I have a feeling it's something upstream of PM. I've seen the same problems from two different access points with PM, but the symptoms make little sense for it to be a problem with CPU cycles on the local hardware. Instead, I think that a few hops upstream may be flaky, as it has more of a feel to dropped packets than it does to overloading a server.

With the ads removed, that would help the response time (presume the ads were on the same network segment but different server), but wouldn't completely remove it.

And the lost packets are not the same for everyone; I've watched CB chatter go by, and when one of the temporary speed slowdowns hit and disappate, the amount of CB chatter feels like there's been a lot more going on while I've missed it. (Also, seeing jcwren's Robomonk in action, there's been points where after Robomonk resees the site that a large influx of messages appear).

So unless I'm mistaken, I doubt there's little that can be done to fix it at vroom's end, even if more money was through at it. It's probably not even the ISP, most likely it's the next level up. But I haven't sat there with traceroutes or similar tools to isolate it as such.

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Dr. Michael K. Neylon - mneylon-pm@masemware.com || "You've left the lens cap of your mind on again, Pinky" - The Brain
"I can see my house from here!"
It's not what you know, but knowing how to find it if you don't know that's important