Weird slowdown

[Handruin]

When I looked I thought it was around $1000 per month for a full T1 with all the equipment. I tried looking again tonight but both places require me to call for a quote.

 

[timwhit]

A dedicated server can be done for less than $100 a month, which is a lot more reasonable than $1000/month. Doug if you get more clients you could probably swing a dedicated server quite easily. Just advertise your reselling more...

 

[Handruin]

I've certainly considered the dedicated. I agree the cost is more appropriate then renting a T1. I might be able to handle the $100 right now, but the problem is that the server is unmanaged.

I don't feel confident enough to take on a unmanaged Linux machine at the expense of paying clients. Over at ev1servers they have a celeron setup for $119 a month which includes cpanel.

I don't know what it would be like to move from a dual PIII 933 to a single 1.3GHz celeron (1GB ram). I think it would be fine since their would be many less people using the host.

 

[The JoJo]

Hmm, the site seems a bit slow at the moment. And I got this once:

phpBB : Critical Error

Could not connect to the database

 

[Handruin]

Strange. There is nothing on the log that indicates a reboot, or failure. Maybe mysql was overloaded by something today.

 

[Handruin]

I found out why you got that message. We upgraded to MySQL 4.0.18 from 3.x. That would have caused a short downtime.

 

[The JoJo]

Thanks for the info.

 

[Pradeep]

I got an "invalid post mode" or something like that an hour or so ago when trying to submit a reply. I went back and resubmitted, it worked fine.

 

[Handruin]

I'll look into that one. Thanks for letting me know. If you don't mind, let me know if you see it again.

 

[CougTek]

The forum is impossibly slow this evening. I real slug, a monument to the god of snails. It's unusable.

 

[mubs]

Forums are slow this evening. Slow, but usable.

 

[Handruin]

Not sure what's causing it tonight. I looked at the announcements and I don't see anything. The server was rebooted about 10 days ago, so it hasn't been up very long. Maybe someone is getting heavy traffic tonight. Right now it's a bit slower because of the backup, but it should get better soon. (hopefully)

If it's still bad in a few hours let me know and I can put in a ticket for it.

 

[mubs]

Seems fine now, Doug, thanks.

 

[CougTek]

The entire site (sf.net) is awefully slow right now (8h30am, Eastern Time).

I don't know what it is, but it's probably not on my end of the line because the other sites I visited were fine.

 

[Fushigi]

Ditto. I was experiencing this as well around 7:30-8EST. Really, really slow. Seems like it's better now.

 

[Handruin]

I noticed it a bit this morning as well. I checked the server status and there was no indication of a problem, but we all know that isn't true. It seems to be working OK from where I am right now. Are you still having any problems?

In any case, thanks for letting me know. If the problem continues I'll place a ticket in. If this was a one time event, then they may have resolved the problem already.

 

[CougTek]

The site has been slow for me for the last hour or so. Half-an-hour ago, the bits down my cable line would have lost a race to a snail.

 

[mubs]

Been slow for me after noon Jan 6th. Still slow to load pages.

 

[Handruin]

Maybe I need to switch hosts... The downside to this shared-hosting environment is that these servers continue to have new websites added by resellers. I haven't been adding new pages any time recently (in fact I just removed 6), but I can't comment on all the other people.

The site seems OK right now, even if a tad slow. I'm not sure if something was happening earlier today to cause the issue. It's a tough call with so much going on in the server. I'd like to have our own, but I'm not making enough to justify a $125/month for a dedicated server just yet. If anyone has connections for Colocation, let me know. They tend to be equally as expensive, I've looked on several occasions. I wouldn't mind building us a server if the colocation cost wasn't so bad.

Right now our server seems to be under a regular heavy load average:

 07:24:17  up 22 days,  2:26,  1 user,  load average: 6.38, 4.20, 3.74
3 processes: 1 sleeping, 2 running, 0 zombie, 0 stopped
CPU0 states:  15.0% user  11.0% system    9.0% nice   0.0% iowait  72.0% idle
CPU1 states:  11.0% user   1.0% system    5.0% nice   0.0% iowait  86.0% idle
CPU2 states:  14.1% user  80.0% system   13.0% nice   0.0% iowait   4.0% idle
CPU3 states:   2.0% user   2.0% system    0.1% nice   0.0% iowait  94.0% idle
Mem:  1033336k av, 1019512k used,   13824k free,       0k shrd,   52692k buff
       380544k active,             580868k inactive
Swap: 1052216k av,  791660k used,  260556k free                  300120k cached

 

[Handruin]

I made a new change. I've disabled the gzip compression of phpbb2. This might make a difference in performance at the cost of additional bandwith...

