Web Browser cant keep up with Infinity

Hi All

I had BT Infinity installed a couple weeks ago and synched at 30 meg. The problem is, whenever I am browsing my internet explorer cannot keep up!

When i download a file everything is great. However browsing the internet is a problem, going between tabs takes a few seconds all the time, as if its waiting for one of the pages to load.

Anyone had a problem with this? (First person who blames it on IE will be ignored)

i would try a diff browser..... 'ie' is hopeless


edit: give this a try and see if it resolves your problems..i have a feeling it will

http://www.opera.com/browser/
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Edited by djfunkdup (Wed 22-Jun-11 11:24:24)

In reply to a post by Anonymous:

Anyone had a problem with this? (First person who blames it on IE will be ignored)

Will have to ignore the question then.

Seriously though it's worth seeing how the behaviour differs in other browsers. I'd guess you may have some plugin installed that's causing this issue, so perhaps check what's installed and disable anything that's not needed.

In general later versions of IE have got better. I now have IE9 installed though rarely use it apart from checking compatability. But in IE terms it's a big step forward

Are other things slow - out of cpu/memory / other stuff running ?

What version of Internet Explorer you using? Ensure you're using the latest version, ideally don't use version 7, and CERTAINLY not version 6 (or less!)

Or, as the previous poster suggested, try another browser - I'm a big fan of Google Chrome these days - very fast browser, but some websites don't like it, so I keep IE installed as a backup

I have IE 9 on Windows 7. Think I will try Chrome tonight and see how I get on then

In reply to a post by Anonymous:

When i download a file everything is great. However browsing the internet is a problem, going between tabs takes a few seconds all the time, as if its waiting for one of the pages to load.

Anyone had a problem with this? (First person who blames it on IE will be ignored)

That's a shame because it is IE. IE8 is diabolical - IE9 is better but the problem for me is that IE9 has no option to disable subpixel addressing. I'm sticking Chrome

In reply to a post by Anonymous:

I have IE 9 on Windows 7. Think I will try Chrome tonight and see how I get on then

Yep, or Firefox 4

It is plausible that your problem is memory - and that you might be swapping to disk to get the tabs displayed.

Windows 7 can be a big memory hog, but I haven't heard of IE especially.

I use Firefox, and have a habit of having hundreds of tabs... which chews up memory. There is a plugin called barTab that keeps tabs out of memory until you want them.

I also discovered that the Firfox plugin "Firebug" limts throughput too. I didn't think it was active (and certainly wasn't open), but it got in the way of every connection. For Speedtest.net it limited throughput to 10Mbps instead of 34Mbps.

In reply to a post by Anonymous:

Hi All

I had BT Infinity installed a couple weeks ago and synched at 30 meg. The problem is, whenever I am browsing my internet explorer cannot keep up!

When i download a file everything is great. However browsing the internet is a problem, going between tabs takes a few seconds all the time, as if its waiting for one of the pages to load.

Anyone had a problem with this? (First person who blames it on IE will be ignored)

It may just be that the websites you are trying to load have high latencies, this could be due to geographic distance to the servers in question (or poor peering, routing etc). Irrespective of your bandwidth you'd notice a definite 'loading' delay between your request and fulfilment because of that (add 250ms on top of normal processing overhead and you get a noticeable lag).

?
Surely unless his browsing habits have changed dramatically in the last two weeks that would have always been the case?

I have Infinity and I use FireFox, Opera, Chrome, IE9 & Safari browser's and don't have any problem with using them.

iechyd da

In reply to a post by WWWombat:

It is plausible that your problem is memory

That could well be it. I'm using IE8 and found it eating up memory and getting more and more sluggish "You must remember this ... as Time Goes By".

I recently upgraded my XP from 1 GB to 3 GB and, tho' it's early days yet, I'm sure iE8's more responsive.

In reply to a post by Anonymous:

Hi All

I had BT Infinity installed a couple weeks ago and synched at 30 meg. The problem is, whenever I am browsing my internet explorer cannot keep up!

When i download a file everything is great. However browsing the internet is a problem, going between tabs takes a few seconds all the time, as if its waiting for one of the pages to load.

Anyone had a problem with this? (First person who blames it on IE will be ignored)

funny enough yes.

no browsers yet can spread cpu load in a single tab across multiple cpu's, eg. on my 4 core machine I regurly see browsers hit 25% cpu usage when loading pages which is basically maxing out. Basically meaning my web sites are now been saturated by cpu power rather than bandwidth now. Of course not every site does it, but many do.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

?
Surely unless his browsing habits have changed dramatically in the last two weeks that would have always been the case?

The assumption I am making is that he is expecting sites to load faster than previously, given the large increase in available bandwidth. Hence my point that it may not be browser or bandwidth related, but a factor of latency to OPs favourite sites.

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

In reply to a post by Anonymous:

Hi All

I had BT Infinity installed a couple weeks ago and synched at 30 meg. The problem is, whenever I am browsing my internet explorer cannot keep up!

When i download a file everything is great. However browsing the internet is a problem, going between tabs takes a few seconds all the time, as if its waiting for one of the pages to load.

