I've got a techy question for the networkers amongst you :

Can a router's cpu power limit the amount of network traffic it can forward?

That is, can the effective network speed be affected by a router's processing unit?

The specs :

Linksys wrt54g v1.1 router
network down : 20mbit
network up : 2mbit

When I have data pumping, the router's cpu levels rise up high (near 1.00 1.00 1.00) and i do not get perfect network speeds, especially when both up and downloading a lot at the same time, so my guess is the answer to my own question will be 'yes'. But I'd just like to hear it confirmed (or not)

Anyone know anything about this, or have experience?

A few friends of mine are really good with this stuff (network techs, and have crazy certifications or whatnot), and one of them told me the following:

If the load average is 1.0 or greater, than yes the Linksys router might be limiting internet throughput. And also sometimes throughput is limited when outbound bandwidth is maxed out.

He says you should get an old computer and install ipcop or something like that. So it will be a PC router instead of a Linksys router. 20mb/2mb is higher than most people have, and above what I would think a linksys router can do, especially if there are filtering rules.

well, I have an old version of the router, which has a cpu @ 125 MHz. Newer versions run at 200 MHz and certain special versions @ 266 and even 300.

I do have a reasonable number of firewalling and QOS'ing going on yep, but without the QOS, things are even worse (I'm limiting the speeds atm to save the router from being soaked resulting in very slow internet).

But yeah hmm, I've got a linux box on 24/7 anyway - maybe a new nic for that might be a good solution rather than a new router .. hmmm

oh wait, gotta have more than 1 nic then, or a hub - no, i'm gonna look for a new, more powerful router me thinks.

You certainly want free processor time, and plenty of memory (with no swapping), for optimal performance I'd consider replacing it with a cisco box, or a linux/solaris box with a 1GB switch on the side (hubs (layer1 devices) are bad, mmkay?)).

Wish I had a home line like that to play with here Its just too damn expensive though