Some Users get graphics fast, others very slow

iis server seems to have bandwidth issue

[scratch]

General Background...
My company is running an e-commerce site at a level 3 facility. We just rebuilt the server, spent upwards of 50,000 on the programming (ASP, msSQL), upgraded the system to Windows 2000 server and have done everything we can to make it work well. Our isp takes care of security, firewalls and the like for us on our computer. We have up to 100 customers a day using our site at this time.

The issue...
I first noticed the issue when i asked our IT guy to stop our firewall from caching this particular site so i could see graphics i uploaded. The site went from taking 5 seconds to load to about 3 minutes. At home it works fine at around 5 seconds on my DSL, even when i do the necessary things to ensure it is not using my cache. The graphics are small, being created using photoshops save for web feature. Other sites on this same server also have the same issues, but seem to have the text load instantly, while the image take at least 30 seconds to show up. (I'm talking 1-2 k's worth on that page.

Surveying customers who have not used the site before, some have it load instantly while others it takes up to a minute for the first graphic to show up. For these customers Disney, cnn.com and other big sites load almost instantly. They mostly have DSL, cable, or are using the systems at work. My assumption is that those who see it fast are loading from a cache somewhere.

Can someone explain what they think is going on. I basically would like to know why, or a plan of attack that would resolve this issue. If it would help send me a message privately, and i will give you any details such as the site name that would help.

[martinibuster]

It's possible that there may be a coding problem that is causing the browser to hang.
*Have you run the site through the W3C HTML Validator?

*Check your log files and look for errors, especially 404 errors. These can indicate files that are unsuccessfully trying to load, and hanging the browser.

*Are you using multiple nested tables? No matter how fast your connection is, it is still the burden of your computer processor to assemble/render it on your screen. Some designs are just plain cpu intensive.

*Are all your tables located within one big table? This could cause the page to hang until EVERYTHING is rendered, instead of the usual way a little bit at a time.

Other things that can cause a slow load is the JavaScript.
*Do you have drop down menus?

*Do you use a free hit counter? (Oh brother, these are bad for load times!)

*Do you use JavaScript for any other effects?

*Is your JavaScript free code? It could be badly coded and is causing the browser to hang.

I'm sure others around here may have more ideas.

[scratch]

It seems that the HTML does not pass validation, but the errors were the ones that seem to be generally accepted even if they are not by the book. (the body tag that set border to 0, an image in a frame, alt tags not being used)

To test the above, i took the html source and all the linked graphics and put them in another spot on the same server. I also put them on my own intranet. The intranet one was fast while the ones on the server in question was dog slow.

Could this server just be overloaded? Is there a way to measure the load.

[joelpcox]

You could use performance monitor to help determine bottlenecks in the machine and network monitor to determine throughput problems. For more info on the utils, search technet or just pick up any book on 2k server (such as an exam prep book for MS test 70-210).