# Why's it sooooo slow? **URL:** \ **Category:** About This Message Board\ **Created:** [May 17, 2000, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whys-it-sooooo-slow/19765 "2000-05-17T17:08:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![elbows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b3f665/32.png) [@elbows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elbows)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2000, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whys-it-sooooo-slow/19765/1 "2000-05-17T17:08:21Z")
I realize that the new software will need some tweaking and such, so I’ve waited to see if this situation will improve. So far, it hasn’t. I’ve noticed, since the switch, that the board runs really, really slow. For me it’s like going back to phone line access. What’s up with that? And is there any chance it will improve? Or is this the top speed? Everywhere else on the web I get the speed my cable access is supposed to provide, but it’s like a huge step backward when I come here. And very annoying when you’re paying for high speed access. Is it even worse for people without cable access? How come? If it’s newer software shouldn’t it be, I don’t know, faster or better? Am I the only one who finds this frustrating? Any chance you’ll switch to some other faster software? It seems silly to step backward in time to slower speeds. Thanks for any insight you could give me about this. ---
**Author:** ![coosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/eada6e/32.png) [@coosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coosa)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2000, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whys-it-sooooo-slow/19765/2 "2000-05-18T00:30:06Z")
elbows, it has been pretty fast for me most of the time. I’ve noticed some slowness during what appear to be ‘high traffic’ times, when it seems that a lot of people are using the board at the same time. Otherwise it’s been terrific. (And hasn’t crashed once! Woohoo!) Oh, and I’ve got a phone line, not cable. Now that I’ve posted this, I’ll probably hit a horrible slow-down and be frustrated myself! ---
**Author:** ![elbows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b3f665/32.png) [@elbows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elbows)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2000, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whys-it-sooooo-slow/19765/3 "2000-05-18T00:50:54Z")
Y’know, I think you’re right. I’m noticing at other times it is very fast now that you mention it. ---
**Author:** ![Parrot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/bbce88/32.png) [@Parrot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Parrot)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2000, 10:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whys-it-sooooo-slow/19765/4 "2000-05-18T10:25:33Z")
> [@](#): > > elbows: > \*\*I’ve noticed, since the switch, that the board runs really, really slow. For me it’s like going back to phone line access. > > Everywhere else on the web I get the speed my cable access is supposed to provide, but it’s like a huge step backward when I come here. > > Am I the only one who finds this frustrating? > > Thanks for any insight you could give me about this.\*\* I find it Soooo Sloooooow as well. For example: **I’m writing this at 4:20am and it’s still painful. It took 25 seconds for the Quote function to return the lines above.** And the Preview just took 12 seconds. Feels verry slow. ---
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2000, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whys-it-sooooo-slow/19765/5 "2000-05-18T20:14:18Z")
Also verrrryyy slow for me, since the change-over. Frustrating, as I usually only have a minute or two to read and post between work assignments, and posting a reply takes so long it’s hardly worth it. ---
**Author:** ![TubaDiva](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tubadiva/32/507_2.png) [@TubaDiva](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TubaDiva)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2000, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whys-it-sooooo-slow/19765/6 "2000-05-19T03:42:27Z")
I’m sorry it’s not a great experience for you, my dear. And I don’t know what to tell you. ::: sigh ::: your humble TubaDiva Administrator ---
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2000, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whys-it-sooooo-slow/19765/7 "2000-05-19T14:15:00Z")
Oh, goodness, get your head out of the oven, Tuba! If it was a lousy experience, I wouldn’t BE here! Just wondering if the Mods knew that the Board is running slow, in case there’s a glitch. ---
**Author:** ![elbows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b3f665/32.png) [@elbows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elbows)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2000, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whys-it-sooooo-slow/19765/8 "2000-05-19T14:36:00Z")
Me too, I wasn’t bitching I was hoping for some answers. Isn’t this the forum for technical questions? Doesn’t anybody there want to offer any explanation at all? Will the speed improve or is this it? Is anyone actually working on this problem? I don’t expect you to have all the answers, but some input might be nice. ---
**Author:** ![Arnold\_Winkelried](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Arnold\_Winkelried](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arnold_Winkelried)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2000, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whys-it-sooooo-slow/19765/9 "2000-05-19T14:59:39Z")
> [@](#): > > Doesn’t anybody there want to offer any explanation at all? I’ll try and guess at an explanation. (I hope some technical person will come along to correct my blatherings in case I’m way off mark here.) At the time of switching to vBulletin, we were told that the software used a database (mySQL maybe?) to store information. When a lot of users are accessing the database at the same time, access is slow. When there are few connections to the database, access is fast. Voilà! Of course, there is also the issue that when a website is being hit by more people, the server takes longer to respond. I have noticed that the board seems the least responsive between 9:00 AM - 5:00 PM PST (in other words, during daytime business hours in the USA.) ---
