Hi -

My site is currently on a shared server with my current host. I switched to this host back in September, and I really think that there is something on my end that is slowing down my site. I have noticed, as well as friends and family, that the site has been slower since we made the switch.

I have not been able to figure out how to prove their server is slow. Then I got the idea to use the "ping" command in Windows command prompt. When I ping both my site's IP address (assuming this is the server or shared IP address) with a 6000ms timeout with 4 packets at 32 bytes a piece I get a timeout for all 4 packets.

When I try Google or any other number of sites I get a response to each packets' ping.

Does this mean my site's server is slow because it times out at 6 seconds? Is this sufficient proof to my host that their server is slowing down my site or is there another tool I can use to try and prove this?

Thanks!

- Matt

I will attempt to answer all your questions, if I miss anything, let me know.

• Yes, it does sound like the server that your site is hosted on is running slowly.

• The fact that you can not ping the site and get a response back from a timeout is sufficient proof that the server is running and unusually amount of something.

• Most control Panels allow you to see the load on the server, you might want to check with your hosting provider to see more about this.

Did I miss anything, if so, let me know. I hope this has helped.

Head over to http://just-ping.com/. Type in your website URL, and let the site ping it for you.

Assuming that it's not a problem on your end, I can almost guarantee that your host is experiencing packet loss. This is usually caused by high memory usage, a faulty driver setting with the their kernel (a kernel update should solve this), or a faulty NIC Card.

If the site I mentioned above is showing any packet loss (other than 100% - in which case your website is completely down), contact your host and tell them that their server is losing packets.

Hi -

Thanks both for responding.

In my cPanel, it says the server load is this:

"Server Load 2.16 (8 cpus)" with a red exclamation mark next to it. Everything else has a green checkmark. This is from the "Server Status" section. What does this mean exactly?

Also, just-ping.com, the ping command, and tracert command all timeout. However, my website is up, just slow. Could they have something like a firewall that stops pings and tracert that is also slowing down my site?

Are you getting 100% packet loss, or just partial packet loss? The server load is fine, not sure why the set the warning (red exclamation mark) so low. If you PM me your website, or just post it here, I'll let you know if I can figure anything out.

The site loads fine on my end, not slow at all. Maybe it's a distance issue... however, I highly doubt it. Are you relatively close to where your host houses their servers?

Since your website is up, but a ping reports back with 100% packet loss - the host must have disabled incoming ICMP connections to the server. This is usually done with a firewall. I don't see any reason for them to do this - so maybe you should have a talk with them about that. If they were limiting the rate of incoming ICMP connections (which is sometimes done), you would be receiving partial packet loss, instead of total packet loss.

If you're still experiencing connection problems (in terms of speed), be sure to check out the CPU load and the server memory usage. If those are alright, you can setup a 100mb test file on your account, and I can run some network tests.

The main site usually loads fine on my end too, but its not too big. Its the other pages that have swf files on them that seem to be slow.

I'm fairly close to the server. In fact, my previous host was about twice as far away from me as my current host. However, I've had other people starting to complain that the site is slow and that never happened with my last host. I haven't changed anything significantly from my last host to this host, so I wouldn't expect my site to suddenly have slowed down... Even my cPanel seems slower now than it did before...

What kind of network tests should I try with that 100MB file? What kind of results should I expect if things are okay or not okay with the server?

Thanks!

If you send me the link to the file, I can let you know what speeds we're receiving from our servers to it. That should give a very good representation of the network speed on the server you're on.

Also, I see that it takes a while to load up the individual games page.

Here's the speeds I'm getting from your server to ours:

root@vps-mi-01 [~]# wget http://www.luckygamez.com/file/100M%20file.txt
--2010-02-27 08:52:30--  http://www.luckygamez.com/file/100M%20file.txt
Resolving www.luckygamez.com... 75.126.158.56
Connecting to www.luckygamez.com|75.126.158.56|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 105183656 (100M) [text/plain]
Saving to: `100M file.txt'

 2% [>                                      ] 2,807,039   1.15M/s
 5% [=>                                     ] 6,165,039   1.18M/s  eta 84s
10% [===>                                   ] 11,006,399  1.22M/s  eta 76s
13% [====>                                  ] 13,930,779  1.22M/s  eta 74s

These are a few speeds we're getting to other servers:

root@vps-mi-01 [~]# wget http://limestonenetworks.com/test500.zip
--2010-02-27 08:55:10--  http://limestonenetworks.com/test500.zip
Resolving limestonenetworks.com... 74.63.205.206
Connecting to limestonenetworks.com|74.63.205.206|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 301 Moved Permanently
Location: http://www.limestonenetworks.com/test500.zip [following]
--2010-02-27 08:55:11--  http://www.limestonenetworks.com/test500.zip
Resolving www.limestonenetworks.com... 74.63.205.206
Reusing existing connection to limestonenetworks.com:80.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 524288000 (500M) [application/zip]
Saving to: `test500.zip'

15% [====>                                  ] 79,230,368  11.2M/s  eta 41s
16% [=====>                                 ] 88,611,960  11.2M/s  eta 39s
19% [======>                                ] 101,422,592 10.8M/s  eta 39s
21% [=======>                               ] 113,299,088 9.09M/s  eta 41s
26% [=========>                             ] 141,438,072 9.41M/s  eta 37s
39% [==============>                        ] 206,516,496 11.0M/s  eta 31s

root@vps-mi-01 [~]# wget http://www.hostgator.com/testfile.zip
--2010-02-27 08:56:25--  http://www.hostgator.com/testfile.zip
Resolving www.hostgator.com... 74.54.219.185, 74.53.87.195, 74.53.87.200, ...
Connecting to www.hostgator.com|74.54.219.185|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 20971520 (20M) [application/zip]
Saving to: `testfile.zip.6'

100%[======================================>] 20,971,520  6.69M/s   in 3.0s

2010-02-27 08:56:28 (6.69 MB/s) - `testfile.zip.6' saved [20971520/20971520]

Both transfers are from two different providers. The speed we're getting from your server is about 1.11 M/s, which equates to about a 10mbs connection. To other servers, such as limestone networks, we're hitting 11M/s - which is about 100mbs.

I included network speed tests between other servers just so that you're sure it's not a problem on our end. Your connection rate to your website is definitely a cause of the 10mbs connection your current server is serving incoming connections with.

Andrei -

My host claims that I can't expect faster speeds than that on a shared host. I told them I thought that is BS. What is the market like for shared servers and connection speeds? Does the hosting market typically deliver faster speeds than what you measured?

Thanks!

Our clients should hit a download maximum of about 10 - 11 M/s, which seems to be 10 times higher than what your current provider is offering. Also, if you notice above, I used Hostgator's servers for one of the tests. We were receiving roughly 7M/s from their servers. Again, Hostgator is also a shared host - and is offering speeds at least 7 times greater than your current provider. A 10mbs line is certainly not the standard... and it is definitely not the limit.

Originally Posted by zenthoef

Andrei -

My host claims that I can't expect faster speeds than that on a shared host. I told them I thought that is BS. What is the market like for shared servers and connection speeds? Does the hosting market typically deliver faster speeds than what you measured?

Thanks!

Shared hosting doesn't have to mean slow hosting. If your provider doesn't overload their servers and properly maintains them, they should be fast and reliable.

Sounds like your host is probably limiting bandwidth per account or overloading their servers and the slower response times are the result.