# ASF site slow recently?



## Julia (3 June 2008)

Is anyone else finding the site slow over the last couple of days?

Last night it took me 15 minutes to type a two paragraph reply to post
because - despite my fingers moving quickly, no letters appeared on the screen.  Also have been having trouble with the small page moving arrow bottom right.

Initially when clicking on ASF from Favourites, it has been taking up to a minute to get the Home Page up, and then each screen change up to 20 seconds.

Thought I'd put this on the forum, rather than contact you directly, Joe, to see if others are having a similar difficulty.

I'm not having any problem on any other website.


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## Julia (3 June 2008)

*Re: ASF Site Slow recently*

It took 65 seconds from the time I clicked on Submit for the post to actually appear on my screen.  Now it has taken 40 seconds from clicking on Reply to Post for this screen to come up and now I am typing and no letters are appearing.  Suddenly about 12 words appear.


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## disarray (3 June 2008)

no probs here. run a spyware / malware / virus check on your PC, and clear out your cookies and cache as a first step.


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## prawn_86 (3 June 2008)

No problems here...


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## Col Lector (3 June 2008)

Agree Julia....was just pondering this when came across your post.
Have also noticed I'm being blocked when using the "Quick Links"....ie, wait 30 secs between searches even though I havent made the initial search.
And Competition page doesnt seem to update as suggested (ie, 20 mins delayed)
Some gremblin lurking....


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## Joe Blow (3 June 2008)

Hi All, 

I'm not experiencing any slowness but would be interested in finding out if others are and I will see if I can get to the bottom of it.

Col, just regarding the stock competition, this is now being updated only once a day due to our not being able to display 20 minute delayed ASX data on the site any more.


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## Col Lector (3 June 2008)

Giday Joe..Once-a-day update helps explain the slow moving field.
Re the site delays...was thinking there might be some interference between running programs eg, Protrader, messaging applications (or even other forums god forbid!) that would explain the unexpected "30 second warning".I run a stack of programs at one time & have been having a few adobe/IE probs
Btw Joe, a bit more constructive criticism...I find the 30-sec delay a real drag...is it totally necessary?....could it be reduced to say 15 secs & achieve same ends?


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## sails (3 June 2008)

Julia said:


> Is anyone else finding the site slow over the last couple of days?
> 
> Last night it took me 15 minutes to type a two paragraph reply to post
> because - despite my fingers moving quickly, no letters appeared on the screen.  Also have been having trouble with the small page moving arrow bottom right.....




Yes... describes perfectly what I experienced yesterday - and again today to some degree.  Something seems to keep locking up - and it's only the ASF site.


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## wildkactus (3 June 2008)

no problems here, All normal from this end.


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## Tradert (3 June 2008)

No issues for me.

Would be worthwhile testing on a different browser other than the one were the problem seems to happen. Atleast this should eliminate one variable out of the way.


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## Joe Blow (3 June 2008)

Col Lector said:


> Btw Joe, a bit more constructive criticism...I find the 30-sec delay a real drag...is it totally necessary?....could it be reduced to say 15 secs & achieve same ends?




Col, are you referring to the fact that you can only do one site search every 30 seconds?

I set it at 30 seconds due to the heavy load searching places on the server. I have reduced it to 15 seconds for the moment but if I find it is having a negative impact on performance I will put it back to 30 seconds.


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## grace (3 June 2008)

I found the whole system a bit slower once the new format was implemented.  eg it takes longer to press a page number, or you can press it with no response.  There is a slight delay when typing sometimes.

Love the new format though Joe.


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## Trembling Hand (3 June 2008)

I am struggling as well. I thought it was just one of my computers so I restarted it and all is well now but it was very weird. I would type in the form for a new post and the letters would lag my typing. Very strange. Is that what you experienced Julia/Sails?

I would guess now that it may of been one of the Flash banner ads locking up our systems. Will have to watch for what is displayed if it happens next time.


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## Tradert (3 June 2008)

Trembling Hand said:


> Flash banner ads locking up our systems.




Seriously hate those flash ads. However, Adblock Plus (a firefox add-on) gets rid of them 9/10 times.


