Internet Performance Issues or Why Is It So Slow Sometimes

You've decided to join the millions of people who have already found their way onto the Internet. After a few days, you realize that you don't get the performance you thought you would. Maybe web pages are taking too long to download completely into your browser. Maybe everything seems to be slow. No surprises here. You are now hooked up to the world's largest network and it could be any one of several problems. Here is a representative sample of some possible causes and what you can do.

Type of Problem	Problem	What You Can Do
Bandwidth	Modem bandwidth is too small.	Get a 56 Kbs modem if you can afford it. But your modem bandwidth only solves performance problems between you and your Internet Service Provider (ISP). This an average distance of under 10 miles from your home to that point. Internet performance issues outside your ISP will not be helped by your purchase of a faster modem.
Bandwidth	The Net just seems SLOW.	It's not your imagination. The Internet does slow down during peak periods as everyone is requesting data or sending data across these vast expanses of networks, backbones, and routers, which comprise the Internet. The peak capacity period is from 10:00 am until 6:00 pm Central Time. So if you have large files to copy or attached to an e-mail and send out over the Internet, do it in the morning before 10:00 am, or after 6:00 pm.
Server-based	Server too busy or slow response from a web server.	Go to a "mirror site" if one is listed on the website's first page. And it may surprise you that in the case of something like http://tucows.com that you can go to mirror sites in places like Australia or Bulgaria to download your free software. Servers at these sites are usually much less busy than their North American counterparts.
Everything on your system is slow.	Your system may be slow because you do not have enough memory, as in RAM.	If you are using the world's most popular operating system, Windows 95, you cannot expect to achieve anything close to acceptable performance unless you have at least 16 MB of RAM, and 24 MB or 32 MB is even better. Reason: Today's software is really large in size. Each time the operating system has to direct a call to the hard drive to fetch more software or data into RAM, your system performance slows down by a factor of 7 million, because typical RAM memory is 7 million times faster than typical hard disk access. Astounding but true. So the moral is buy more RAM (up to 64 MB total) if you can afford it because RAM is cheap, but your time waiting in front of your computer isn't.
Your system is slow	Your disk drive appears to making a lot of I/Os - that green light indicating hard disk activity comes on very often.	Those web sites you've been visiting leave bunches of HTML files and picture files on your hard drive in the browser cache area. It's not really that difficult to fill up a hard drive, particularly the old ones because they weren't that big. I suggest you clean out your browser cache often and that you get a larger hard drive. They're relatively cheap these days for the 4 GB and 6 GB models. But be sure to get an honest computer professional to install it for you. If you don't know what you are doing, there's a lot at stake: your wallet, your piece of mind, and your favorite computer and all that's inside of it.

William F. Slater, III is a computer consultant who has been working in the Computer Industry since 1977. He also teaches and writes, and loves this stuff so much that he has a seven-computer network in his home. The names of his computers are Jim, Mitchell, Andreas, Elvis, Peter, Carey, and Bill. To learn more about Mr. Slater and to sample his free class materials, visit him on the web at http://billslater.com.