned up anything suspicious, and the problem completely dissapeared when the Lan cable was unplugged.
Any information or help you can give would be VERY much appreciated...

Much Obliged,

Jeff Wright
[email protected]

 

[tdg]

Get a good offboard NIC, like a 3Com. The onboard Realtek based NICs have a tendency to suck CPU time since they're more software based, sort of like a Winmodem. On my A7N8X-E with the Realtek and Marvell NIC's I tested the onboard NIC's knowing full well I'd be slapping in a offboard NIC, The Realtek NIC ate about 15-20% depending on the speed of transfers and size of files when I was testing. Put in the good ole 3Com 3C905 and it never used more than 2-4%.