By “fade” I mean that when I log in all is fine. I click on a thread or forum, it comes right up, the first time. It’s slower the second time. By the third time it’s interminable.
I can exit, come back in, and start this cycle all over–the first thing I log onto is fine, etc. etc. Then it slows down again. (Not really the same as fading, but it’s like the connection is fading.)
This has been happening over and over again the last few days. The only problem is when I have search results (e.g. new posts) then when I log back in they are gone.
Note that I am NOT being logged out. Just slowed down.
By coincidence, the first ad at the bottom is for a spyware remover. The first thing I was going to suggest is make sure your system is free of spyware. Adaware and spybot are my first two choices in this regard.
That said, I’ve never noticed a “fade” effect. What I have noticed is that the board gets slower and faster in kind of a wave effect. I don’t have to log out and log back in, but sometimes I just have to wait a bit or else damn near every click times out on me. Part of this may be due to Google searching the posts so that it can display the oh so helpful advertisements at the bottom. Google alone isn’t to blame, but the extra traffic caused by Google on top of the already heavy traffic of the board is probably sometimes enough to drive it over the edge.
Another weird thing I’ve noticed about ethernet traffic in general, having spent many times with packet sniffers on networks, is that network traffic almost always “waves”. If you were to graph the traffic level vs. time, it would literally look like waves on an ocean, with a lot of minor variations, but with something surprisingly periodic going on. I’ve never really heard a good explanation why, either, but you can definately see the effect on most networks. The SDMB is busy enough that the peaks of the waves reflect enough traffic to effectively swamp the servers. There are times that the poor little hamsters just can’t keep up.
If you are definately getting “faded” then I’d worry about it being on your side of things. If you are getting “waved” then don’t sweat it. That’s just the way the internet and the SDMB (and most other busy internet sites) work.
I think it’s the board slowing down. As people have trouble opening a page, they log off. After a while, enough people have logged off that you can get back on and have a couple of views before everybody else figures it out and it slows to a crawl again.
FWIW, I got on the site just now and was able to peruse a couple of posts in one forum, get to another forum rather slowly, made it to here with about a 15 second delay, took about 30 seconds for the “Reply” screen to come up.
Just like the OP described, a gradual slowing. Now to hit “Submit” and see how long that takes (but not before saving to clipboard).
These are fascinating and more than plausible explanations for what goes on here.
I also note that allocation functionality may also be in play here. Some programs tend to hold on to RAM instead of releasing it back to the system when the task it was alloted for is completed. (AOL is notorious for this, to give just one horrid example.) I’m sure there’s other programs that do the same thing, unfortunately.
As more and more of the RAM on your machine is taken by programs that don’t release it, the system chokes and slows to a crawl. A reboot releases the RAM and fixes everything.
This is not the only problem, of course (seea above), but I bet it accounts for a fair share of the situation.
I’m on a spyware free, high end machine with a high-speed connection and nothing running that sucks up memory. When I hit the SDMB, it usually takes a minimum of 10-15 seconds to get a topic open. Just for grins, I timed this response. From the click on the reply button to the reply window appearing: 21 seconds.
This sort of crap is a “normal” viewing day. We joke about the hamsters and the server having been upgraded to a 486 and all that stuff, but the truth is that the throughput on this board is really, really, really bad. I don’t know of a solution other than goosing up the server, and if the CR isn’t willing to spend the money to do that, we’re stuck with sorry response time.
It’s the quality of (most of) the posts that makes us sit and suffer through it.
(my Bolding)
Everything you say is true. Especially the last line.
If this was a tech forum I wouldn’t use it anymore but as this is a unique and wonderful place, I put up with the lag and usually only grumble only to myself.
I find the problem is intermittent throughout the day and is always extra bad between 4pm and 5pm EST.
Again this is a “I wish it was better”, not a full fledge gripe.
We are aware of the situation and we are looking at what can be done to improve it. Won’t happen overnight – we’re not exactly #1 on the to do list in tech – but we are looking for solutions.
See, I don’t get the problems with the board being slow. Except when searching, the board almost always gives me a fast response. I once held a sort of “race” between the google front page and the SDMB front page (clearing the cache each time), and for what it’s worth, the SDMB won 2 out of 5. For what it’s worth, I’m on DSL with an Athlon 64 3000+, 512mb RAM, browsing on Firefox. When I’ve browsed with IE, for whatever reason, though, the board does seem to slow down.
But the peculiar thing is that I don’t reboot; I exit, then come right back in and things are fine (for two or three threads). Sometimes I don’t even exit, just pull up another screen–although that does seem like it would slow things down, and is probably bad practice, and could lead to me posting something to the wrong thread. And the new screen almost invariably moves faster, at least for a few minutes.
(It’s entirely possible that I totally misunderstood your explanation above. I am not a real technically sophisticated person.)
I don’t think it accounts for anything. While memory leaks are a common programming error, they are usually not sufficient to slow a modern computer “to a crawl.” There are many more likely reasons for a computer to run slowly, and besides, I think the vast majority of people can distinguish between one website running slowly and their entire system doing the same.
