Browsing Through Treacle today

[#1]

any idea what my problem might be? some sites are better than others but quite a few take a long time to fully load a page. My speedtest shows 2.9 and although I have had up to 4.8 I don't think this is the problem. I fitted a new NIC a few days ago but also don't think this is the problem as browsing the network and my NAS drive is pretty snappy.
TIA
P.

[#2]

It could be a problem with the DNS lookups taking time.
Are you using the DNS on your router? I found mine clogged up over time and a reboot made quite a difference.

[#3]

Hi there,
To be honest, I can't see any reason why this would happen.
- You haven't gone over your usage allowance
- Your connection stats are good
- You're being profiled correctly at our end
- There's no generic BT issues in your area
Can you try rebooting your router to see if it improves your speeds at all?

[#4]

Thanks for the rapid response. Have rebooted the router and it does seem a bit snappier. However, some sites seem to hang for a while before loading a page. E.g the BBC is slow - it goes to a blank page and then takes a while to load the content after I have clicked on a link. dpreview.com is pretty quick tho and they are both in the same instance of firefox. I probably don't know whether I am technically correct but I would describe it as latency. Interestingly when I rebooted the router it felt quite hot. I moved it last nught and it probably has lessa air arounfd it. I have moved it back to see if overheating could be a problem - might it?
P.

[#5]

I certainly wouldn't rule it out as a possibility.
Maybe try leaving it disconnected from the mains for half an hour when it's convenient and give it another go to see if you notice an improvement.

[#6]

This site is particulalry bad taking an age to update a page after a refresh or after I just made my last post. but again dpreview is nice and quick and I am visiting pages there i have not been to before so they are not cached.

[#7]

Hmm. Odd.
Have you tried deleted cookies and cached page in your browser settings?

[#8]

I've been using Treewalk DNS for some time - it certainly seems to improve things.

[#9]

Quote from: Jameseh

I certainly wouldn't rule it out as a possibility. Maybe try leaving it disconnected from the mains for half an hour when it's convenient and give it another go to see if you notice an improvement.

You'd expect to get the problem with all pages though i suppose if it was an overheating router.

[#10]

Yes, that would certainly be expected if it were the case.

[#11]

deleted cookies and cach and it might be a little better but still not how I would like it. I'll see if it resolves itself.

[#12]

I wonder if the new NIC resulted in strange MTUs being set in the computer to router connection. If you use Windows XP or earlier a tweak test at DSLreports might give clues.
If you run that, select DSL, enter 8000, select your operating system and leave Connection as 'normal' you will be given recommendations. You will find a link is given in small letters near the bottom of the results page (just above red text). Copy and paste that here if you'd like us to comment (the graphs in the "more detail" section can be helpful).
Please also mention your router make and model, and how you connect to it (wired or wireless) and post your router stats (sync speeds, noise margins and attenuations).

[#13]

Thanks. Hope I've given you what you want.
http://www.dslreports.com/tweakr/block:2ccad59?service=dsl&speed=8000&os=winXP&via=normal
http://i.dslr.net/xplots/6053:b2a_ssize.xpl.png
http://i.dslr.net/xplots/6053:b2a_rtt.xpl.png
http://i.dslr.net/xplots/6053:b2a_tput.xpl.png
http://i.dslr.net/xplots/6053:b2a_tsg.xpl.png

US Robotics USR9106 wired connection
Your current broadband speed is 7000 Kbps
Router Stats
Mode:  G.DMT
Type: Interleave
Line Coding: Trellis On
Status: No Defect

Total ES: 55
Total SES: 0
Total UAS: 10

                            Downstream Upstream
SNR Margin (dB): 10.1  23.0
Attenuation (dB): 25.0  12.5
Output Power (dBm): 12.3  19.8
Attainable Rate (Kbps): 10176  1156
Rate (Kbps): 8096  448
K (number of bytes in DMT frame): 254  15
R (number of check bytes in RS code word): 20  16
S (RS code word size in DMT frame): 1  8
D (interleaver depth): 64  4

Super Frames: 991562  991560
Super Frame Errors: 67  0
RS Words: 134852570  8428260
RS Correctable Errors: 25488  0
RS Uncorrectable Errors: 1032  N/A
HEC Errors: 58  0
OCD Errors: 0  0
LCD Errors: 0  0
ES Errors 0  0
Regards
P

[#14]

There doesn't look to be much wrong with your configuration that would cause the stalling you've described.
If you refresh a page using CTRL+F5 to force it to refetch everything does it come down much smoother the second time? It it does it could point to a DNS issue as the second time all the DNS lookups will be cached.
Are you using Fasterfox? If not give it a try and see if that improves things (but do turn off the enhanced pre-fetching feature!).

[#15]

ok, out of desperation I have enabled and plugged in the old NIC and everthing is moving quickly again. The problem with the old NIC is it keeps losing its connection to the network Thats why I replaced it. The new NIC stays connected but seems to be slow! I'm going nuts!
P.