Server is too busy.

We've all seen them and we all despise them, the famous 'server is too busy' messages. Needless to say neowin.net has a server load problem and I can tell you we are not happy about it, mainly because you are not happy about it. I can assure you though that we try our very best to get rid of the problem. We've been optimizing code, switching features off, kicking people from the site and optimizing the server configuration but nothing seems to have the desired effect.

We do see improvements with every little thing we do it's just that the loads won't go down.

php accelerator

-We changed the server config and the mysql queries per second are higher than ever.

-We removed functionality and optimized the script so that should speed up things as well.

I strongly believe that all this optimizing helps a lot and makes neowin faster under normal circumstances (we can measure the speed improvements), but these aren't normal circumstances. I also believe that it's not just related to the number of visitors because these high loads occur with either 100 or 400 people online.

We will keep trying to optimize the code and tweak the server settings even more. In the mean time we'll try to figure out what causes these high server loads.

We also have new forum set up (as a test) called Invision board. This board uses a lot less mysql queries and should therefore help us in our battle against server loads.

If you have experience with servers, mysql, php and high loads and can give us some pointers on what to do or where to look don't hesitate and contact one of the admins or post a comment.

We like to apologize for all the suffering we cause and hope that you will stick with us (once again) until we are back and no longer crippled. You know we will be back stronger than ever.

Thank you :)