Last night my internet connection went kaputt and I had most pages loading extremely slow, for a little while I thought it was TechSpot server since I was trying to upload some stuff... a minute later I discovered it definitely had to be my connection, however this left me wondering.

While vB stats always show server load averages of less than 0.3%, I still wanted to ask you, our frequent visitors, how fast or slow do you think TechSpot server is compared to most other sites?

Thanks for your time.

Everything seems fine to me, but my opinion is irrelevant since I am on a 56K dial up. On a 56K you can't really compare, but I would say there isn't much difference between other sites, if any at all. So for us 56Kers everything is okay, as for those of you on faster connections such as DSL or ISDN, I'm sure it will be a different story :D .

I've got 512 cable and TS appears most of the time to load up just as quick as the major sites (search engines, news sites). Occationally it takes a bit to start loading a page - like if I click go to first unread post (not from within the post itself), but it doesn't happen all the time, and some of it may be all the other stuff going on on my computer at the same time.

I've got 512 DSL and TS is as fast or faster than other forums I frequent.

Just like timmoore I'm on a slow connection so I needed to ask (I actually have cable but... 64kbps). Good to hear all those comments though.

I am on something faster than 1.4Mbps DSL.. Techspot always loads as fast as I click on the bookmark. :)

I'm on 1.5 mbit cable - almost always loads very quickly, except when everyone else is also having probs or when I'm having probs with the ad banners.

LNCPapa

I agree papa, the only thing that takes time to load is the ad banners. Right now the page has been loading for a minute thirty seconds, and it is still going trying to load form ads1.ad-flow.com.......although it might be because I am using opera and it blocks popups, but I'm not sure.

I used to have that problem with IE as well.

Yes, 512 DSL here and the only thing that's sometimes slow is the ad loading.

I have 1mbps cable connection, and sometimes I think the site is VERY slow.

I've got adsl 384 down, and it's quite fast...

But sometimes it'll just load the add and show it in the middle of the screen for some time before it finishes loading the rest of the thread...

Strange...

Just after I posted the above message, techspot became quite slot... 30 sec+ to load a thread... But the forums themselves were fast...

take SNGX1275's post and ditto it under my name ;)

I've got 256 DSL....but still dunno why techspot when loadin' in any two of my pc seems to take some time...more than wat is used to take :(.

Just wondering, have you noticed any speed changes in the forums or frontpage loading today? I've enabled two modules in order to speed up the server quite a bit plus save us some bandwidth.

The first is PHP Accelerator (www.phpaccelerator.co.uk) which should speed up all dynamic process in PHP, it's even used by Yahoo, so it's got to be good, I enabled this last night.

The second is GZip compression in vBulletin which should compress all vB pages on the fly with a low hit on load averages, I enabled this just a few minutes ago so you might want to give it a try for a longer time.

The site loads up quickly here, probably because I'm using shared T-1 line, and I had dialup before, so I know the difference ;)

Actually Julio, I was thinking it was loading a little slower than I am used to. This is only in the forums though..... Also it doesn't happen all the time, just every once in a while. It is probably due to the ads once again, but just info for you.

Well, it's been loading real fast for me yesterday night (around 22 GM), and today :)

I've noticed a bit of a difference as well...

Unfortunately I will have to agree, most ad servers slow things down, but we can't live without them.

I know, just leaving a little feedback ;)

The AD's are always what slow down the site loading...

As has been said it can sometimes take several minutes for them to load...

I'm on a 30Mbps connection, and when comparing to some other forums www.sweclockers.com mainly (Swedish site) Techspot does feel a tad slow...

However they also have their forums on a separate dell server, which compared to the TS server is waaay faster...

Dell Poweredge 2600 (http://www.dell.com/us/en/esg/topics/esg_pedge_towermain_servers_1_pedge_2600.htm), Dual Xeon 2.4GHz, 2304MB DDR, 2x36GB 10KRPM SCSI. Weight: ~45KG.

Pics: 1 (http://www.sweclockers.com/nyhetsbilder/poweredge2600-01.jpg) 2 (http://www.sweclockers.com/nyhetsbilder/poweredge2600-02.jpg) 3 (http://www.sweclockers.com/nyhetsbilder/poweredge2600-03.jpg)

HEY!!! I have one of those Per - really! Well, not mine really - but my group here at work. We use it to run stats on computer usage throughout the campus. Similar config except with 3 drives and another hot-swappable powersupply.

