When I access the SDMB from work, I use an imac that has a very fast connection - I don’t know what kind, but when I hit the sign-on button, it sometimes takes me there right away. However, loading pages from that site, once I’m there, takes forever. Posting can take several minutes. At home, using a 56k modem and a one year old pc with some type of pentium processor, it goes much faster. Never really fast, but much faster. Is this a problem of memory in the two machines? Something seems paradoxical here. And just at a time when the SDMB moderators (at least Manhatten) and the regular dopers are discussing overload at the SD boards, themselves. Any help for a pinhead?
Well, your profile doesn’t give a location for you, so I’m gonna assume you live in the continental U.S. Why is this important? Hang with me for a moment.
First, the homepage, Cecil’s columns, the Staff Reports and the archive are on a different server from the message board; the board has a dedicated machine. So, when you first hit the SD homepage, you are accessing a machine with little, or at least lesser, demand on it, very much unlike the server on which the boards reside. That accounts for the slowdown when you attempt to read and reply on the boards.
Our peak demand hours run from about 11:00am to 5:00pm, Chicago time. This is why you experience delays when you are at work, despite the faster connection. When you get home from the office, and use your modem, peak demand is over, thus you do not see the great delays you had in the afternoon.
If you do not work in the continental U.S., and are not attempting to post during the peak demand hours, then I can’t explain your difficulties.
I hope this helps.
My immediate thinking on this, from someone noticing the same thing myself, is that it has less to do with your system and more to do with the load on the SDMB.
The peak time of use around here is between 8:00 A.M. central time US and 6:00 P.M. central time -the time your probably at work and on the Mac. You notice it lagging and automatically think it’s your Mac system. It isn’t. It’s the board trying to handle a large number of people accessing and searching during that time.
Conversely, after peak times, you can access and roam around with seemingly no delays because less people are on the system. You assume it’s the different machines you’re using to access. It isn’t. It’s faster because less people are on.
Not much you can do on your end to fix it.
ok, two out of three posters suggest that the significant variable is the time of day. I don’t think so, but I’ll certainly check to see. (I’m in the Central time zone so there is the possibility of time being the critical factor. By the way, do very few people work, or do a lot of people at work use their machines to contact SD? Because otherwise, why would business hours be the peak times? Also - the way I accesss the boards is directly to the general questions, I don’t even bother going through the main page. Yet, within general questions, there’s sometimes several minutes of looking at, “Thank you for posting…etc.” And if I try to get to a particular question, it takes forever. Just the time of day? I don’t think so. The main page server? I don’t think so. help?
Yeah, you’re right. Your computer at work sucks.
A lot of people use their work machines to contact SD. In fact, some people ONLY get to SD from work.
I guess that’s why the busiest time is before 5, rather than when they get home.
As to another part of the puzzle:
For me, the first page is always fast because the browser brings up an old copy it saved from before and then refreshes it, which is often not noticable.
If I’m disconnected, for instance, and hit that link it will give me the old page and then start dialing.