Anyone had a problem with this? (First person who blames it on IE will be ignored)

funny enough yes.

no browsers yet can spread cpu load in a single tab across multiple cpu's, eg. on my 4 core machine I regurly see browsers hit 25% cpu usage when loading pages which is basically maxing out. Basically meaning my web sites are now been saturated by cpu power rather than bandwidth now. Of course not every site does it, but many do.

You have threads and processes confused. All modern browsers use many threads per tab (drawing the UI, making multiple simultaneous HTTP requests while still allowing you to use the UI, ...). Threads will not show up in your process list as separate entities.

In reply to a post by dustofnations:

All modern browsers use many threads per tab (drawing the UI, making multiple simultaneous HTTP requests while still allowing you to use the UI, ...). Threads will not show up in your process list as separate entities.

The fact many threads are being used to get and present the info for the tab doesn't mean that those threads are necessarily going to be split between the multiple cores. I don't know whether Chrysalis's statement is true or false, but if the multiple threads for a tab can only be allocated to the same core then it would be true.

A different tab may very well be allocated to a different core. Or not, if the number of tabs exceeds the core count.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

In reply to a post by dustofnations:

All modern browsers use many threads per tab (drawing the UI, making multiple simultaneous HTTP requests while still allowing you to use the UI, ...). Threads will not show up in your process list as separate entities.

The fact many threads are being used to get and present the info for the tab doesn't mean that those threads are necessarily going to be split between the multiple cores. I don't know whether Chrysalis's statement is true or false, but if the multiple threads for a tab can only be allocated to the same core then it would be true.

A different tab may very well be allocated to a different core. Or not, if the number of tabs exceeds the core count.

You don't seem to know how threading works in a modern OS. I shall attempt to make a basic, simplified explanation;

Assuming we're using some modern software like FF, Opera, or whatever.

It is generally up to the operating system how the threads are distributed between the cores. When there are a greater number of threads than cores (as is always the case on a modern system), the OS time-slices to provide the illusion of concurrent execution.

The OSes scheduler will decide where and when to run the thread, and the algorithms are usually intelligent enough to move/distribute the threads (and their associated state) in a manner that is as optimal as possible.

However, just because the number of threads is high doesn't mean they will necessarily load your cores at 100%. For instance, you will usually find that certain threads do massively more work than others, transiently or otherwise, and hence you could have many threads performing tasks that provide little or no load whilst one thread hits a single core for 100%.

So there possibly needs to be work on distributing some of the heavier work-load segments into more threads (if possible, there are certain tasks that cannot be parallelised and must be performed sequentially).

Edited by deleted (Fri 24-Jun-11 01:28:22)

Grandmother (father); eggs; suck; how to; please do not attempt to teach.

First you still haven't understood the point being made/question being asked.

Second, if a modern OS uses time-slicing to apportion time between threads then an awful lot of CPU time is going begging and there is a lot of inefficiency while threads wait for their next slice.

Third, I'd be very surprised if the OS is telling the processor which core to use for any given thread.

Re the first of those points, Chrysalis's statement about the tab/core relationship did surprise me, but it is perfectly simple to write an application that doesn't use multi-threading for certain activities.

Whilst the browser as a whole will use multi-threading, the tabbed view implementation may for some reason not do so. At this stage of the analysis I prefer his empirical observation over your treatise.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

Grandmother (father); eggs; suck; how to; please do not attempt to teach.

First you still haven't understood the point being made/question being asked.

Second, if a modern OS uses time-slicing to apportion time between threads then an awful lot of CPU time is going begging and there is a lot of inefficiency while threads wait for their next slice.

Third, I'd be very surprised if the OS is telling the processor which core to use for any given thread.

Re the first of those points, Chrysalis's statement about the tab/core relationship did surprise me, but it is perfectly simple to write an application that doesn't use multi-threading for certain activities.

Whilst the browser as a whole will use multi-threading, the tabbed view implementation may for some reason not do so. At this stage of the analysis I prefer his empirical observation over your treatise.

I was perfectly polite, and trying to correct you when you were completely incorrect. Rather than simply saying 'you are obviously wrong with your points' I gave a clear and simple explanation.

Frankly your response is boorish and disrespectful when someone attempts to help and inform you.

I too thought I was being polite, apart from my initial objection to being treated as though I have no knowledge of how computers work at this level.

I see you don't refute any of my post, much of which pulls holes in your explanation.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

?
Surely unless his browsing habits have changed dramatically in the last two weeks that would have always been the case?

Sorry I havent replied yet, but this person has my exact thoughts on the matter.

A couple of weeks ago I was on 2 meg broadband with Sky and I never experienced this problem of switching between tabs and taking ages for it to load etc.

My setup has not changed at all, apart from the installation of Infinity


HOWEVER, I have switched to Chrome and yesterday I didnt experience the problem......

In reply to a post by Anonymous:

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

?
Surely unless his browsing habits have changed dramatically in the last two weeks that would have always been the case?

Sorry I havent replied yet, but this person has my exact thoughts on the matter.

A couple of weeks ago I was on 2 meg broadband with Sky and I never experienced this problem of switching between tabs and taking ages for it to load etc.

