Hey Lud, why so slow?

[nsx4fun]

I'm running a cable modem. Ever since the change in servers, My computer seems real slow to access the "NSX Prime General Message Forums". All of the other forums come up in a reasonable amount of time, but the General Forum is very slow.

Are others experiencing this same phenomena?

Is there a solution to this "problem"?

As My wife expects to lose her job in the semi-near future (layoffs from HP), in order to reduce monthly bills, i will probably be forced into dropping the cable modem and going back to 56k modem (which my landline has never done faster than 29.2K connection). If this is to occur, and the resulting increased slowness in accessing the General forum, I don't think I will have the patience to try and even look at what has been posted on the "General" forum.

Of course, some might appreciate not seeing my posts on NSXprime as a result, I do hope there is a solution so I can continue to enjoy surfing this website.

I welcome any suggestions.

 

[NeoNSX]

nsx4fun... you would missed, i'm sure.

I sometimes notice prime gets slow, but put it down to the fact i live far far away or it's populated with other users.

A speed-up suggestion is turning off Avatar's.
Also, increasing your internet cache can help too if it's presently too small.
Lastly, you might want to consider using a fast browser like Opera or Mozilla...


Could you post what Operating System and Web browser version you're using & rough PC specifications... this info can help us help u.

 

[Lud]

That is interesting. The site is much faster in every way in my experience, particularly the forums. It is running a much more efficient software set and is on a much more powerful server.

What kind of computer, OS and browser are you running?

Next time you experience it being slow, try two things:

1. Run a tracert command to nsxprime.com -- if you see anything up in the 100+ ms range, then you have a bottleneck between your computer and the server. If you see slow times, are they on your side of Verio or on the server's side?

2. Test your bandwidth throughput at that moment -- cable modems are shared and can sometimes bog down during heavy use by others on the same segment.

If you are on a modem, I suggest going into your profile and setting your Default Thread View and Default Posts Per Thread to low values. Maybe 2-3 days on the thread view and 10-15 on the posts per thread view. Also, as Neo suggested, turn off avatars, signatures, and image attachments.

 

[NSXaholic]

...Ever since the change in servers, My computer seems real slow to access the "NSX Prime General Message Forums". All of the other forums come up in a reasonable amount of time, but the General Forum is very slow.

Are others experiencing this same phenomena?...

There are clearly more graphical buttons that our computer has to download with the new software and there is sometimes a minor lag associated with that, but just FYI, I have not experienced any of the forums -- "General Message" or otherwise -- to lag. I am using a DSL Modem. In fact, as Lud points out, some of the previously slow facets of Prime, such as the "Search" function, have become super-fast.

Again, just FYI, since you asked for other user input. Lud's suggestions are good ones.

Regards.

 

[nsx4fun]

Thanks for all the feedback. I have modified my profile to 5 days and 20 posts/page. That has helped a lot. Looking at posts doesn't seem to be a problem, so I left the Avatars on (I like to see them as it is easier to find replies from users i know as well as my own posts in a long thread).

My Computer is a Pentium III, 700MHz, w/384MB RAM.

My OS is Windows 98, and my preferred browser is Netscape 4.7 (Yeah, I know it's a little old, but I like it's GUI format).

Lud, I'm not sure how to do these 2 suggestions.

"1. Run a tracert command to nsxprime.com

2. Test your bandwidth throughput at that moment"

 

[Lud]

Your hardware ought to be fast enough. Win98 has a lot of issues that can cause it to be slow. But even then it still shouldn't be really slow.

1. Click on "Start" and then "Run" and type "command" in the box that asks you what program you want to run. At the command prompt (e.g. C:\WINDOWS>) type "tracert nsxprime.com" and hit the return key. It will take moment but that command will show you the route through the Internet you are using to connect to the website and measure the delay between each one.

2. Go to a site like http://webservices.cnet.com/Bandwidth/ and it will measure the speed of your Internet connection at that moment.

 

[nsx4fun]

Lud

1. Tracert results: 14 hops 472ms total time

2. 2182 kbps

 

[Jimbo]

Seems as fast or faster to me.

I have a cable modem too.

(Mac iBook, 600Mhz, 640MB RAM, Safari v73)

-Jim

 

[Lud]

That is a reasonable tracert and your bandwidth speed is obviously good. Running out of ideas...

I am grasping at straws here, but I think is/was a setting on some browsers that sets how many concurrent downloads it can process. Since the new forums have more graphics, there are many more elements to load for a given page. Even though they are very small, if your computer doesn't do them concurrently, it would slow things down quite a bit. Does anyone familiar with Netscape 4.7 know of any setting like that which might be applicable?

 

[NeoNSX]

Lud, i used to be very familiar with Netscape 4.7 but haven't used it for a long time. I ditched it because it was slow compared to other browsers.

