http request delay in local network

Question

there 2 computers in a local network, 192.168.1.101 & 192.168.1.102

101 is running a simple web server on windows xp, 102 running windows 7.

if i run a client program in 101 (same machine as the web server) and make a GET request, it takes 0.2 seconds to complete the request.

if i take run the same client program from 102, it takes 1.5 seconds to complete the request.

what can be the cause of the delay?

if i make the request from firefox on 102 to the web server at 101, the first response is taking 1.5 seconds, some requests afterwards are taking 0.2 seconds, and again 1 request is taking 1.5.. and so on- so i think that firefox is caching something for a period of time..

it's not a web server warmup problem, because i never stop the web server.

ping from 101 to 102 is less then 1ms, but ping from 102 to 101 is timing out.. dont know why, but the requests just delay 1.5, not timing out.

Answer 1

Your first question:
If you are using a proxy, this may happen in case you have not bypassed the proxy for a local address in the browser settings.
You may try telnet to server 101 at port 80 and make a GET request and see the response time.
About Ping timeout:
It may happen that the server administrator of 101 has blocked ping requests. Otherwise a ping can never generally timeout if the server is accessible from browser.

Answer 2

found the problem:

the web server tried to do a reverse dns on 192.168.1.102, and failed.

the delay was the timeout... the solution was to disable the reverse dns option.