My setup has not changed at all, apart from the installation of Infinity


HOWEVER, I have switched to Chrome and yesterday I didnt experience the problem......

Have you flushed the DNS cache on your PC and IE?

Edited by deleted (Fri 24-Jun-11 21:39:30)

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

I too thought I was being polite, apart from my initial objection to being treated as though I have no knowledge of how computers work at this level.

I see you don't refute any of my post, much of which pulls holes in your explanation.

I'll address them. I was at work and unfortunately didn't have time to make an extended reply.

Second, if a modern OS uses time-slicing to apportion time between threads then an awful lot of CPU time is going begging and there is a lot of inefficiency while threads wait for their next slice.

This is incorrect. It is the most efficient method of providing fair concurrent execution of the many threads in an OS (excluding certain specific real-time critical systems)[6].

If you read any book on Operating Systems[5], or read documentation on OS Schedulers (Linux[1], UNIX, ...), they use pre-emptive multi-tasking [1] (where time-slicing is used in the general sense to mean thread scheduling to apportion CPU time for many threads to execute, rather than any specific TS algorithm) .

For instance, Linux scheduling is implemented with extremely efficient algorithms[2][3] that also account for priority and other weighting factors to determine how much of the processing resources are given to any particular processor[4], and without it there is no way for the hundreds of threads to progress concurrently in an practicable manner.

[1] http://oreilly.com/catalog/linuxkernel/chapter/ch10.... (these are older than the CFS algorithm, but still used in many distros)
[2] http://doc.opensuse.org/products/draft/SLES/SLES-tun...
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Completely_Fair_Scheduler
[4] https://gustavus.edu/+max/os-book/updates/CFS.html
[5] Andrew Tanenbaum's Operating Systems book is a bible, great stuff. Highly recommend it for the intrepid computing scientist.
[6] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scheduling_%28computing%29

Third, I'd be very surprised if the OS is telling the processor which core to use for any given thread.

When a de-scheduled (or new) thread reaches the moment that it must be scheduled to run, the OS will decide which processor (or core) to dispatch the thread to. The given thread's state to will be set in that processor, and execution is resumed (i.e. it must ensure that the register values are correct for the given thread, and it transparently continues executing as if it had never been de-scheduled). For very specific use-cases certain programs may have a processor affinity set, but this is rare as it is usually more efficient to let the OS decide, and spread the load dynamically.

OS scheduling algorithms are intelligent enough to schedule threads wherever the most resources are available.

There are plenty of exceptions for edge-case usage, I don't want to bore people with it here by writing a huge amount, but there are reams of resources on the Internet for those who are interested .

Whilst the browser as a whole will use multi-threading, the tabbed view implementation may for some reason not do so.

It is almost certain that it would have to (use threads, or an equivalent concurrent mechanism), otherwise the stuff rendered in the content pane would freeze as you interacted with the tab. Most of those threads will do very little taxing work however.

hth

edit: missed a point that needed a response

Edited by deleted (Sat 25-Jun-11 03:01:49)

In reply to a post by Anonymous:

Hi All

I had BT Infinity installed a couple weeks ago and synched at 30 meg. The problem is, whenever I am browsing my internet explorer cannot keep up!

When i download a file everything is great. However browsing the internet is a problem, going between tabs takes a few seconds all the time, as if its waiting for one of the pages to load.

Anyone had a problem with this? (First person who blames it on IE will be ignored)

I meant to add this link in my post to you the other day :

http://acid3.acidtests.org/

it will give you some indication on how your browser is performing and also how any other ones that you try perform.


i get :

100/100 for opera
97/100 for safari and
96/100 for firefox

though tbh i dont use firefox that often i dont really like it.

as far as chrome and IE go i simply dont use them.....


hope this helps..

Acidtests gives me:

IE 9 - 95; Firefox 5 - 97: Chrome 12 - 100

In reply to a post by dustofnations:

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

In reply to a post by Anonymous:

Hi All

I had BT Infinity installed a couple weeks ago and synched at 30 meg. The problem is, whenever I am browsing my internet explorer cannot keep up!

When i download a file everything is great. However browsing the internet is a problem, going between tabs takes a few seconds all the time, as if its waiting for one of the pages to load.

Anyone had a problem with this? (First person who blames it on IE will be ignored)

funny enough yes.

no browsers yet can spread cpu load in a single tab across multiple cpu's, eg. on my 4 core machine I regurly see browsers hit 25% cpu usage when loading pages which is basically maxing out. Basically meaning my web sites are now been saturated by cpu power rather than bandwidth now. Of course not every site does it, but many do.

You have threads and processes confused. All modern browsers use many threads per tab (drawing the UI, making multiple simultaneous HTTP requests while still allowing you to use the UI, ...). Threads will not show up in your process list as separate entities.

maybe but it still isnt multi core, I cannot make 'any' modern web browser use more than one cpu core on any web page. So if a web browser is using 25% on a quad core then its maxed out. Just having the OS been multi cpu compatible does not automatically make every app that runs on it the same.

Edited by Chrysalis (Mon 27-Jun-11 09:23:46)