View Full Version : Long download times
gwallen4
10-06-2002, 09:55 PM
I love this forum. The participants really have a great deal to offer, and the e-mail notification of new posts is great.
But the download times are killing me. It often takes 20-30 seconds to dl a thread. By that time I've already clicked on it several times trying to get it to work.
It seems to me that it didn't always take that long. What's up?
jabarnutcase
10-07-2002, 07:46 PM
Wow Gwallen!-
Maybe you better read This fairly recent thread with 91 replies! (http://www.pcguide.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=16624)
(I notice it still varies...At times painfully slow, other times not too bad).
But I'm staying out of this one!!!
:rolleyes: ;) :D
gwallen4
10-07-2002, 08:10 PM
Yeah. Jabarnutcase.
I read all the posts before. But it's been almost a month, and it's still slow. Just thought I'd stir the sh*t again. It's a little frustrating, especially when you have a broadband connection and this forum is the slowest to load.
Fruss Tray Ted
10-07-2002, 08:42 PM
. By that time I've already clicked on it several times trying to get it to work.
Everytime you click it resets and will not complete the ~20 or so seconds to load until you stop that darn clicking!!! :D
gwallen4
10-07-2002, 10:56 PM
I know that,Fruss Tray Ted, but sometimes when you have no indication that the page is loading, you think that maybe you didn't click on it correctly. It's a reflex developed by most pages loading very quickly.
The fact remains - whether you click it once or several times it still takes too long.
Paul Komski
10-08-2002, 06:50 PM
You guys with fast connections are lucky because you know where the fault lies. When you've got an intermittent bad connection at you own end you have no idea how "schizophrenic" one can become as a result! :(
jabarnutcase
10-08-2002, 07:21 PM
Paul-
You are not alone....
Even though I have a broadband connection, the fact that I am a "nutcase" in general helps me to relate to your case of schizophrenia.
(BTW- This is totaly unrelated to the forum being slow. Just trying to comfort a friend in pain.)
Remember, I said I was going to stay out of it. :rolleyes:
Paul Komski
10-08-2002, 11:30 PM
It's those voices; those terrible voices and the visions; those visions! J/K :D (I hope I'm J/K).
Fruss Tray Ted
10-08-2002, 11:59 PM
'Cuz the voices jus' talk to MEEE!!! :D :D :D
Paul Komski
10-09-2002, 12:38 AM
On a more serious note. I just received an eMail notification 3 days after the posting. I had noticed a couple that I thought I had missed, including this one, and others had arrived a few hours late.
Anyone else had anything like this in the last few days, which might point to additional problems on the server, since most notifications are almost immediate.
I've kept the mail in case anyone wants the headers.
kayofcircles
10-09-2002, 11:02 AM
Can't remember who to give credit to for the comment about being able to go and get coffee beans from South America, and be back in time to see thread finish loading..but it's apt...sigh. If you guys on cable think it's slow..you ought to be riding my tricycle!:D Most days, I just have to give up and actually go to work..lol.
Paul Komski
10-15-2002, 04:19 PM
Things had improved BUT THIS EVENING its nuts! :mad: 1-2 minutes before a request is even processed.
Then, strangely, for 5 minutes, everything worked fine; like as if someone had turned-off whatever was causing it! ;) ;)
Do the "powers that be" know what or who is actually causing this? - because it's making the site almost useless and must be driving peeps away.
Paul, I'll take those headers....
One of the strange things about this is that most of the time for me it is just fine, and when Ixl checks it there is no undo load on the server.
Several things have happened over the last couple of weeks that have the whole Internet doing screwey things....the fiasco at Worldcom and Bugbear/Opasoft et al, with their constant scanning.
It might be a good idea to start logging these problems, so if you are facing long load times, note the time, date, and what thread or forum you were working with. Then PM me with the results.....
If we get several different people then maybe we can try to pinpoint the worst times/etc and maybe correlate that to the server logs.....
A good place to look to see if the 'Net as a whole is having problems (or one area.....) is http://www.internettrafficreport.com/
Budfred
10-15-2002, 09:04 PM
mjc,
I have had the problem most of the time since it started about a month ago. I have a broadband connection at work and at home. In both cases it is rare when a screen loads quickly from this site. I can go to another site at the same time and load two or three pages before PCGuide loads the one. Tonight it is loading a little faster, but I have been on when traffic has been very light and it loads like molasses in January. During the day today I answered a message and noticed it was taking a long time to get to the intermediate page. I clocked from the intermediate page back to the thread and it was more than 25 seconds. Before the slowdown, it would have been more like 4 or 5 seconds. I don't know how to log the times automatically to report back, do you know a way to do that?
Budfred
I was thinking more an informal log...yeah there are some apps to log downloads, but no sense in downloading a bunch of software......I think the Opera users would have an easier time...it shows how fast it is loading (in KB/s), how much is loading and how long it is taking to load a page.
Fruss Tray Ted
10-15-2002, 11:05 PM
....the fiasco at Worldcom and Bugbear/Opasoft et al, with their constant scanning.
