Nerds, your assistance if you'd pleaseFollow

So I've recently whined a few times about this site loading like utter sh*te for me and no one else has piped in about similar issues, which leads me to believe the issue is on my end. I know it's not my internet, as other sites load fine and the issue occurs both at home and at work, on the same laptop. I'm assuming it's something to do with my computer, but only in a way that affects this site.

If it matters: Windows XP Pro
Firefox 5.0, but was happening on 4 as well.
Some crappy Dell Intel Core 2


Any ideas? And please, remember that while accessing somethingorother folder is common knowledge to you, good chance it's not for me, so step by step hand holding may be required.

You think its a browser issue or just hate FF? How would the browser be the issue when ti works elsewhere and has always worked fine here in the past.

What is your link to the net. Dial up? DSL, Cable?

Maybe yours is weird? The star on the right side of the search bar bookmarks a page, and right under it is "Other bookmarks." At least on mine. I imported all my bookmarks from Firefox and IE.

Maybe the Admin is paying you back for all these years?

Anyway, I'll give this a try as it appears to be loading fine. although, FF was loading fine all day so far as well, but I doubt the issue magically solved itself on FF as its been sh*t the last 3-4 weeks. Was probably just lucky up to this point on it.

It may be better than FF4 and better than 5, but it most definitely is not more user friendly from the offset. FF mimics IE in appearance, Chrome is off doing its own thing. I'm sure I'll get used to it and eventually figure it out.

Edited, Jun 28th 2011 11:16am by Uglysasquatch

When I first downloaded it, there was a back arrow, forward arrow, refresh, bookmark this page (but no way to access the bookmarks) and customize. That's not even close to the same buttons. There's a lot missing.

I'm having trouble thinking of what else you'd need...

Firefox has been running fine all morning, before I installed Chrome. And I shut down twice daily, from the Start menu.

Adblock and a sh*t ton of plug-ins. And Java Console.

Edited, Jun 28th 2011 12:29pm by Uglysasquatch

Just the new forums? Or old as well?

This is why I stopped using FF. If you have more than 3-4 addons, it runs like ass. I don't know about FF5, since I've been using Chrome pretty much exclusively since it came out.

Nad, he only has 1 addon. Plugins are different beasts.

706mb and no, not overridden. That box is unchecked and lightly greyed out in there is 1024MB

I'd say check how much memory the process is using in task manager, but that's going to tell us nothing if it's running smooth at the time.

Bittorrent or other P2P software running? Video? Internet radio?

Does it take forever to find the page or does it take forever to load once it's found? Do you see "Connecting to www.zam...." in the bottom left for a long time?

Ok. That's a connection issue. Possibly DNS related. Possibly your wireless card in your laptop (could be incompatibility with the routers you're connecting to). Sometimes you'll get a good connection and everything will be peachy, then eventually it'll just die and you'll have really crappy connections to websites, typically sites with multiple small downloads like this one (horrible response times so each new connection causes a delay, each avatar for example).

Hardwire your laptop into your router next time it happens, if the issue goes away it's your wireless connection, if it doesn't go away it's possibly a DNS issue in which case I suggest changing your DNS settings to use openDNS servers (not a horrible idea anyway ISP DNS servers can be pretty aweful).

Control panel > network connections.

Right click on the local connection > properties

Find TCP/IP in the list and open it's properties.

Tell me what DNS is set to (probably obtain automatically). (I don't need the numbers if it's not set to automatic)

If it's set to automatic this is probably not your issue as you'd be hitting different servers at work vs home and frankly the chances of both having issues are rather small.

That being said it's worth a shot and will probably speed things up for you generally anyways:

http://code.google.com/speed/public-dns/
http://theos.in/windows-xp/free-fast-public-dns-server-list/

I typically use OpenDNS, great for blocking bad sites as well if you need such a thing and feel like registering (not necessary for use).

Edited, Jun 28th 2011 2:26pm by Yodabunny

Don't touch the IP. I'd change the DNS though.

Useful tool if you really want to get into it:

http://code.google.com/p/namebench/

but if you don't just use:

208.67.222.222 Primary
4.2.2.2 Secondary

Your call, it shouldn't matter, but I don't know what your employer's IT policy is. It's like using a different phone book to get the same phone numbers, not really a big deal.

I'd be concerned if they had something specified, but they don't. Anywhere you go you are currently connecting to a different DNS server, so your IT Dept is obviously not concerned about it.

Edited, Jun 28th 2011 2:43pm by Yodabunny

First reading your issue I thought DNS as well, but looks like YB got you covered.

Oh, I already did it. I'm not having any issues, but then again, I haven't been having any issues since first thing this morning.

Thanks btw, even if this isn't the culprit.

You need a crossover cable.

Go into Options and check your Plugin list to see how many Java Consoles are listed there. If you have more than one use the instructions in the link below to remove the older ones.

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Java#Multiple_Java_Console_extensions

I just checked out FF. I fail to see what you meant in your critique of Chrome and buttons not being in the right place...