website loading at different speed on 2 nearly identical PCs...

hi all

I have 2 PCs running XP and using the same cable internet via the one router.

But most websites load faster on one machine everytime compared to the other.

machine A has: Xp SP3, IE7, P4 2.4 processor, and 512mB RAM, AVG antivirus

machine B has: Xp SP2, IE 7, P4 2.6 HT processor, and 1gB RAM, Avast
antivirus.

interesting that it is on machine A (slower processor) that websites load
faster.

Sometimes the speed difference is tremendous, eg 2 minutes to load first
page on machine B, but it only takes 20 seconds on machine A!

I've done the comparisons at various times, parallel as well as immediately
after one another and the speed difference is always the same. I've also
tried it with the antivirus software disabled.

It's like the slow machine is waiting on some components of the webpage to
load, while the faster machine seems to load those components much faster. I
think it's things like ad's and hyperlinks to other websites (again ads)

Could the difference in Service Packs make such a difference? Or something
else?

thanks

Satz

My first suspects would be your security software, a lot of packages have
hooks that dig in all over the system and can cause many issues.

Try disabling Avast for a while and see if that's responsible, and try the
IE in no add-ons mode (option for it in the Start Menu).

The Service Pack level shouldn't have any significant impact on performance.

--
Paul Smith,
Yeovil, UK.
Microsoft MVP Windows Desktop Experience.
http://www.dasmirnov.net/


"satz" <satz@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:C5FEE8BD-6635-4C07-A70D-46ED7A8158E0@microsoft.com...
> hi all
>
> I have 2 PCs running XP and using the same cable internet via the one
> router.
>
> But most websites load faster on one machine everytime compared to the
> other.
>
> machine A has: Xp SP3, IE7, P4 2.4 processor, and 512mB RAM, AVG
> antivirus
>
> machine B has: Xp SP2, IE 7, P4 2.6 HT processor, and 1gB RAM, Avast
> antivirus.
>
> interesting that it is on machine A (slower processor) that websites load
> faster.
>
> Sometimes the speed difference is tremendous, eg 2 minutes to load first
> page on machine B, but it only takes 20 seconds on machine A!
>
> I've done the comparisons at various times, parallel as well as
> immediately
> after one another and the speed difference is always the same. I've also
> tried it with the antivirus software disabled.
>
> It's like the slow machine is waiting on some components of the webpage to
> load, while the faster machine seems to load those components much faster.
> I
> think it's things like ad's and hyperlinks to other websites (again ads)
>
> Could the difference in Service Packs make such a difference? Or
> something
> else?
>
> thanks
>
> Satz