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## professor_frink (3 June 2008)

Tradert said:


> Seriously hate those flash ads. However, Adblock Plus (a firefox add-on) gets rid of them 9/10 times.




Do you really think it's appropriate to start telling forum members how to disable the main source of revenue that keeps this site up and running??


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## Julia (3 June 2008)

Trembling Hand said:


> I am struggling as well. I thought it was just one of my computers so I restarted it and all is well now but it was very weird. I would type in the form for a new post and the letters would lag my typing. Very strange. Is that what you experienced Julia/Sails?
> 
> I would guess now that it may of been one of the Flash banner ads locking up our systems. Will have to watch for what is displayed if it happens next time.




Yes, exactly that, TH.   When I logged on a few minutes ago the Home page came up quickly enough, but I have just waited over a minute for this reply to post box to come up and am again right now experiencing typing at normal speed but no letters appearing.  I have now typed a whole paragraph and, lo, now the letters are appearing finally.

Will now time how long it takes after clicking on Submit for the post to appear.


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## Tradert (3 June 2008)

professor_frink said:


> Do you really think it's appropriate to start telling forum members how to disable the main source of revenue that keeps this site up and running??




oops


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## Julia (3 June 2008)

Joe, it's a bit similar to the problem a while ago which I think you traced to Paypal.


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## doctorj (3 June 2008)

Pages load fine here, but I've noticed when pasting blocks of text that it often takes ages to appear.


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## Julia (4 June 2008)

Pretty good now, but when I logged on about 15 minutes ago it was dead slow and seemed to just lock up.


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## Col Lector (4 June 2008)

Joe Blow said:


> Col, are you referring to the fact that you can only do one site search every 30 seconds?
> 
> I set it at 30 seconds due to the heavy load searching places on the server. I have reduced it to 15 seconds for the moment but if I find it is having a negative impact on performance I will put it back to 30 seconds.




Twas what I referring to. But the warning was being triggered when I had just moved to the site and done a first push on the "quick links tab"

Site seems much faster this morning...my bet is that some of the more elaborate banner ads are the culprit...in that they play havoc with memory...& that this is heightened when more applications are open simultaneously.


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## Julia (4 June 2008)

Joe, I've just about gone nuts trying to send a PM in the last 15 minutes. Couldn't get the preview screen up and then couldn't return to typed text.


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## gwm (4 June 2008)

Over the last few days my cpu usage goes excessively high (greater than 90%) with respect to the IExplore.exe that is applicable to ASF

This has happened on two computers and basically locks up processing until the CPU usage drops back to a normal level - merely using the vertical slide bar impacts the ASF IExplore.exe cpu usage in such a manner


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## Joe Blow (4 June 2008)

Hi all,

I am getting in contact with the host and see if they can figure out what is going on.


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## Joe Blow (4 June 2008)

Anyone noticing any improvement?


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## gwm (4 June 2008)

still getting occasional 90% plus CPU usage on the IExplore process on ASF -site - will check from another computer - watching it as I type tho it seems to have settled to normal drain (less than 10%) on the CPU


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## SevenFX (4 June 2008)

gwm said:


> still getting occasional 90% plus CPU usage on the IExplore process on ASF -site - will check from another computer - watching it as I type tho it seems to have settled to normal drain (less than 10%) on the CPU




GWM, you may have some other issues local to your machines or site, as this is not the norm, nor would ASF latency cause this sort of problem on your usage to your CPU.

Definetly not the case here, as 1%-3% being the norm for web browsing with many tabs & windows open.

Cheers
SevenFX


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## SevenFX (4 June 2008)

gwm said:
			
		

> SevenFX
> 
> Thank you - it only does it on ASF and two different computers - it has only just started the last couple of days and as Julia has reported as you type the cursor "locks up" and in my case the CPU usage with respect to the IExplore that is running ASF goes to 98% and then drops back to the "norm" and you can start typing again - it continues to do so whilst I was typing this




This is such a broad shot to pinpoint whats causing it, from flat batteries in wireless keyboard causing lag, to worm, older spec machine, antispyware,antivirus running in background or moderate to high local network traffic or maybe a combination of the above GWM.

