Web pages load slowly

I noticed recently that web pages load very slowly. I thought it was Firefox, but IE does the same thing. My laptop,running Win2K Pro, does not exhibit this behavior when hooked up to my router (which would seem to eliminate Comcast). Most of the time, as a page loads, I see that the progress icon in the upper right of the browser will stop. I can move the cursor but cannot scroll down or up. On the bottom left of the Firefox screen, I see various messages, but the ones that concern me are: waiting for 127.0.0.1, connected to 127.0.0.1, and transfering data from 127.0.0.1. These messages often last for many seconds as the browser has apparently stopped. I know that this IP address is my machine. It is entirely possible that I may have changed a setting in Windows (XP SP2), specifically the ethernet adapter, and created this situation. I've been known to "fix" things until they break.
My ethernet adapter is set like this: Adaptive interrupt-enable; connection type-auto negotiation; flow control-hardware default (auto); Rx and TX buffers are 64. I vaguely remember tinkering with one or more of these, but cannot remember if I kept any changes. Good reason to document things like this! Download speeds are fantastic: over 4mbps. Any thoughts?

 

fieldtech--I understand that you eventually reach the website you want, but that it takes time.
Could be several reasons for the problem or perhaps a combination.
1) Do you have a HOSTS file? The fact that your browser is trying to access 127.0.0.1 suggests that many of the "pieces" of the web site are third party sites that are being stopped by your HOSTS file. As browser tries to load each of these it takes time to access these sites, for the browser to learn the address is 127.0.0.1, to try to access that, to learn that it is your PC's address, etc.
2) How often do you clean your cache? (Temporary Internet Files, Temp files, etc.) IE Tools|Internet Options|General tab|Delete Files.
3) You may have a virus or malware. You might consider the procedure here
http://www.windowsbbs.com/showthread.php?t=37074

 

If there is a hosts file, the browser does not care that 127.0.0.1 is the PC it is running on. I run a web server for web development, so I routinely connect to myself. The topic starter's problem is most likely that the browser is waiting for a server to respond and eventually times out because there is no server. The solution would be to either stop using the hosts file or to start running a web server to respond. If the decision is to run a server, then set up the server to send back a 1x1 graphic no matter what is actually asked for. This way you don't get a page filled with 404 reports and don't get a multimegabyte logfile of 404s. The server should also be configured to bind only to 127.0.0.1 if you don't want to serve pages to the world.

 

Ah, Firefly--

Not sure what you mean.
I routinely see the status bar try to access 127.0.0.1 when a site to which I am trying to connect has content (such as images and advertisements) from third party sites whose DNS is directed to 127.0.0.1 by my HOSTS file. I can see the first party content of the site OK, but those images/ads are of course absent and it has taken time for the browser to sequentially connect to the IP address (127.0.0.1) of each of possibly many third party sites.
However, I agree this is unlikely to be fieldtech's problem if the delay is quite long, and after eliminating HOSTS file as the issue, fieldtech should explore the other suggestions.

 

I don't think a virus is the problem, as I update my ETrust anti virus nightly, then scan all hard disks. I just ran Spybot, after checking for updates, and it returned two empty directories. Ad-Aware was clean with the latest update: May 10th. I also run Spyware Guard and Spyware Blaster, which I update regularly. I emptied my cache (Firefox is the browser of choice, used 99.9% of the time) and no help. I deleted my HOSTS file, and no help (I thought HOSTS file was supposed to speed things up). When the browser hesitates, the entire machine slows down. If I attempt to access any web site while printing, the printer will stop and restart several times. I've downloaded HiJackThis and will post a report if needed.

 

Problem solved. I had been using SETI @ Home as my screen saver until they upgraded to BOINC: Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing. While I like the idea of my computer doing useful things when idle, I just found out that the program was set to run constantly instead of waiting until the computer was idle. I was unable to change this setting from the BOINC Manager, so I deleted the program. Web sites now load normally. Thanks for all your responses.

 

fieldtech--Thanks for letting us know the reason for the problem. Who'd have guessed?
HOSTS file was originally developed to speed browsing up. It converts domain names (xxx.com) into IP addresses (123.456.789.10). And it does this just a few milliseconds faster than what your browser/server can do on their own. The IP address is what the servers really use to locate and present a website on your browser.
But the few milliseconds speedup is hardly ever noticeable, so the trend now is to use HOSTS to direct the domain name of malware sites back to your own PC (which IP address is 127.0.0.1). The result is that your PC cannot access these malware sites which are often called up without your knowing, and this protects your PC. (There are HOSTS toggles which allow you to access a site in your HOSTS file if you really want to, but I have never used it. Let me know if you want to toggle.)
Details on HOSTS here
http://www.accs-net.com/hosts/

 

I was aware of the original purpose of HOSTS file, and have used one years ago when I was still on dial-up. I have looked through the help file for FireFox and can find no reference to a HOSTS file. While I use memory resident anti-spyware, one can't be too careful. In this case, I'd prefer the belt and suspenders approach. Thanks for the link to Gorilla Design Studio. I haven't time to read it now, but will before the weekend is over, and I suspect it will answer the few questions I have. I also suspect that I will reinstate a HOSTS file. From what I've been reading here and elsewhere, spyware/malware is at least as great a threat as viruses.