Win98 does have a limitation that may be effecting it; it can usually hold a maximum of ~100 internet connections before becoming unstable. So like you say, it's quite feasible that netscape is slowing down because each graphic holds a connection. (especially if you've got more than one browser window open)

Also, if you're running Windows98 1st edition, that was slower in many of areas. Win98SE (or 2nd Ed.) significantly improved performance.

Doesn't really help you much though, does it.

<B>NSX4Fun</B>: have you also tried using Internet Explorer just to see if you get the same slow effects? This will isolate whether your problem is the browser.

Also did you increase your MemoryCache and DiskCache settings (under EDIT/Preferences [i think]). The default is usually 2000 (2MB) for memory - increase that to 5000-10000. DiskCache can be increased to 50000 (50MB) or more

 

[nsx4fun]

I am running Windows 98 2nd edition.

I tried increasing the cache settings in Netscape by a factor of 4, helped a little maybe.

I tried IE5.5 and yes, that is much much better.

I hate the IE interface, but I guess in the interest of speed, I may be forced into abandoning my Netscape 4.7

Thank you, everyone, for your helpful suggestions.

 

[NeoNSX]

nsx4fun: no probs. I understand your dislike of IE... that's why i dont use it. Suggestion; why not re-install Netscape... might just need a clean-up (backup your contacts&bookmarks first though) ????

 

[Lud]

Fritz - Glad to hear that at leas the problem is narrowed down to something between this site and that version of Netscape.. Even if it's not the answer you were hoping for at least now we know what the problem is. You can usually have two different browsers coexist on the same machine. I haven't tried this with a current version of IE and an old version of Netscape, but if you really want to keep both, give it a shot. Then you could just use IE for this site. Or I'm sure some of the browser gurus here could give you suggestions on alternatives to IE that work well with this site.

 

[nsx4fun]

I tried Netscape 6.1 and it has the same delay. Looks like the new server is more compatible with IE than Netscape. I attribute it to the work of the communist Bill Gates. I have to use IE for other purposes as well because some work related things I do are not supported by my IT dept for browsers other than IE. So using IE isn't the end of the world for me, it's just not my preferred browser of choice.

Again, I want to thank everybody for their inputs

Lud, there are no problems I know of having more than one browser software package on a computer. I have 3.

 

[PHOEN$X]

I attribute it to the work of the communist Bill Gates.

Not according to Micro$oft..

Also see this one.

 

[NeoNSX]

<B>nsx4fun:</B> sorry we can't solve the issue. Nice to know there are still Netscape users around. If you want a fourth Browser, i highly recommend <A HREF="http://www.opera.com">Opera</A> [3MB]. So much so i actually BOUGHT it Opera has three modes of displaying images: On, Off, and Cached-Images-Only.

The "Cached-Images-Only" mode is great... it only displays what's stored in the internet cache, so page-reloads are lightning fast (coz there's no images to download). On a thread with photo's I haven't already viewed, I just right-click the photo and show it! It saves a lot of time/bandwidth, especially when people post large useless images... <I>*neo looks at Phoen$x's post and laughs*</I> ...although i can't find an example of that off hand.

<B>Phoe<FONT COLOR=red>N$X</FONT></B>: LOL... how did you find that? The linux one is better coz it's association with "Red Hat" Does this mean prime is communist? Afterall we have a forums nazi so who knows?

 

[ncdogdoc]

The linux one is better coz it's association with "Red Hat" Does this mean prime is communist? Afterall we have a forums nazi so who knows?

I think that would make us fascist, not communist

 

[PHOEN$X]

I think that would make us fascist, not communist

You mean like this?

 

[NeoNSX]

You mean like this?

That's a classic of Bill <B>Phoe<FONT COLOR=red>N$X</FONT></B>!!! Look at what's flying above him though... why, it looks like a phoenix!!!! buahahah...


<B>ncdogdoc</B>: yup... i know nazi's were facist, but they used a lot of red too. i meant to type "communist/facist?" but forgot in the humour of the moment. thanx for correction though.

 

[NSX UNITED]

nsx4fun,

I used to love Netscape and hate IE, too. I've been very patient with the loading time as well as the dead-link bug. However, its message board loading time is just ridiculous, nsxprime is not the only one. At one point last year, I've finally had enough and I'm done with Netscape for good. Now that I've re-formated my comp and installed XP + IE6, everything looks and work better than my past Netscape experiences x 2.

P.S. Seems like I've the slowest comp here, P3-600, 128mb RAM.

 

[NSX Prime]

I use Opera as my browser (www.Opera.com) and absolutely LOVE it. It's so much faster than the "other" three, and the mouse functions are a sure win. I can just right click on a thread link, move the mouse down and up a little, let go the button, and the link opens...in a new window...BEHIND the current one.

So I can open all the interesting threads in windows behind the current one, then get to reading them.

SR