Very slow page response

[quaestor]

Hi all,

Here is my system info:

CMS made simple 0.11.2
Windows 2000 Server
IIS 5.0
php 5.1.2
mysql 4.1.16

Pentium II 400mhz
256MB Ram

My problem is that when I access the page with a browser it takes 4-5 seconds for anything to appear. The reponse time doesn't improve with a page refresh or two so its not like it only slows down for the first page serve.

I setup monitoring of the cpu and memory and found that for each page hit the CPU spikes to 100% and stays there for 2-3 seconds. Also, pagefaults/sec spikes to the top of the graph.

Wondering if this was just a problem with my admittedly slow server, I stuck the default install onto an Athlon XP 2500+ with 512MB of ram. The response time lowered to maybe 2-3 seconds but CPU and pagefaults/sec still spiked to 100% for each page hit.

This level of performance is disturbing. The process at fault for this seems to be the php-cgi.exe used by IIS to execute the php code. I was unable to switch to the isapi version. I don't know why but I couldn't get it to work. I tried FastCGI to increase the speed and it helped but not enough.

Can anyone help me with this speed problem? I really feel a simple php site shouldn't need a datacenter to run. I must be missing something in my setup.

Thanks for your time.

[LeisureLarry]

As far as I remember both servers have not enough memory for an IIS W2K server. But I don´t know whether this is your problem.

[quaestor]

Thanks for the response LeisureLarry.

I can try upping the memory to 1GB in the Athlon box but the default CMS made simple page is the only thing running at the moment. Well, and the mysql database of course.

Previously I've tested ASP based solutions and they have no problem. They are very quick so I don't think its a memory issue.

Further, there is about 100MB ram free at all times when only 256MB of system ram is installed.

Any other suggestions?

Thanks

[Ted]

If it's the only thing running on that server, you might want to try using Apache.  There really isn't any good reason why CMS can't work fine on that setup...  heck our dedicated server here is only a 2400 Sempron if 512 megs of RAM (granted, linux), but we run several CMSMS sites plus a bunch of other various things without any kind of load.

[quaestor]

Hi Wishy,

I would love to run Apache as that is what I'm familiar with. However, at the moment the client would like to use IIS. Is there nothing I can try to track down what is causing these huge cpu and memory spikes? Is there a section of code I should be looking at to track down the problem? Maybe a section that relies on something that is quick in Apache but slow in IIS? Could it be waiting for a variable that IIS doesn't support well? I'm just throwing ideas out here.

Thanks for your time.

[Ted]

Well, there is a fix for IIS out there.  I honestly don't think that's the issue.  To be perfectly honest, I really don't know what it could be.  Other people run it with IIS and don't complain.

Not even sure where to start, to be honest.

[quaestor]

Thanks for the reference to the variable problem. I did something similar when I first setup the page but maybe I got it wrong. I'll have a look and let you know.

[petert]

I had a similair problem a while back. Turned out to be problems with the locale setting.

[petert]

petert,
thanks for the info, it might be useful to someone else. what was that setting and how did you solve?

take a look here http://dev.cmsmadesimple.org/tracker/in ... 6&atid=101

[quaestor]

I just want to give an update on the situation.

I've tried fooling with server variables, increasing ram, changing the locale, etc.
Eventually I tried just a blank page with phpinfo() on it. That still spikes to 100% on the server.

Thus I'm just chalking this up to php on a slow server. I'm sorry to have taken your time. Thanks again for all the suggestions. I'll just have to get a more powerful server.

[Ted]

*cough* or use unix. 

[kermit]

*cough* or use unix. 

was just thinking the same thing.

in this case, even win32 apache vs iis would be an improvement, provided that it is not a configuration issue with cmsms or php (even if it's not, apache would still be better).

q: if this web site is all the web server is for, and your existing hardware is suitable for it's other tasks (if any), consider just getting a hosting account somewhere. 10 or 20 bucks a month is a lot cheaper than new hardware.

[roman]

We had slow server,  I was created hack for aditional caching of sites. It's running with static pages, don't see changes in news module for example. With this is CMSMS 5 times faster to normal smarty caching engine. http://forum.cmsmadesimple.org/index.ph ... 185.0.html

[wicky2k6]

Hey there,

i just set up the CMSMS on my webserver to test it out..
One thing i noticed after the installation is that the page needs MUCH TOO LONG to build up.

You might test it.. http://i-taste.net/cms/ is the CMS related site (still standard content). http://i-taste.net is the static page on the same server..

I cant seem to find out why this is damn slow.

My Provider is running MySQL 4.0.x

I would love to read your suggestions..

Thanks
Wicky

[LeisureLarry]

Seeing at your site the cms tells me:



This much to slow. I had similiar problems with my old hosting company which used an external sql server. Now as I can reach my sql server with a localhost setting I have times like 0.16 seconds (tested with the beta).