Server Slowdown - Needs more memory?

[matthewamzn]

At certain times of the day it can take a very long time to load the index.php pages for websites on my server.

Once a user gets past the index.php page, everything loads fine. I'm considering putting more memory into the server, but I'm not sure if it will solve this problem.

Celeron 2.4, 512MB RAM, 1x 80gig IDE
Linux Fedora Core 2

The websites on the server are forums using php and mysql.

Would upgrading the memory be the best first step?

[txbakers]

Before upgrading the RAM (although 512 is very low) I would check the database for bottlenecks. Are you reading the database on the index page?

If so, make sure the queries are optimized and you have a proper index for the tables.

[matthewamzn]

The index.php pages don't connect to the database.

[trillianjedi]

It's odd that the homepage is affected and the rest of the site isn't.

What's the primary difference in layout/content/size of the index page to the other pages, if not database dependant?

TJ

[dukelips]

Do you have any flash running

[andye]

Suggest you take a look at the MySQL slow query log. A specific SQL query that takes a while to run would be my top suspect if one page is slow but others are fine.

Also take a look at your Apache config, maybe fiddle around with MaxClients?

Take a look at 'top' and 'free', see how much spare memory you have when you're at peak load, if you don't have any then then box will thrash, you need to add some RAM.

hth, a.