--- Craig Domanski <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: While surfing > the web (with DSL) it > seems that the pages take longer to load than they > should. I have a > low-end PC-laptop on the same home network, and it > loads pages a lot > quicker. >
What an interesting post. At least to me ;-) This may not be encouraging, but here's my experience... This may at first seem off topic, but follow along and you'll quickly see where I'm going... I started my venture into the Mac world with a Powerbook 3400. It's a 200Mhz machine w/ 80MB of RAM and a 10GB disk. I did a fresh install of OS 8.6 on it. My goal was to get a machine my wife could surf with. It was replacing a PC based laptop (150Mhz, 32MB RAM and a 2GB disk). I have Cable Internet - comparable to your DSL. My P150 PC based machine loaded pages at least twice as fast as the 3400 from the same connection!! I was baffled... Finally, after much asking and proding and no great responses, I decided the IP stack must be the cause, and, having an OS 9 Full install CD handy and nothing of consequence on the drive, re-initialized it and loaded a fresh full install of OS 9. At OS9.0, some pages did at first appear to load quicker and I thought I had solved my dilemma. Over time, however, I realized that it wasn't all that faster and the P150 was still running circles around it. Frankly, at times, I don't think I'm getting much better speeds loading pages than I'd get from a 56K dial up line. To say the least, it's not impressive. At this point, someone donated me a 7300/200 and, after some initial questioning on this list, I've decided to upgrade it to a G3/450, throw some RAM at it and see how it behaves with 10.2... Currently, it's a 7300/200 w/ a 10GB disk and 320MB of RAM. I have the g3/450 card sitting next to me (w/ 1MB cache) and will be installing it shortly (and probably ordering another 256MB of RAM while OWC has 128MB chips at just over $25 a piece...) However, currently, the 7300 is loading web pages just as slowly as my 3400. And, actually, the 3400 is now at 9.1 while the 7300 is still currently at 9.0. Therefore, since the 3400/200 w/ 80MB of RAM is loading pages just as fast as the 7300/200 with 320MB of RAM, I'd be doubtful that you'd see much improvement on surfing speed by adding RAM. Someone once told me that IE loads pages faster than Netscape on a Mac, but Macs have always been slower at loading pages than PC's. Is this true? I dunno. But based on what I'm seeing I'm starting to believe it. Unfortunately, the only other Macs I have to compare with are my neighbors G3/2xxMhz iBook and my Dad's 800Mhz G4 iMac which are both using dialup... hardly a comparison... Anyone else care to share on this phenomena? Any hints about RAM utilization and Virtual Memory that might speed things along? In the meantime... I'm not giving up trying to make mine faster ;-) Cheers, Sionnach __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com -- PCI-PowerMacs is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... Small Dog Electronics http://www.smalldog.com | Refurbished Drives | -- Sonnet & PowerLogix Upgrades - start at $169 | & CDRWs on Sale! | Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> PCI-PowerMacs list info: <http://lowendmac.com/lists/pci-powermacs.shtml> --> AOL users, remove "mailto:"; Send list messages to: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Archive:<http://www.mail-archive.com/pci-powermacs%40mail.maclaunch.com/> Using a Mac? Free email & more at Applelinks! http://www.applelinks.com
