The speed of the forum

Thread Starter

dragan733

Joined Dec 12, 2004
152
I have remarked that the opening of the forum pages was very slow. How is that at you?. Dave, can you do something about the speed of the forum?
 

Dave

Joined Nov 17, 2003
6,969
Hi dragan733,

I'm having no issues with the speed of the forum at my end. Can you be a little more specific, i.e. is every page slow to open, does the page fully open once loaded, how long is it typically taking to open the page?

I'm also interested in hearing if anyone else is experincing slowing of the forum pages.

Thanks.

Dave
 

Thread Starter

dragan733

Joined Dec 12, 2004
152
Hi dragan733,

I'm having no issues with the speed of the forum at my end. Can you be a little more specific, i.e. is every page slow to open, does the page fully open once loaded, how long is it typically taking to open the page?

I'm also interested in hearing if anyone else is experincing slowing of the forum pages.

Thanks.

Dave

Dave, I measured these times with my ADSL:

Quote: 20s
Back:15s
Click:10s
Post reply:15s
Opening:10s

When I had not ADSL, but a dial up connection, I had times 10 time bigger than these with ADSL. That was the reason that I didn't write to this forum. With ADSL now I will start again to write :)
Else the pages fully open once loaded.
I think that the forum in the past was faster and that was the reason to post my replies at that time.

My respects
 

Dave

Joined Nov 17, 2003
6,969
Dave, I measured these times with my ADSL:

Quote: 20s
Back:15s
Click:10s
Post reply:15s
Opening:10s

When I had not ADSL, but a dial up connection, I had times 10 time bigger than these with ADSL. That was the reason that I didn't write to this forum. With ADSL now I will start again to write :)
Else the pages fully open once loaded.
I think that the forum in the past was faster and that was the reason to post my replies at that time.

My respects
Hi dragan733,

Thanks for the details, I can see how you find the forums here slow with the above times. I have just quoted your post in this reply and the page opened fully in around 2s, and that is typical for a normal reply. I am also on a 2.2MB ADSL connection.

Can you calrify a few other points:

1) Are these times typically always the case, or does it sometimes speed up?

2) When you said it was quicker in the past, do you mean when we were using Invision Forums as opposed to the VBulletin board we now use?

3) Do you experience slow ups like this at other forums (particularly VBulletin forums) that you visit?

4) Are connection to the Internet directly?

5) What web browser and firewall are you using? Have you tried others to see if the speed issue persists.

6) Are you using a modified hosts file?

At the moment I am trying to get a picture of your issue, since I cannot replicate the problems at my end.

Thanks.

Dave
 

mrmeval

Joined Jun 30, 2006
833
Odd, I use Firefox, with Fasterfox and the Wizz RSS aggregator and have had it open at least 15 new links all at once and they all load very quick. Under two seconds a page.
 

Dave

Joined Nov 17, 2003
6,969
Odd, I use Firefox, with Fasterfox and the Wizz RSS aggregator and have had it open at least 15 new links all at once and they all load very quick. Under two seconds a page.
Thanks mrmeval.

I have tried this with both Opera and IE7 and both are very fast at navigating the forums, this is why I'm trying to see what dragan733's set-up is and see if there is anything specifically that is likely to cause the problems he is experiencing.

If anyone else is finding the forums slow please let me know as it may help isolate the issue.

Dave
 

Thread Starter

dragan733

Joined Dec 12, 2004
152
Hi dragan733,

Thanks for the details, I can see how you find the forums here slow with the above times. I have just quoted your post in this reply and the page opened fully in around 2s, and that is typical for a normal reply. I am also on a 2.2MB ADSL connection.

Can you calrify a few other points:

1) Are these times typically always the case, or does it sometimes speed up?

2) When you said it was quicker in the past, do you mean when we were using Invision Forums as opposed to the VBulletin board we now use?

3) Do you experience slow ups like this at other forums (particularly VBulletin forums) that you visit?

4) Are connection to the Internet directly?

5) What web browser and firewall are you using? Have you tried others to see if the speed issue persists.

6) Are you using a modified hosts file?

At the moment I am trying to get a picture of your issue, since I cannot replicate the problems at my end.

Thanks.

Dave
Now on brief. Maybe all you have ADSL rapid, for example as at Dave: 2.2MB connection. I have ADSL with download/upload: 512/128 KBps. The question is: Do all people in the world has such rapid Internet, and this forum is for all in the world. Maybe someones have Internet with dial - up connection, where I said, it is not possible to participate in the forum with dial up connection. Before that this forum is changed, I visited it with a dial up connection and in that time the speed of the forum was as now with my ADSL. Else I use IE v.5.5 and Windows Millenium. I recommend you, Dave to try the forum through a dial up connection and you will see the speed of this forum.

In the next message I will reply to your all questions.
 

Thread Starter

dragan733

Joined Dec 12, 2004
152
Q:1) Are these times typically always the case, or does it sometimes speed up?
A: Again I measured the times. The values are same as preceding

Q: 2) When you said it was quicker in the past, do you mean when we were using Invision Forums as opposed to the VBulletin board we now use?
A: Yes.

Q:3) Do you experience slow ups like this at other forums (particularly VBulletin forums) that you visit?
A: I visited the forum: http://www.electro-tech-online.com/ and also I measured the times there with my ADSL. The result is:

Quote: 10s
Back:2s
Click:4s
Post reply:3s
Opening:6s
Therefore this other VBulletin forum is rapider.

