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Why do some pages suddenly take a long time to load when just recently it went fast?

Last updated: around 2003

Type:              Tip
Reliability:        - High
Ease of learning:   - Easy
Time saving:        - Doesn't apply
Usefulness:         - Moderately useful
Difficulty:         - Very easy
Overall:            - Great

1 Indicating activity

There is an easy way to tell if you're on a dial-up connection. First, how long did it take to download this page completely [including the pictures below]? Was it two seconds [for those who have high-speed connections], or was it about two minutes? Even with high-speed connections it varies so greatly. The big reason for the large variation is that sometimes your connection isn't responding for a short time. Here's a trick to monitor your connection to when it's loading and when it's not [Note: This does not apply with DSL - DSL is always on.]. This method applies mostly to dial-up, but works for DSL, too, but in a different way. For a router, you'd check your network settings in the same way as dial-up settings. Some programs, like Zonealarm, do the same thing no matter what type of internet connection you have.

If you go to the bottom right of the picture and to the left of the clock, you see two monitors. When these two monitors are both light-colored like this, [yours may look a little different, however] that means that there is communication and that your page is downloading constantly. Ever notice that when you click on a link, such as those at the bottom, the two monitors will light up? That's how you tell when there's activity. However, while reading this, you may notice that they are darkened:

This means that there is no transfer activity. If they remain like this, you may automatically get disconnected. Just make sure you keep the internet connection active (you won't get disconnected if on DSL, however).

This is a sample of which the computer you are connected to is only responding. If this one remains active only, you won't get the data needed, but it usually doesn't stay on like this that long. This is typical when you upload something.

This is another example, except this is when only your computer is responding and the one you are connecting to isn't. Like the above, this means that you are getting no data at all, but rather your computer is trying to send that data. If you click on a link, the first thing you'll notice is that your computer lights up first [the bottom one]. This is because your computer is sending the data to the server requesting the page or file you wanted to view or download.

Now you know how to tell if your dial-up connection is sending or receiving data. It helps, to some extent, tell why your connection takes various amounts of time to load the same page.

2 Sudden disconnects

Sometimes it's not your internet that's having problems, sometimes the server goes down. When this happens, only your computer would be responding as shown in the images above. It could also be that the ISP [the Internet Service Provider] is having routing problems, the domain doesn't exist [like if you were to type in "thisisjustsomeweirdandrandomURL.com" into your browser] or something. Sometimes it could be your phone line. What causes the sudden disconnects? This is due to these four known reasons:

Your ISP has a set time limit that you can be connected. For me, when I had dial-up (before April 28, 2005), it's six hours. After six hours, regardless of what's going on, you'll often get disconnected. This doesn't apply to DSL, however.
Inactivity where you're not doing anything for extended time. This, also, doesn't apply to DSL.
Trouble contacting the server often results in a disconnect in attempt to reconnect as if something on the server's end occured. This can happen on DSL too as since April 28, 2005, I've run into this a few times myself.
Your phone line is staticy and needs to be either replaced or fixed [I've had this once, and you get really bad speeds, and it is highly unstable]. Because DSL is actually multiple phonelines (from what I can recall anyway), if one phoneline becomes staticy, you won't get disconnected, but you may get a reduced speed, however.
Sometimes, a crash on your computer can cause a disconnect and being completely unable to reconnect again until the system is restarted. When this happens, you often see the blue screen of death telling of a fatal exception at some memory address. If this happens, you'll still see the two monitors visible, but nothing will work at all.

There are more reasons, but these are some that I've encountered and know most.

Footnotes:
* Now that I've had sufficient experience with DSL, I can now give accurate ratings on reliability, understandability, and usefulness. I found that DSL was actually cheaper than dial-up. Price for dial-up at the time: $16.95 a month. Cost of extra line: $19. That totals $35.95. For 1 Mbps DSL, it's $29.95 a month and $4 for modem rental. There is no need for the extra line either so that is not included. In short, I save $2 a month from that.
** Because of the nature of an internet connection, this cannot be applied for time saving. It varies widely.

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