Efficiency is a mystery for me...
 

For some reason, my board loads extremely slow at times and super super fast at other times. Surfspeedy is my provider and they said they've removed an abusive client and that everything should be fine. Even with the server load at 0.26, it was taking 10 seconds or more to load my forum index page.

Then they said it could be my database. Well, i looked through the coding and although there are several modules, etc., it doesn't seem like that should be the problem.

How do you guys get your boys running so efficiently and so fast?

Should I tell surfspeedy to put me on to another machine?

My mysql database currently stands at 23 megs. I don't think that's too big. I mean, i only have 360 members.

Please help!!!

You may have a lot of queries running on certain pages of your forum which would make it load sluggish. What hacks have you installed?

actually, i've loaded quite a few. here's the complete list. please tell me which ones you think i should remove or are the most query heavy and i will do so. it's killing me...thanks for helping take a look!! it's greatly appreciated.

in alphabetical order:

AdminCP-Cookie-Separate
Admin Mass PM v1.5
Article Bot v1.1
Currently Now Playing
Photopost
Post Award v1.2
Proxy-to-Real IP v1.2
Shoutbox v1.4 (moved to vbadvanced homepage module, not on forumhome)
Teamspeak Module (in module on home portal page, not on forumhome)
uShop & uCash v.95
v3Arcade
vb3.03 Force Profile Update
vB Anti Proxy
Warning System v1.2.2
Welcome Panel Hack v1.3.0?
Who Was Online Today
Inferno RPG Full System

whew...that's about all, save one or two i missed.

Maybe a little to much for a shared hosting account?

On a shared hosting box, you can really put down a lot of performance issues to the server being oversubscribed... I haven't come across any shared hosts that do not oversubscribe their boxes.

yeah, i think my box is oversubscribed and they're being a b*tch about switching me to another one. *sigh*

in any case, any recommendations on what hacks to uninstall?

do you use gzip compression? that helps for loading times also the hack that removes whitespace helps as well

Article Bot v1.1
Post Award v1.2
Proxy-to-Real IP v1.2
Welcome Panel Hack v1.3.0?
Inferno RPG Full System

Thoughs would be the ones id worry about,

Adding more hacks will not recude the server load.

gzip would increase server load and so would whitespace removal. those 2 are meant for faster loading times and less bandwidth but if your looking for lowering server loads look into reducing hacks and possibly a better host...

first off i want to thank everyone so much for their help. it's actually helped a bit. as for gzip compression, what level do you all recommend? i've currently set it at 1.