Q: 4) Are connection to the Internet directly?
A: I have 24 hours connection to Internet

Q: 5) What web browser and firewall are you using? Have you tried others to see if the speed issue persists.
A: IE v.5.5. I don't know what firewall do I use

Q:6) Are you using a modified hosts file?
A: I didn't understand you. What host file?

My respects
 

n9352527

Joined Oct 14, 2005
1,198
I've also been experiencing a slow page load. It doesn't happen all the time, but probably about a quarter of the time the page loads very very slow. I usually end up cancelling the load and re-clicking the link several times before it loaded successfully.

I've ruled out the connection, seeing that it happens not always at the same time and I have a relatively quick 2MB cable, which is pretty consistently fast on other sites. It also happens on my work PC, which is on a different fast national backbone.

All computers are using Firefox, latest version without any other plug-ins. Different firewalls, ZoneAlarm and McAfee. Different AV, Kaspersky and McAfee. Standard host and tcp/ip configuration, no modifications, one through http proxy.

It started lately, less than a month ago.
 

Dave

Joined Nov 17, 2003
6,969
Now on brief. Maybe all you have ADSL rapid, for example as at Dave: 2.2MB connection. I have ADSL with download/upload: 512/128 KBps. The question is: Do all people in the world has such rapid Internet, and this forum is for all in the world. Maybe someones have Internet with dial - up connection, where I said, it is not possible to participate in the forum with dial up connection. Before that this forum is changed, I visited it with a dial up connection and in that time the speed of the forum was as now with my ADSL. Else I use IE v.5.5 and Windows Millenium. I recommend you, Dave to try the forum through a dial up connection and you will see the speed of this forum.

In the next message I will reply to your all questions.
Hi dragan733,

I am fully sympathetic to your concerns, hence why I here trying to ascertain a fair picture of what is happening. We try to accommodate both dial-up and broadband user with the site. Some of the moderators here are using dial-up.

Q:1) Are these times typically always the case, or does it sometimes speed up?
A: Again I measured the times. The values are same as preceding

Q: 2) When you said it was quicker in the past, do you mean when we were using Invision Forums as opposed to the VBulletin board we now use?
A: Yes.

Q:3) Do you experience slow ups like this at other forums (particularly VBulletin forums) that you visit?
A: I visited the forum: http://www.electro-tech-online.com/ and also I measured the times there with my ADSL. The result is:

Quote: 10s
Back:2s
Click:4s
Post reply:3s
Opening:6s
Therefore this other VBulletin forum is rapider.

Q: 4) Are connection to the Internet directly?
A: I have 24 hours connection to Internet

Q: 5) What web browser and firewall are you using? Have you tried others to see if the speed issue persists.
A: IE v.5.5. I don't know what firewall do I use

Q:6) Are you using a modified hosts file?
A: I didn't understand you. What host file?

My respects
1) Ok thanks for clariying this.

2) And thank you for clarifying this.

3) That is an interesting result. The load times should be around the same since the homepage for electro-tech is around the same size as the homepage here at AAC (8567-bytes plus 102179-bytes for in-line elements for electro-tech to 8562-bytes plus 124845-bytes for in-line lements for AAC). I found that the AAC homepage loaded quicker than electro-techs, but the difference was negligible to say the least.

4) What I meant by this question was, do you connect to the net through directly through an ADSL modem, or is it through a router, or a proxy server. If you are unsure, I would assume that it would probably be the first one. This can have an impact on your speed of connection.

5) Your web browser and firewall can have a significant effect on your connection speed. IE5.5 isn't the most optimised of browsers so will have some impact.

6) A Host file is a local file on your PC that a web browser performs a look-up in to detertmine the network address of the url your type. If your hosts file is large the look-up takes a long time and ultimately slows your PC down. Your hosts file should be no more that 100Kbytes in size. You can check by going to C:\WINDOWS\hosts and right-clicking and looking at properties.

I've also been experiencing a slow page load. It doesn't happen all the time, but probably about a quarter of the time the page loads very very slow. I usually end up cancelling the load and re-clicking the link several times before it loaded successfully.

I've ruled out the connection, seeing that it happens not always at the same time and I have a relatively quick 2MB cable, which is pretty consistently fast on other sites. It also happens on my work PC, which is on a different fast national backbone.

All computers are using Firefox, latest version without any other plug-ins. Different firewalls, ZoneAlarm and McAfee. Different AV, Kaspersky and McAfee. Standard host and tcp/ip configuration, no modifications, one through http proxy.

It started lately, less than a month ago.
Thanks n9352527 for your comments. It is interesting to see that you are experiencing issues across a range of PCs and configurations. I am thinking could the slow down be down to the loading on the server?

Can I ask, since you say it only happens some of the time (around a quarter), does it seem to occur at a particular time of day?

Thanks for all your comments, without them we wouldn't be able to iron out any issues here at AAC.

Regards,

Dave
 

jrap

Joined Jun 25, 2006
1,125
This could also be a server issue - I will be looking into the problem. I know vBulletin can require a lot of memory, and when the search spiders are crawling the site, it puts a big load on the server.
 

n9352527

Joined Oct 14, 2005
1,198
It happens mostly during the day and afternoon (UK time), but not necessarily so because I've experienced it in the evening as well. One thing for sure, the weekend is relatively worse than during the weekdays. There were occasions that it was so slow that no page was successfully loaded for a long time, except the front page and the title.

Meanwhile other sites, both UK and US based, were speedy enough, so I kinda think that it wasn't a slow connection or contention issue on my side.
 
Top