A brand new problem - and just on the Straight Dope.
When I type into a message box none of the letters appear until I lift my hands off the keyboard. And then the cursor starts moving across the screen filling in the missing letters.
Even other operations - hitting the drop down menus or scrolling down a page - seem to have a delay built in.
I’ve rebooted, run ScanDisk and virus-checking software, opened and closed the browser. I’m running IE 6.0 on Windows 98.
This doesn’t happen on other messages boards or when doing e-mails.
These boards are extremely slow in response. Since your computer is running 98, it is probably more on the slower side anyway, so that combination is causing the delay.
Something is taxing your system. Of course, it could be this worm that is circulating around, or some other program in the background is hogging all of your bus bandwidth.
Chicago Faucet:
This has nothing to do with the server. I know this both emperically (I can type in message boxes even when I’m not connected to the internet) and just by common sense (why in the world would the server be involved?).
Exapno Mapcase:
You’ve tried other message boards and applications on your computer (Word, Excel, etc.)?
I must disagree with you. This message board, or any message board for that matter, is working on the backend, from the server. Eventhough you are typing into a field that is right in front of you on your screen, it is the server that is supplying the field that you are typing into. It relies on a combination of the responsiveness of the server, your bandwidth, and the processing power of your computer. Even after the field has visually appeared, there are still objects loading in the background that slightly delay the registering of your typing. You can still type into a field on a message board without being connected to it at that time. Only when you want to post the message, do you have to connect and submit the post.
But my point was that it wasn’t entirely the server. It is also how quickly the OP’s computer can translate the message traffic between his system and the server at, say, Amazon or SDMB. Being that he is running 98, that leads me to believe that he is probably running a low end computer.
Something is taxing the computer enough to delay the responsiveness of the OPs typing. I would start with the most simple, and try defragging and disk cleanup.
In IE, go to Tools>Internet Options, then to the “content” tab, then the “autocomplete” button. There you will have buttons for clearing the autocomplete forms and passwords.
I’ve noticed the delay on all type-in sites, message boards and web-based email.
I assumed it was changes in the latest Internet Explorer changes, which were mainly (as always) touted for patching security holes, but which probably had a lot of other things thrown in at the same time.
I’ve tried defragging and I’ve deleted all the autocomplete entries from several sources and it’s still doing it.
With no programs active, my system resources are at 36% free which seems awfully low.
But I still don’t understand why it happens with the SDMB and not in other message boards of different configuration. And not in Word or other typing-intensive programs.
Or why it would suddenly decide to start with nothing changed on the computer. (600 MHz Pentium)
The server has nothing to do with the actual typing into the text box. The server basically supplies a little message saying ‘there should be a tex box here, this big’, and from there, it’s your computer/browser handling it.
Typing in the form at that point has nothing more to do with the server than typing in notepad does. It’s only once the typing is completed and submitted that the form is sent in it’s entirety. The only time server speed factors in is how fast the submission is handled - it has nothing to do with obvious client slowdown.
I can confirm that the server has nothing to do with my problem. I’m typing this in Netscape and everything is working perfectly. That tells me it is an IE problem.
And I’ve done everything suggested in this thread and in the thread that Bearflag70 linked to. None of it helped.
Perhaps I need to reinstall IE. Think that would help?