Hiya! As you may of noticed, again we are experiencing slow-downs on the server. This is due to a number of reasons. Take a look for a minute at the realtime stats in our side menu. Its always above 500 and regulary spikes to around 900 (true visits)
I have spoken to our sponsor Hosttyme about this problem and after alot of testing they came back with this:
- Mysql can only efficently handle up to around 1000 connections to the database.
- The forums use about 18 sql queries against a whopping 28 for the main site (per connection) 28 because of the features we offer each user. (this is why the forums are faster)
Hosttyme also responded by saying they will upgrade us from Co-location to Dedicated hosting, they are ordering a Dual 933MHz/1Gig Ram server tomorrow for us. -read, they are doing this at NO charge! This is in direct response to the statement made that Hosttyme will support us no matter what - here is proof of that.
So in a nutshell, our news and forums scripts are slowly outgrowing us. Not the server, the hosting or the connection to Neowin. So if anyone can donate and port our scripts to an Oracle database, be my guest. (we can"t afford it)
Again I can"t help myself by saying that everyone who values this site and is registered or not should send a thankyou note to Hosttyme for the REAL kickass job they do for us. I have to point out that the owner of Hosttyme (Tyme) regulary monitors the site and restarts MYSQL when she sees that its going to fail (because of the spikes in traffic) This is not just good hosting, that is dedication and commitment. I appreciate it alot and you should too.
Due to the upgrading of our forums from v2.0.3 to v2.2.0 Registered users may not be able to login to the main Neowin site, to fix this immediately delete all cookies refrenced to Neowin in the following folder (for Win2k/XP): C:Documents and SettingsyournameCookies and C:Documents and SettingsyournameLocal SettingsTemporary Internet Files if you cant find it you can delete ALL cookies by going to Tools > Options > Delete Cookies in Internet Explorer 4 and up.
We are working on this, but this is an immediate fix.