No internet (network?) while cpu/disk busy

[zisper]

Hi;

I've recently (in the last couple of months) started to have problems with my internet connection. When my cpu (and/or hard drive access... I mainly notice the problem when updatedb is running) is busy then I recieve no throughput from my internet connection. Which means that I can't run updatedb, or compile anything etc while I want to use the internet. It used to be fine, I was hoping that with time (and package updates) the problem would go away again, but since it hasn't I want to get it fixed. Unfortunately I don't know where to start.... Googling & searching the forums hasn't led me to anything relevant.
Does anybody have any ideas on what to look at?

Chris

[adaptr]

Try running an emerge with niceness set to 10.
If it still hogs the CPU then this may indicate a buggy network card (or driver).
_________________
>>> emerge (3 of 7) mcse/70-293 to /
Essential tools: gentoolkit eix profuse screen

[zisper]

It's not just emerge, it's anything that uses CPU whether it's been niced or not. Emerge & Updatedb etc all run fine in the background with no major impact on my machine, it's just the network that struggles. (Wireless card & a serial connected dial-up modem). There's something which has been altered that's giving even low-priority tasks precendence over network traffic, to the point of essentially stopping it. I've no ideas on where to fix the issue though.

Chris