To add to these issues it's also peak hour on the net, so all the little kiddies will be refillin their ipods right about now.

The are so many members on ASF (prob 98%)that are not having significiant problems, otherwise they would be posting here at a guess.

I'd say you need to eliminate them one by one, or bring in a fresh machine/notebook till you isolate the problem.

SevenFX


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## xyzedarteerf (4 June 2008)

Joe Blow said:


> Anyone noticing any improvement?




overall page load has improved slightly, it was slower a few days ago.


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## Jaybee (4 June 2008)

I have had the same problem for the last two days. The site just seems to freeze up for a minute or so then briefly comes good before "freezing" up again. Never noticed this problem before and is not happening on any other sites. It happened just now when I logged in 15 minutes ago.


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## gwm (4 June 2008)

Jaybee

can you see what the CPU usage is when it happens?


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## disarray (4 June 2008)

i've been getting a few people with browser slowness etc. and have noticed a problem with IE7 and google toolbar (especially on win2k machines). they might have released a bad update or something recently, either way i've been going through peoples Add / Remove programs and clearing out a lot of the stuff with web hooks and it makes life better.

look at your browser and see how many buttons and so on you have there. if you have rows of things like yahoo toolbar, google toolbar, plugins for acrobat or whatever else, most of your web browsing problems can be traced to one of these. there have also been some hassles with flash player versions as well.

best thing to do if your browser is sluggish is to go START - CONTROL PANEL - ADD / REMOVE PROGRAMS. go through that and uninstall google toolbar and yahoo toolbar and so on, then restart IE and see how it goes. as cool as google is their toolbar is still just a benign species of malware so the cleaner you keep your browser the better it will run.


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## Wysiwyg (4 June 2008)

Jaybee said:


> I have had the same problem for the last two days. The site just seems to freeze up for a minute or so then briefly comes good before "freezing" up again. Never noticed this problem before and is not happening on any other sites.





Me too.


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## gwm (4 June 2008)

Disaray - have none of those toolbars


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## nunthewiser (4 June 2008)

gday joe and others . yeah a few of us in the chatroom were experiencing a few lag probs today , i personally wasnt but 3 other members were . will let ya know how it goes tommorow , have suggested  a clearout of temp files etc and hopefully that will fix it .


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## Stan 101 (4 June 2008)

Joe,

I've been timing out quite a bit in the last week when on the site. I had put it down to the wireless card that can be tempermental.
I'll do a tracert and direct ping next time (if) it happens and PM it to you..

cheers,


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## Julia (4 June 2008)

disarray said:


> i've been getting a few people with browser slowness etc. and have noticed a problem with IE7 and google toolbar (especially on win2k machines). they might have released a bad update or something recently, either way i've been going through peoples Add / Remove programs and clearing out a lot of the stuff with web hooks and it makes life better.
> 
> look at your browser and see how many buttons and so on you have there. if you have rows of things like yahoo toolbar, google toolbar, plugins for acrobat or whatever else, most of your web browsing problems can be traced to one of these. there have also been some hassles with flash player versions as well.
> 
> best thing to do if your browser is sluggish is to go START - CONTROL PANEL - ADD / REMOVE PROGRAMS. go through that and uninstall google toolbar and yahoo toolbar and so on, then restart IE and see how it goes. as cool as google is their toolbar is still just a benign species of malware so the cleaner you keep your browser the better it will run.



If the browser was the problem, why is ASF the only site where there is a problem.  I have absolutely no problem anywhere else.


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## Julia (4 June 2008)

Joe Blow said:


> Anyone noticing any improvement?



Yes, absolutely, Joe.  I've just logged on, have sent a reply to a PM and accessed a couple of threads and it is 100%.  Please make it stay like this, please!
Have you been able to sort out what the problem may have been?


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## rub92me (5 June 2008)

Experiencing page load problems/delays this morning - looks like it's the Google ads that take a long time to load?


