When using synergy, it lags sometimes

Question

I use synergy. My linux desktop acts as the server, and my macbook connects as a client. While using synergy, they are both connected to a linksys WRT-45GL router, both using a wired connection.

Sometimes, when I first mouse over to my macbook, the connection will lag. For example, I'll move the mouse but the cursor won't move for 2 or 3 seconds. Or I'll type something, it won't show up for a bit. It happens sporadically. Generally only for the first minute or so of switching over to the mac, but not necessarily.

What can I do to fix this?

I've tried checking the CPU usage on both machines, and haven't seen a spike there that matchs with the lag. I assume the bottleneck is in the network traffic, but I don't know how to confirm this or how to fix it.

Answer 1

Well you know it can't be layer 2 if only two devices are connected(the mac table CAN'T fill up). If you have static host mappings it can't be layer three. That leaves bandwidth, collisions, and software. Wireshark can tell you about bandwidth and can sometimes indicate collisions. I would drop some cheap piece of hardware in the middle that has logging for collisions available to check for that. Then you're down to application.