# \[SOLVED\] Is my Load Factor on a PLC connection(s) too high? **URL:** \ **Category:** Ignition\ **Created:** [June 22, 2021, 1:33pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/solved-is-my-load-factor-on-a-plc-connection-s-too-high/48058 "2021-06-22T13:33:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![bmeyers](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/user_avatar/forum.inductiveautomation.com/bmeyers/32/37453_2.png) [@bmeyers](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/bmeyers)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2021, 1:33pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/solved-is-my-load-factor-on-a-plc-connection-s-too-high/48058/1 "2021-06-22T13:33:59Z")
Good morning, Periodically my company is seeing a spike in the load factor on two of our connections to our PLCs. The effects are visible on the HMI and things slow down and sometimes database queries fail. Is a load factor higher than 100% a strong indicator of a problem? PLC1 \<–\> Gateway 268% Load Factor PLC2 \<—\> Switch1 \<—\> Switch2 \<—\> Gateway 106% Load Factor Below are pictures of the load factor. ![overload_2](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/original/3X/e/0/e0803b2af478e987bd47b7b2149d0e935980a706.jpeg) ![overload_1](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/original/3X/e/2/e21dc8c44979f7ff038b23893eec66ca6f23d7c9.jpeg) ---
**Author:** ![jdehart](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/user_avatar/forum.inductiveautomation.com/jdehart/32/17840_2.png) [@jdehart](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/jdehart)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2021, 1:46pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/solved-is-my-load-factor-on-a-plc-connection-s-too-high/48058/2 "2021-06-22T13:46:25Z")
what speed NIC / network is between your system and these PLC’s? I think (someone please correct me if I’m wrong, not terribly experienced with this) that your load factor shows high because your requests vs your actual throughput is very high. Is there a network bandwidth bottleneck here possibly? ---
**Author:** ![bmeyers](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/user_avatar/forum.inductiveautomation.com/bmeyers/32/37453_2.png) [@bmeyers](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/bmeyers)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2021, 1:49pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/solved-is-my-load-factor-on-a-plc-connection-s-too-high/48058/3 "2021-06-22T13:49:47Z")
100 mega bytes per second I believe… the killer I think is this: the gateway is running on a windows 10 PC. I think the customer is just reaching the point where the gateway (windows 10 PC) can no longer keep up but thought I’d get some second opinions. ---
**Author:** ![pturmel](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/user_avatar/forum.inductiveautomation.com/pturmel/32/3295_2.png) [@pturmel](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/pturmel)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2021, 2:11pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/solved-is-my-load-factor-on-a-plc-connection-s-too-high/48058/4 "2021-06-22T14:11:42Z")
> [@bmeyers](#): > > Is a load factor higher than 100% a strong indicator of a problem? Yes. And since it doesn't account for the bandwidth needed for writes nor for any scripted `system.opc.*` functions, I would suggest that a load factor in the 80s or 90s isn't good, either. ---
**Author:** ![pturmel](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/user_avatar/forum.inductiveautomation.com/pturmel/32/3295_2.png) [@pturmel](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/pturmel)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2021, 2:13pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/solved-is-my-load-factor-on-a-plc-connection-s-too-high/48058/5 "2021-06-22T14:13:45Z")
Your mean response time is rather high, like one might expect from a really old processor technology. Single-digit milliseconds is good. What brand/model processor is this? What network topology? (OPC drivers are extremely sensitive to ping time…) ---
**Author:** ![pturmel](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/user_avatar/forum.inductiveautomation.com/pturmel/32/3295_2.png) [@pturmel](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/pturmel)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2021, 2:14pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/solved-is-my-load-factor-on-a-plc-connection-s-too-high/48058/6 "2021-06-22T14:14:56Z")
> [@bmeyers](#): > > gateway (windows 10 PC) can no longer keep up Not a likely factor. Though I will admit that I avoid deploying gateways on any flavor of Windows. ---
**Author:** ![bmeyers](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/user_avatar/forum.inductiveautomation.com/bmeyers/32/37453_2.png) [@bmeyers](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/bmeyers)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2021, 3:09pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/solved-is-my-load-factor-on-a-plc-connection-s-too-high/48058/7 "2021-06-22T15:09:29Z")
It’s an Advantech PPC-4211W-P5AE. Windows 7 Pro soon to be upgraded to Windows 10. Intel Core i5-4300U CPU @ 1.90GHz 8 GB ram ---
**Author:** ![bschroeder](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/user_avatar/forum.inductiveautomation.com/bschroeder/32/13260_2.png) [@bschroeder](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/bschroeder)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2021, 3:12pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/solved-is-my-load-factor-on-a-plc-connection-s-too-high/48058/8 "2021-06-22T15:12:48Z")
I think @pturmel was referring to your PLC not the gateway hardware. ---
**Author:** ![JordanCClark](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/user_avatar/forum.inductiveautomation.com/jordancclark/32/83362_2.png) [@JordanCClark](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/JordanCClark)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2021, 3:26pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/solved-is-my-load-factor-on-a-plc-connection-s-too-high/48058/9 "2021-06-22T15:26:26Z")
Agreed, although I’m curious what else is running on it. Gateway + 1 client at the very least. ---
**Author:** ![pturmel](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/user_avatar/forum.inductiveautomation.com/pturmel/32/3295_2.png) [@pturmel](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/pturmel)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2021, 4:20pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/solved-is-my-load-factor-on-a-plc-connection-s-too-high/48058/10 "2021-06-22T16:20:32Z")
> [@JordanCClark](#): > > what else is running on it. Yeah, gateway + designer + client + DB on a wimpy dual-core i5 would be a bit much. ---