Would that have to do with the fact my firewall is CONSTANTLY warding off port hits? 1214, 139, 6340?, 12345, 1243, there's others but these are the most common.
BTW, What is a header, the shortcut?
Oh, and this site was fantastic whith the new server but it is now still slower than it was by quite a margin though it does load fairly well from time to time.
I used to tell everyone this site is the best thing since sliced bread. Now I can bake it and slice it waiting... ... :(
gwallen4
10-15-2002, 11:35 PM
Holy cow. It just got better. Now takes 2-3 seconds. You guys are great!!
Email headers Are the routing info tacked on by each server it passes through...kind of like postmarks.
Some of those ports, Fruss are P2P apps like KaZaa....not very well behaved, the 137/139 are the current virus crop. The others, I'd have to look them up and the toothpicks just aren't quite enough right now....I would go make some spoon disolving coffee, but I do want to sleep sometime tonight......
gwallen4...as far as I know, nobody did anything......but that is the way it has been going lately, great and then slow...and I think slow is starting to outweigh the great....:(
Budfred
10-16-2002, 10:50 AM
mjc,
You may have noticed that I hang around here a lot and I am usually connected through broadband. From that experience, I would say it has been slow more often than it has been fast for most of the last month or so, since the slowdown started. I continue to be surprized occasionally by a really fast loading, but more often I will open a number of pages at once and make some tea and take my dogs out and come back and check.
Budfred
Mark Miller
10-16-2002, 08:07 PM
mjc,
I have broadband and this site is the slowest of all the sites I look at everyday. Because of this I don't think it has anything to do with the internet as a whole. I can tell you that the problem started when we got the ram advertising ,and has not really improved. Again the slow times for me are only at this site. I wonder [as some others have said] if we are losing new members who can't get on. as far as a log, for me it happens all the time
Mark
OK, using Opera, I just loaded this page in 3 min 49 secs....at a rate of somewhere around 250B/s....which of course is absolutely ridiculus, but just a few minutes ago I was loading pages at a couple of KB/s. I waited about 15secs while Opera resolved the hostname, which sounds like a DNS or routing problem to me, it took 16 sec to load the RAM jpg (which is only 4KB and is local to the server, no remote connection, just a static picture covering a link). I also just ran a trace route and the hop right before the PC Guide had a higher time something over 220ms where everything else was under 175 ms, no 50 ms doesn't seem like much, but it does add up. I have no real way of judging the server's performance, that is something Charles will have to check....
kayofcircles
10-17-2002, 09:56 AM
Slow dial up connection here. My experience has been that it does come and go without any particular pattern that I have noticed. Can come here and browse/post for awhile, then slows down to nothing. Or can start off so slow that I am about to give up and go off, then seems to go back to normal after a few minutes. I too don't think it's an Internet thing because it's only "here" that I am seeing the sloooowwwwww. If I leave here because of it, I can go over to other forum (or anywhere else I go) and they load just fine..at normal speed (well, for me..lol). Can see how it is a difficult thing to troubleshoot though, huh? :)
Just thought of something. Could it be because of "background" stuff in the new software...like the IM, or the email thing? A couple of weeks ago, I wanted to email someone here and found myself in a screen "here" to email them..my first experience with that.
Supa Dupa
10-19-2002, 03:13 PM
I've got a broadband connection and use Opera and it takes on average 3 seconds for each page to load.
Budfred
10-21-2002, 09:59 PM
I was beginning to have hope, things were moving along at a good pace and then tonight...........glacial......
Budfred
Mark Miller
10-22-2002, 03:41 PM
IT TOOK 19 MINUTES TO POST THIS HELP!!!!
Ghost_Hacker
10-27-2002, 06:26 AM
I found the solution that works for me. I use the forums in the early morning hours. (only had one time where that didn't work) If I use the forums later in the day, I'll get really slow responces from this site. (Just as a side note. I get slow "loads" both at home and work using dsl/cable respectively.)
I haven't found any one thing to be causing the slowness.....it is not Pair, or overall congestion in the Pittsburgh ares.....other sites hosted by pair a re speedy enough, it isn't the spnosor graphic...it is a tiny static image, locally hosted...other parts of the guide seem to be not as slow.
So I am thinking server load....
A couple of things that everyone may want to do....
1. Go into your PM folders and delete all your old messages....don't forget by default you have an inbox and and out box and will need to empty both.
2. Try to vary the time you use the boards....like GH said he gets good response time early in the morning, but if everyone started using them then, it would probably slow down then too......
3. People are trying to figure it out......but sometimes things like this just aren't easy to find....I would still like a couple of people to get me time/date info on particularly slow times....be as specific as possible.
Mark Miller
10-27-2002, 07:32 PM
MJC,
Just took 5min to rech the site and post this[even with broadband]. Time 7:26 to 7:31 east coast time.
Mark
This problem seems to be worse for some people than others. I am still not sure why.
Overall, the folks at pair say it is primarily a use issue: the server is still overloaded. I have been in touch with my contact about another upgrade of the server. I am not sure yet what will be done, what it will cost or how long it will take. I'll keep folks posted when I have something of actual intelligence to say on this subject.
Sorry the site is so slow...
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