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136

answers:

2

I am getting extremely slow load times and before any action is taken I was wondering if there was an easy way to test to see if it is because of the ISP or the coding of the site.

We currently have a T1 going to two mirrored servers, so I don't think the ISP is the issues, we only have a few users on at a time.

The website is: http://www.designfacilitator.com/v20/Default.aspx?login=true&ReturnUrl=%2fv20%2fDefault.aspx

Is there a definitive test to determine where the problem lies? or any advice would be great.

Thanks!

+2  A: 

Do you notice high load times if you run the webApp on a intranet?

If it's the Coding it'll go slow on a local deployment load-testing as well - but to know for sure you wanna turn on asp.net tracing and have a look at load times and latencies through the trace viewer (or directly in the pages). The figures will jump to the eye!

The definitive test you're looking for would be to access the website from somewhere else with a different ISP (if it's still slow --> there you go), but this is a fairly obvious suggestion so I am probably missing some element here.

Anyway, Experience-wise, it's almost always the Coding :)

JohnIdol
+1  A: 

I loaded the site in the Firebug Net panel and the initial HTML loads in less than a second, so it doesn't look like a really limited server or bandwidth situation. Still there is a lot you can do to speed up the page.

First get Firefox (if you don't have it), then install Firebug (getfirebug.com), then install YSlow (from firefox plugin site) which will analyze your page and give you recommendations. There is also a plugin there from Google called Page Speed that does some of the work for you. It'll optimize your images and combine the JS into a single file.

There is a 'net' tab that shows you at what point each file included in your page is loaded and how long it takes. This can help spot problems. Yslow will also give you specific recommendations.

From the quick look I saw of your src, you need to move your JS files to the bottom of the page, and I think you could combine them into fewer files for even more speed.

Remember, the trick is to only load the smallest amount of code required to make your page work. Then, once the page is loaded there are a number of ways to load additional code as you need it.

Keep an eye on Steve Souder's blog (http://www.stevesouders.com/), he's pretty much the guru of front-end performance.

Elocution Safari
To piggy-back on that, try checking Firebug's Net panel to see how long it takes to request the resources on your site. There are 15 separate JavaScript files (some of which take upwards of 2 seconds to load). The 15 separate requests will tack on quite a bit of load time as well. If you could combine those files, you may save time there. Also, look at why generating some of those files takes seconds.
ajm