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## Whiskers (5 June 2008)

I was having all the above problems too, right up till late this afternoon. Was getting very frustrating.

But all working normal again now.


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## Julia (6 June 2008)

Same problems again this morning.   The advts at the top appear first, then there is a very long pause before "Reply to Thread" appears and then a much longer pause before the message box comes up.  Typing at usual pace again now but no letters appearing.


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## Joe Blow (6 June 2008)

Could all those who are experiencing this problem let me know what ISP (Internet Service Provider) you are using?


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## Aussiejeff (6 June 2008)

Joe Blow said:


> Could all those who are experiencing this problem let me know what ISP (Internet Service Provider) you are using?




Hi Joe. I too am experiencing intermittent lag as well - today especially bad. Banner ads at top sometimes take long time to load and movement through page is jerky as well. Typing very difficult at times.

Am on a 1.5Mb ADSL TPG link. 

Only having problems with ASF, like others have pointed out... 


Cheers,

Jeff


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## disarray (6 June 2008)

could very well be the flash problem i described. the ads are flash based and there have been some issues with embedded flash players and various windows patches recently. go to add remove programs and get rid of Adobe Flash Player Active X then restart your browser and see if that helps.

i'm on internode and have no probs


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## ThingyMajiggy (6 June 2008)

No worries here, all seems fine. Might be a tiny bit slower than usual, but nothing noticable for me. 

I'm with Adam Internet.


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## prawn_86 (6 June 2008)

Also with Adam Internet and no problems at all.


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## grace (6 June 2008)

I'm with Chariot, and we only have ADSL in the bush.


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## gwm (6 June 2008)

mine is Activ8

The typing is OK now however when I attempt to scroll up or down after loading a new page my CPU (around 4 years old) goes to 90plus% for a few seconds - can't scroll and then CPU drops to normal and everything is fine - the problem doesn't seem anywhere as bad (or have the same impact) on a newer computer (dual core CPU from memory) in the house that was built at the beginning of 2008


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## Joe Blow (6 June 2008)

Looks like ASF will be upgrading to a new server shortly. This will cost significantly more a month but should make a noticable improvement in performance.

I'd like to take this opportunity again to remind everyone to *please* support our paying advertisers as these are the people who keep ASF online and make upgrades like this possible.

If the advertisers aren't supported they will stop advertising and ASF won't be able to pay its bills.

As always, your support is appreciated.


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## gwm (6 June 2008)

Joe

after checking out numerous sites on the issue stumbled across

http://www.ewido.net/en/

They have an online scanner (on the right side of the screen) and after running it for an hour or so returned two tracking cookies of "medium risk", namely "netflame" and "revsci" - deleted them and ASF seems to be much faster and no CPU overload

Maybe other members could try as well


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## Wysiwyg (6 June 2008)

gwm said:


> Maybe other members could try as well




Hi, i have 2 paid and 3 free anti virus programs that I use whenever my puter gets bogged down.It isn`t a buggy wuggy, thingy wingy problem here for sure.


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## Julia (6 June 2008)

disarray said:


> could very well be the flash problem i described. the ads are flash based and there have been some issues with embedded flash players and various windows patches recently. go to add remove programs and get rid of Adobe Flash Player Active X then restart your browser and see if that helps.
> 
> i'm on internode and have no probs



That's impractical, disarray.  Need Flash for other uses.
Doesn't seem reasonable to do anything like that when the problem is absolutely only occurring on ASF.  Every other site is 100%.


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## Joe Blow (10 June 2008)

Joe Blow said:


> Looks like ASF will be upgrading to a new server shortly. This will cost significantly more a month but should make a noticable improvement in performance.
> 
> I'd like to take this opportunity again to remind everyone to *please* support our paying advertisers as these are the people who keep ASF online and make upgrades like this possible.
> 
> ...




Just a quick note for those of you who haven't noticed a difference in site performance yet that the server upgrade will be happening this evening at approximately 8pm.

After that there should be a noticable difference in site speed.


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## Julia (10 June 2008)

Many thanks, Joe.  Look forward to it.


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## Joe Blow (11 June 2008)

Sorry all but the upgrade was delayed again. It will hopefully happen tonight. 