Let me know if you notice any difference, good or bad.

 

[Handruin]

I also just found this for those who want to check the server's performance when you notice problems:

http://swordfish.dnsvelocity.com/sysinfo/

 

[mubs]

Doug:

The ocassional slowdown isn't worth fixing at so high a cost; we can easily live with it. Thanks for even thinking about it, though.

The speed now is quite good; page load was quite snappy.

Looking at the last link you provided, they seem to be out of physical RAM (95% used, with only 47 MB free), as well as swap space (68% used, with 324 MB free).

Methinks if they added 512MB physical that should tweak things a bit. Maybe it's worth bringing it up with them.

 

[sechs]

I noticed an immediate increase in site performance since gzip was disabled.

What's the bandwidth penalty?

 

[Handruin]

I'll have to find a tool to measure the before and after. I could use the monthly bandwidth consumptions as a rough ballpark, but those aren't nearly consistent enough to give us an accurate figure.

Disabling gzip compression also causes more traffic on your end since there is more data coming through your internet connection. You may see different results on longer threads. Those with 90+ posts may take longer than normal to download (since we page at 100). It's a good question and I'd also like to know how much more we'll be using. I'll let you know when I can find an accurate way to measure.

 

[sechs]

I have considerably more download bandwidth than I am able to use on a usual basis, so it doesn't bother me.

This isn't the case with everyone, however.

 

[LunarMist]

In the past fews days the site is sporadically slow for me. Occasionally there is a MY SLQ error. Am I the only one?

 

[Tannin]

Was slow for me - very slow - a few times too, but been better this last day or so.

 

[Handruin]

I should be hearing some news by tomorrow on the planned server migration. We'll be moving to a new server soon, so I'm told. I'll keep you guys posted. I may have to lock the forum down before they transfer so that we don't lose any posts like last time. I've asked that they actually tell me before the transfer so that everyone is aware.

 

[Handruin]

more updates:

Over the course of the next few days, we are bringing online new servers to replace every single shared and dedicated server that Voxtreme runs. We are upgrading to high spec Dual Opteron 246s each equipped with a minimum of 2GB of RAM and 2 x 200GB SATA drives.
Initially we had planned to use the Equnix facility in New Jersey but we rethought this and have decided to use the FortressITX facility, also in New Jersey. This is a state of the art facility with a premier network and excellent onsite technical support to call upon should we need it.

Sounds like we'll be moving from this tired Intel, to an new AMD server. I hope to see some performance improvements.

 

[sechs]

So they're upgrading to my computer?

 

[Handruin]

I guess so. Is that what you're running these days (or am I missing a pun)?

The latest word is that the hosting company can't narrow down the time for the upgrade, which I find kind of annoying. They best they're giving me is sometime between monday and wednesday next week. I asked for 24 hours, but 3 days is a big window. I sure hope this goes smooth...last time it was crap.

 

[sechs]

Actually, I have more storage than that. Probably nicer sound and video, too.

 

[Handruin]

How's the speed.

 

[CityK]

Pretty slow for me right now....or maybe its the fact that I'm really tired and my perception is off....nay, its the internet

 

[sechs]

How's the speed.

Er... of what?

 

[Handruin]

Is your dual opteron a good performing machine? I've never worked with one, so I was just making chat.

 

[sechs]

I wasn't sure if you were asking about the computer or the site.

It goes. It's definitely more than I need, but that certainly doesn't hurt.

Personally, I would have expected a server to have a little more heft -- particularly in the storage department.

 

[Handruin]

I should have clarified, sorry about that. I'm looking at a review of the 246 setup in dual, and it seems to be on-par with the dual Xeon 3.06GHz...that's what we have right now running this website. I bet we don't see much of a difference in performance. That will be a bummer.

Did you build your own setup or buy a preconfigured rack server?

 

[mubs]

The present web server is starved for RAM, IMHO. Shite, most of us have 1GB on our personal machines, and this sever has only that much even though it's hosting several sites. They need to up it to 4GB with the new one (or this one, I'll bet they see a substantial jump in performance).

 

[Handruin]

They're only moving up to 2GB in the new system. In any case you're right, that should help at least for now.