does (dial-up) connection speed affect cache?

[Kali]

I swear when I get disconnected and reconnect, if it is at a different speed than before the pages start loading really slow, like I had cleaned out the cache. (and I'm not talking a very big difference - usually I'm at the amazing fast 24 Kbps, but sometimes it goes all the way to 26.4!)

[RoyGBiv]

1. Indirectly ...

It would depend on the page and how it's processed or rendered, whether it has changed any since you last accessed it, and various other things. For example, the DU page changes constantly, so sometimes your waiting on a "new" part of the page to render before the cached portions are loaded.

This is an imperfect and overly simplistic explanation.

I sometimes notice this when I'm having a problem reaching a site or when I'm loading a page thats coded poorly ... or when I'm using Konqueror (a Linux/KDE web browser) with default settings. It renders things oddly.

I suspect, though, that part of your issue is simply line noise generating pauses in the load of the page itself. Since you're at such a slow speed and since pages these days tend to be "optimized" for broadband speeds (optimized in the same way software is optimized for large amounts of RAM, meaning not really optimized at all), it actually takes noticeable time just to load the HTML, especially with the line noise. The line noise, which is one of the things that causes you to connect at slower rates than you should, creates transmission errors, which sometimes causes data to be transmitted to you several times before anything actually gets to your browser to process. This would suggest a reason why you notice it more when you get knocked off and reconnect at a slower speed ... more noise, more errors.

Have you had the phone company check your lines, specifically requesting a check for noise that could degrade an Internet connection? There's more than one check they can do. For voice transmission, the signal/noise ratio as a much larger tolerance range than for data transmission. With a clean line, you should be able to get in the ~40 Kbps range fairly regularly.

[Kali]

2. yes they have checked

but it is the same old problem - 2 miles of 60-70 year old wires. The oddest part (to my brain that wants things to seem logical) is that my "normal" speed is the slower one and this usually happens when it jumps up that small notch.

Bottom line: it's ALL slow out here:rofl:

[RoyGBiv]

3. It's all slow out here ...

Dearlord my brain is warped.

I read that and heard Pennywise (Stephen King, _IT_) saying, "They ALL float down here ..." :scared: I need therapy. Seriously.

Anyway ... with regard to your problem, well that is odd. I must admit I haven't a clue why it would seem slower at the (nominally) higher speed. It could just be perception and hypersensitivity to changes in relative speed since you're having to wander a wilderness of web pages that were built by people who seem to assume everyone has their own dedicated T1.

I remember now your mentioning previously the 2 miles of ancient wiring, which of course they won't replace until forced. It's enough to make one mildly hope for someone with a backhoe to come along and start tearing up a couple miles of dirt and whatever might be underneath it ... not that I'm suggesting anyone should do that, mind you. That would be wrong.

[Kali]

4. that was a scary clown

my oldest was a horror freak from birth

I mostly notice the change/delay here on du because when I clear cache or when this happens I have to go through the page loading all the little stuff at the top. When it is running normal all the icons and stuff just load, but when there is either of the changes (cleaning or speed change on a reconnect) I get the little depressed boxes with the red x that change to the icons as it loads.

My lines may be antique but at least they are qwest - one of the few that didn't sell us out to the spying shit. Probably because they couldn't make their systems work fast enough :rofl:

satellite from the local electric co-op is getting closer and closer to being affordable.