800 users crashed server need help.

[huskermax]

Have 4.0.7 and this is a paid site.

When we get a log of users we have just shut off the "lurkers" (or unregistered/logged in user-group). Which takes care of the issues of high sever load. But last night there were so many so fast the server crashed. We are getting that fixed with the server company.

But on the Vbulletin how do I shut of the lurkers to the main page.

http://www.huskermax.com/vbbs/forum.php

I can shut them off to the individual boards.

http://www.huskermax.com/vbbs/forumd...php?4-Football

But when we do that what I find is all those lurkers then just hang out on the main page forum.php and keep trying to get access to the board. This still slows down the server. Is there away to shut down the bbs to lurkers so they go to a default page that will have a message on it saying lurkers have been shut off at this time....so on an so fourth?