Apologies.


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## Aussiejeff (11 June 2008)

No probs, Joe.

(PS: I've got Flash turned "off" for now and that pretty much fixes the problem - for me anyway!)


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## doctorj (11 June 2008)

If disabling flash resolves the problem, you should consider upgrading to the latest version of Adobe Flash Player (available @ http://www.adobe.com/go/EN_US-H-GET-FLASH)


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## Joe Blow (12 June 2008)

ASF changed servers last night and we have a couple of minor issues: problems with the uploading of attachments and the chatrooom doesn't seem to be working.

I'm working on this now and hopefully it will be sorted out soon.


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## Joe Blow (12 June 2008)

Okay, looks like everything is back working again...

If anyone encounters any further issues please let me know in this thread.


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## nunthewiser (12 June 2008)

thanks joe all fixed and nice and quick , onya


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## Joe Blow (12 June 2008)

nunthewiser said:


> thanks joe all fixed and nice and quick , onya




No problems.

Has anyone observed any noticable improvement in site performance since the server upgrade last night?

Would be interested in any feedback.

It sure seems faster to me.


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## nunthewiser (12 June 2008)

yes the lagging on typing posts has dissapeared, all sweet


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## Wysiwyg (12 June 2008)

Joe Blow said:


> Has anyone observed any noticable improvement in site performance since the server upgrade last night?
> 
> Would be interested in any feedback.
> 
> It sure seems faster to me.




Yes Joe, everything scrolling along smoothly.





.


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## disarray (12 June 2008)

Julia said:


> That's impractical, disarray.  Need Flash for other uses.
> Doesn't seem reasonable to do anything like that when the problem is absolutely only occurring on ASF.  Every other site is 100%.




Flash is just a plug-in, when you clobber it then the next time you access a site it will prompt you to reinstall a (probably more recent) version. it is entirely reasonable that there is a flash version mismatch on your pc and the advertisement on ASF, but what would i know? it's not like its my job or anything. still, as long as it works everyone is happy.


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## Julia (12 June 2008)

Joe Blow said:


> No problems.
> 
> Has anyone observed any noticable improvement in site performance since the server upgrade last night?
> 
> ...




Very much better, Joe.  Many thanks.


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## Whiskers (15 June 2008)

Still freezing up for me mainly when I go to "Preview Post".

I've put in a bigger new hard drive and today doubled the size of my cpu, been around a few sites including ebay without a problem... until I went to preview a post here. CPU goes from 3 to 4% idle to flat lining at 100%. Sometimes it crashes IE 7... tried firefox earlier, but same issues.

I think it started awhile ago when I updated flash from a link here and I've had problems freezing, browser crashing and with flash since.



disarray said:


> Flash is just a plug-in, when you clobber it then the next time you access a site it will prompt you to reinstall a (probably more recent) version. it is entirely reasonable that there is a flash version mismatch on your pc and the advertisement on ASF, but what would i know? it's not like its my job or anything. still, as long as it works everyone is happy.




Dissaray, do you suggest using an alternative of some sort to flash?


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## disarray (15 June 2008)

no, just an updated version of it. all sorts of stuff hooks into your browser, activex controls, toolbars, quick launchers etc. software is constantly tweaked and updated and version inconsistencies or buggy software can be a common source of browser slowness / crashing / whathaveyou. microsoft has released buggy updates from time to time that have caused all sort of havoc, so adobe, google or any other web software company isn't immune from releasing bad code. 

if you are using ie7 go tools - internet options - programs tab - manage add-ons and look at how much outside stuff is plugged into your browser. you can disable them in there if you want.

check your flash version



> CPU goes from 3 to 4% idle to flat lining at 100%




right click on the grey taskbar down the very bottom of the screen and select TASK MANAGER. click on the PROCESSES tab. this is all the stuff running in the background on your computer. you'll see image name, user name, cpu and mem usage. click on CPU to sort it descending, you'll probably see system idle process at 99ish. 

now start ie and replicate the problem. pay attention to cpu and note down what process starts eating all the cpu. if its iexplore thats ie so start disabling plug ins. if its something else, google it.