LNCPapa

Well - I wanted to let you guys know (especially Julio) that I've been getting painfully slow response from Techspot pages lately - both website and forums. The forums are especially slow to load up the buttons across the top and the buttons next to each thread marking whether there is anything new or not. It's so slow these last couple of weeks that it's actually quicker for me to look at the date of last post and determine if I've been there since the newest update or not. Not sure if anyone else is having this prob - but I'm having it on multiple machines across two different connections (Cable - 1.5mbit/256kbit and a T3)

LNCPapa

Last week TS was slashdotted so that probably slowed things down quite a bit, however the last few days things have got back to normal and server load is pretty average.

Anybody else experiencing slowdowns?

There were some slowdowns last week but no probs now.

I did notice a rather larger number of people seem to be coming.

they will come.............(from, a field of dreams, ....not, a car commercial)

Lol, JSR, I've heard that somewhere... a car commercial--right?

And yes, Techspot isn't as fast as it used to be but it's not painfully slow, it's just slow. Though, sometimes, it achieves the level of painfully slow.

This surprises me quite a bit you know, as we are serving mostly static pages on the main site and the server loads are pretty low... I will try with a couple of different settings tonight and see if that helps some.

I myself havn't noticed any slow down recently...

I haven't noticed any slowdowns either, except for a period of time one day last week, I couldn't get though at all. Later on I saw there were over 2000 people on board.

Originally posted by olefarte
I haven't noticed any slowdowns either, except for a period of time one day last week, I couldn't get though at all.

That's exactly when we got /.ed, which is more understandable since there were thousands of people coming in and out the whole day (btw, I discovered a bug in the site programming that was slowing us down more than normal so actually if we get slashdotted one of these days, the server should be able to keep up rather normally).

Now, I'm particularly interested in what other members are saying, pages loading slow at all times?
Of course, we should define slow...
1 - I'm ok 56k and it takes forever to load (and other pages don't).
2 - I'm on broadband and takes a little while.
3 - I'm on broadband and takes a couple of seconds (while other pages load instantly).
4 - I'm on a T3 line and pages should come up like they were loaded locally

?? :confused:

i would fit under #3 :) Except for some times, I cant get threw at all. :(

3 MBit DSL here and it loads quite fast, not instatantly tought from almost instantly to 2-3 sec

#3, but really not too many sites I visit load up faster.

3-2. From most to least.

It's the MySQL db's as you are using the vB for like the entire site, that may be your problem. I'm still learning MySQL but I've administered many php+mysql forums and it's usually the DBs.

Ask Phantasm, I don't want to get too over my head, I'm still in the process of learning MySQL.

I am finding intitial loading very slow. I noticed that the delay is due to adverts loading, in particular

'a.as-us.falkag.net'

which seems to pause for about 6 secs before continuing. This never used to be the case.

Yes, the ad server has been slow lately...

Otherwise it loads within an ok speed, except for the first time I visit (but then again, I'm clearing the cache each time I exit)...

So I guess I fall into #3...

But on a similar note..

Sometimes I can wait for up to a minute for a page to load, when I've used the quickreply box... It'll allmost hang on the "newreply.php" and take forever to return me to the thread...

Sometimes I just back and reloads, but mostly I can't be bothered, and just back up to the list of threads... But this has caused me to "loose" certain posts lately (unless a mod deleted them without telling me)...

So if you could look into it, it'd be great...

I'm using Opera 7.11 on win2k pro...

Hmm.. seems to work as it should now...

The only problem left (which I forgot in the prev post) is that instead of being returned to my post, I'm returned to the previous page in the thread/not going to the new page...

TS server speed blows right now. It's painfully slow.

Right now, it is 11:07AM PST, July 23, 2003.

Not much that can be done anymore to optimize server speed, actually we should be on the optimal level now considering current design constraints that will come to an end once we the CMS takes over and we replace tables with CSS.

Tonight I have done a latest round-up of optimizations, this time concerning advertisements code, loads better here, although even with my slow connection the site loads pretty quickly.Originally posted by XtR-X
TS server speed blows right now. It's painfully slow. Right now, it is 11:07AM PST, July 23, 2003. Perhaps a case of packet loss between your ISP and TS' server? Like I said, we are pretty much in the optimum level of optimizations, we should be able to handle another /.ing one of these days IMHO.

No, but a good guess. I've been to dslreports.com, done some tests, even some more tweaks at speedguide.net, it ain't me.

I haven't had any problems recently :)

No problems here from Milan...