**Author:** ![bmeyers](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/user_avatar/forum.inductiveautomation.com/bmeyers/32/37453_2.png) [@bmeyers](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/bmeyers)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2021, 4:41pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/solved-is-my-load-factor-on-a-plc-connection-s-too-high/48058/11 "2021-06-22T16:41:19Z")
Is there a way to track the load factor? Would I look in the system tags? ---
**Author:** ![Kevin.Herron](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/user_avatar/forum.inductiveautomation.com/kevin.herron/32/7259_2.png) [@Kevin.Herron](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/Kevin.Herron)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2021, 4:47pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/solved-is-my-load-factor-on-a-plc-connection-s-too-high/48058/12 "2021-06-22T16:47:18Z")
Not in the version you’re using. Starting in 8.1.6 the diagnostics were overhauled a bit and also made available as OPC tags under the device’s `[diagnostics]` folder. ---
**Author:** ![nminchin](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/user_avatar/forum.inductiveautomation.com/nminchin/32/6911_2.png) [@nminchin](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/nminchin)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2021, 5:57pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/solved-is-my-load-factor-on-a-plc-connection-s-too-high/48058/13 "2021-06-22T17:57:13Z")
Ahem > [@Monitoring the device load factor](http://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/monitoring-the-device-load-factor/17389/9): > > For those not at 8.1.6 yet though, I got this from Travis (modified to be a function). Bonus points if you can tell me how to get the number of tags subscribed to a Device… or how I can find out how to do this using the SDK doco. I couldn’t see the IgnitionGateway class within the javadocs frowning def getDeviceLoadFactor(deviceName): """ Description: Gets the load factors for each Device/PLC and writes these into a dataset tag within each PLC's UDT instances. This function must be … ---
**Author:** ![Kevin.Herron](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/user_avatar/forum.inductiveautomation.com/kevin.herron/32/7259_2.png) [@Kevin.Herron](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/Kevin.Herron)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2021, 6:17pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/solved-is-my-load-factor-on-a-plc-connection-s-too-high/48058/14 "2021-06-22T18:17:05Z")
The code in that post will only work in 8.x, not 7.9. ---
**Author:** ![nminchin](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/user_avatar/forum.inductiveautomation.com/nminchin/32/6911_2.png) [@nminchin](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/nminchin)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2021, 6:19pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/solved-is-my-load-factor-on-a-plc-connection-s-too-high/48058/15 "2021-06-22T18:19:08Z")
Maybe my memory deceives me, screenshots look like v8 to me, but it’s 3:49am here so… yeah 😧 ---
**Author:** ![bmeyers](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/user_avatar/forum.inductiveautomation.com/bmeyers/32/37453_2.png) [@bmeyers](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/bmeyers)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2021, 6:35pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/solved-is-my-load-factor-on-a-plc-connection-s-too-high/48058/16 "2021-06-22T18:35:45Z")
Is there any advantage to making my scan classes prime numbers? 499 ms or 503 ms instead of 500 ms? We are noticing a group of tags are periodically being called to scan at 500 ms and creating a large amount of the load factor. This system is running 7.9.10. ---
**Author:** ![Kevin.Herron](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/user_avatar/forum.inductiveautomation.com/kevin.herron/32/7259_2.png) [@Kevin.Herron](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/Kevin.Herron)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2021, 6:38pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/solved-is-my-load-factor-on-a-plc-connection-s-too-high/48058/17 "2021-06-22T18:38:40Z")
> [@bmeyers](#): > > Is there any advantage to making my scan classes prime numbers? No, I cringe when I see this because the strategy is nonsense. It doesn't matter, the requests eventually "smooth out" and each polls as close to its assigned sampling interval as possible, your prime number scheme is irrelevant. It's not a realtime system doing a precise scan of some fixed overhead logic. ---
**Author:** ![jdehart](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/user_avatar/forum.inductiveautomation.com/jdehart/32/17840_2.png) [@jdehart](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/jdehart)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2021, 7:56pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/solved-is-my-load-factor-on-a-plc-connection-s-too-high/48058/18 "2021-06-22T19:56:49Z")
Might be worth inspecting the PLC’s and see how loaded they are. possibly not enough overhead time for the connections on the PLC? Not sure of brand or model obviously. ---
**Author:** ![bmeyers](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/user_avatar/forum.inductiveautomation.com/bmeyers/32/37453_2.png) [@bmeyers](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/bmeyers)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2021, 9:34pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/solved-is-my-load-factor-on-a-plc-connection-s-too-high/48058/19 "2021-06-22T21:34:58Z")
Just an update… on the 1769-L33ERM PLC we changed the continuous task running at 10 ms to a periodic task that runs at 100 ms and the load factor went from 106% to 10%. Tomorrow morning we will try a similar change on the other PLC at this site. ---
**Author:** ![bschroeder](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/user_avatar/forum.inductiveautomation.com/bschroeder/32/13260_2.png) [@bschroeder](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/bschroeder)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2021, 9:53pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/solved-is-my-load-factor-on-a-plc-connection-s-too-high/48058/20 "2021-06-22T21:53:49Z")
Yep. Avoid continuous tasks at all costs. [Next page](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/solved-is-my-load-factor-on-a-plc-connection-s-too-high/48058.md?page=2)