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## Julia (15 June 2008)

All is fine this evening, but I gave up in frustration this morning because of continued slowness and freezing up.  The heading and the top advertisements come up quickly but then there is a large time lag before the rest of the page fills.  Then everytime I tried to change pages, the egg timer appeared and there was another long wait.


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## Whiskers (15 June 2008)

disarray said:


> no, just an updated version of it. all sorts of stuff hooks into your browser, activex controls, toolbars, quick launchers etc. software is constantly tweaked and updated and version inconsistencies or buggy software can be a common source of browser slowness / crashing / whathaveyou. microsoft has released buggy updates from time to time that have caused all sort of havoc, so adobe, google or any other web software company isn't immune from releasing bad code.
> 
> if you are using ie7 go tools - internet options - programs tab - manage add-ons and look at how much outside stuff is plugged into your browser. you can disable them in there if you want.
> 
> ...




That seems to have done the trick, disarray... thanks.


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## Whiskers (16 June 2008)

Whiskers said:


> That seems to have done the trick, disarray... thanks.




Nope, spoke too soon.

I had about 15 add-on's, disabled them all and the site worked fine, tried video on CNN...just activated flash it worked fine... whereas the video there crashed me previously.

Had to activate java for charts this morning and back to where we were before.

Julia, are you having problems in ie6 or 7?

Are most of the problems in Qld?

Could there be interference in the telstra network?


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## Julia (16 June 2008)

Hi Whiskers,

IE6.   Decided to stay with it after hearing about many problems with IE7.


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## disarray (16 June 2008)

so you activated flash and it was fine, then when you activated java it started causing problems? if so then the problem could very well be java. uninstall it through add / remove programs and grab the latest version from
the SUN site. we're working on a process of elimination here - tech support is about determining what the problem isn't until you are left with what the problem is.

julia ie7 really is a good step up from ie6. its been around for a while so a lot of problems / holes have been patched - i recommend you upgrade to it. have you been running your microsoft updates as well? you can get IE7 through microsoft update or the microsoft site


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## Whiskers (16 June 2008)

*By george, I think I fixed it.*

:bananasmi:bananasmi:bananasmi:bananasmi:bananasmi

I started deleting and reloading Java as you said disarray, and for some reason it didn't reload properly... started following their check list and found that my temp internet file disk space was over the max. I deleted the temp files and it reset to the max automatically, but I sized down to 250MB and given it a good work out ripping around a few threads and copying the screen shot while I had the page open and it hasn't missed a beat.

Have a look at the size of your temp internet files Julia.


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## Julia (16 June 2008)

OK Whiskers.  Thanks.  I've changed it and we'll see if it makes any difference.
Has been working fast and perfectly this evening anyway.  The problem seems to occur mid morning.


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## Whiskers (17 June 2008)

Late last night I reduced the temp internet file size further to 100 and changed the ' Check for newer versions' update from auto to 'every time I visit a new site'. 

When deleting and reloading Java I noticed a temp file setting there (control Panel, Java, Temp Internet files) and reduced that from max to 250.

Been loged in all day today, no problems seems to be running a bit better still. The only difference I've noticed is the avatar's take a little longer to load.

Makes me wonder how those settings got so far outside max range when I've never touched them before and I've totally reloaded a new hard drive only a couple of weeks ago.

Any advice on how to tell the best setting for these?


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## Julia (17 June 2008)

Yes, I'd also like to know this.  After your suggestion and useful screen shots last night, Whiskers, I looked at mine.  1150.  I have no idea how or why it came to be that.  But then I am technologically a luddite.

Reduced it to 250 as you suggested, and certainly everything is going very well today.

Many thanks for the suggestion.


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## disarray (17 June 2008)

by default ie reserves 10% of your drive space for cache / temporary internet files, all it holds is cookies and gifs and little coded object thingys for quicker retrieval. but drives are huge now (you can buy a TERABYTE drive for $300) so 10% of a standard drive is still a lot of space.

windows recommends 50-250mb.


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