Just lately - the past week or so - I’ve been having real difficulty opening threads and switching forums. One thread took 5 minutes to open. Others never open at all, the clock icon just goes round and round and round… It’s getting so I click on a thread, then go downstairs, make a coffee, and when I come up it just might be open. No trouble with other sites, and I’ve got a broadband connection (ADSL 512KBPS) and am in UK. Thanks for any help in advance…
The SDMB kinda goes in cycles with this stuff. If you only recently have started browsing the boards, you’ve pretty much seen the best of it, at least that I can remember, since 1999. The server that the boards reside on is a little underpowered, but the tech staff here works all kinds of magic with it to get it running as smooth as it does. DSL doesn’t help when the server itself is finding a thread, but it does when the thread finally does get sent out.
And, as I suspect in this case, even if we streamline it perfectly, we always have more and more people joining, eventually overpowering any improvements we make.
However, the general state of the board has been improving over the past year, so don’t get discouraged.
Oh, and as I’m sure you’ll need to know in this thread, the reference of choice for the server is “hamsters.” So what we really need to do is cough up some money for the premium hamster chow, and we’ll be good.
This is indeed true. In fact, since the server upgrade in November, we’ve gone from 850,000 page views/week to over 1.3 million/week. Just as we suspected, the additonal capacity was quickly consumed, thus fulfilling one of the basic laws of supply and demand.
To know us is to love us, MrsFace.
In time you will find that the ham{p}sters here have a drug problem. They are currently in rehab but occasionally relapse. You can tell when they’ve been nipping the Ham{p}ster Crack[sup]TM[/sup] because the board will be lightning fast for a short period of time and will then slow to an excruciating pace.
Enjoy your time with us. Some days you’ll just have to love us slow.
Thanks v. much for replies…I didn’t realise the volume of visitors was growing so fast!
Actually I’ve noticed that it is faster in the mornings (I’m in the Uk) when the US is (mostly) in bed, which does suggest the speed is related to number of users
thanks again,