**Author:** ![elbows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b3f665/32.png) [@elbows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elbows)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2000, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whys-it-sooooo-slow/19765/10 "2000-05-19T15:44:21Z")
Thanks Arnold, that is a help to people trying to understand. But I’m still curious to know if they intend to improve it, can it be improved even? ---
**Author:** ![TubaDiva](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tubadiva/32/507_2.png) [@TubaDiva](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TubaDiva)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2000, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whys-it-sooooo-slow/19765/11 "2000-05-20T04:22:17Z")
Here’s what he’s had to say on this issue previously . . . > [@](#): > > It’s all a balancing act. You can have fast response with limited access or you can have slow response with lots of access or you can have something in between. The size of the pie stays the same. Slice it however you wish. > > I’m looking on the brighter side. 13 days without a single message board restart. We’re making progress. > > Finally, not to dash anyone’s hopes but I’m speculating that the new T1 on the horizon is not going to have a large impact on the message board speed. I don’t know that for a fact but at the moment our performance bottleneck seems to be the server processing time, not bandwidth on the T1. When stuff gets slow around here, it’s the usual cyberspace bottlenecks between our server and your computer, coupled with the fact that the system can’t handle more than 100 transactions at a time. And, to update, it’s actually been 21 days now without a restart. your humble TubaDiva Administrator ---
**Author:** ![HopelessIdjit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/d78d45/32.png) [@HopelessIdjit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HopelessIdjit)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2000, 7:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whys-it-sooooo-slow/19765/12 "2000-05-20T07:55:37Z")
Thats an amazing no-crash time ---
**Author:** ![Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/50afbb/32.png) [@Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duck_Duck_Goose)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2000, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whys-it-sooooo-slow/19765/13 "2000-05-20T13:12:13Z")
**Elbows,** there are a couple of things you can do to speed up the loading time. One is to set the default number of days of threads loaded to either 2 or 5. I find that 5 days works well for me, being a nice compromise between 2 and 10. I don’t think I miss too much. You change this in your Profile. Also, you can tell your web browser not to display pictures (at least, you can with Internet Explorer 5, I don’t know how it works with Netscape.) With IE5, you go into Tools/Internet Options/Advanced, and then you scroll down to Multimedia and un-click the box next to Show Pictures. You can also un-click Play Animations and Play Videos. Of course this will affect your entire Internet experience, so you have to decide. However, you can change it back and forth; after you click on Apply and then OK, the very next page you load will have the changes made. Or you can hit Refresh to reload the page you’re on. These two things really speed it up for me. Of course, then you have to guess at what all the place-holders are, but sometimes that’s kind of fun–“let’s see now, is this probably a mad face or a rolleyes?” (In case you didn’t know, you right-click on the place-holder and it will say Show Picture, then you click on Show Picture.) (Also, if you rest the mouse for a couple of seconds on a place-holder, sometimes a “What’s this?” box will pop up.) ---
**Author:** ![Oncle\_Biere\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Oncle\_Biere\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oncle_Biere_1)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2000, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whys-it-sooooo-slow/19765/14 "2000-05-20T15:35:45Z")
None of your “tricks” work for me. Maybe you just got lucky? There must be a real problem if everyone sees it. They should keep tinkering. I _think_ it’s actually cutting into total usage of the board, i.e. number of posts that get through in a day. Is there a record of that? I see the numbers on top of the main menu. ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2000, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whys-it-sooooo-slow/19765/15 "2000-05-20T17:06:09Z")
Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm…Sock-puppet poetry! **– Tio Cerveza** ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2000, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whys-it-sooooo-slow/19765/16 "2000-05-20T17:08:09Z")
Damn. Forgot my sig. – Tio Cerveza * * * **Rotate your tires.** ---
**Author:** ![Oncle\_Biere\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Oncle\_Biere\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oncle_Biere_1)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2000, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whys-it-sooooo-slow/19765/17 "2000-05-20T17:39:23Z")
It does look funny that way. I was running two browsers in verically-tiled windows and I tend to hit the carriage return manually, rather than relying on wordwrap. Old typewriter skills die hard, especially if you still use one to type file folder labels now and then. ---
**Author:** ![Oncle\_Biere\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Oncle\_Biere\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oncle_Biere_1)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2000, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whys-it-sooooo-slow/19765/18 "2000-05-20T18:08:56Z")
You know, I considered **Zio Birra** first, and almost went with it, but my Italian is too shaky to get many good lines out of it. I don’t know Españoles at all, probably just messed up that one word. Oh, well, I’ll make Herr Berlitz rich, one language at a time.