[Asterisk-Users] Running 40 active calls (too much för CPU?)

[jan.sarin at securia.se]

Hi,

We're running asterisk 1.2.1 on a Dell PowerEdge 600SC (2.4 ghz) server connected to the PSTN through two E1 pipes to a TE405P. This has been running just fine for several months...

But yesturday we connected a large number of softphone SIP clients (50) and 25 of these where running simultaneous active calls on the INTERNAL ethernet using g711 (ulaw). We noticed that the sound was jagged just as if the CPU couldn't handle 25 calls (?!).

I checked the CPU load and it never went over 55 % and memusage was low too.

Does anyone know what could be the problem? Are there some kind of CPU spikes that make these cuts in the audio? If so, why on earth can't a 2,4 ghz processor handle 25 low-quality audio "tracks" on asterisk when I can run +50 cd-quality audio tracks when producing music?

ANY help and/or comments would be appreciated since this is quite an acute problem.

Regards,
Jan