Friend complains about slower web site loading, after changing out monitor

[VirtualLarry]

My friend's wide-screen monitor was starting to go out (had to power off and on several times, to wake it from monitor sleep mode), so I picked up a used replacement.

The used replacement is a 5:4 screen, I think. It's a 19" Dell, 1280x1024 I think.

His previous screen was a 1440x900, I think.

Knowing that most web sites have a fixed width, that would mean that he was seeing more web content on-screen at once with a higher vertical resolution.

At least, that's the best reason that I can figure for him complaining about slowdown.

His computer is a somewhat aging AM2+ mobo, 4GB DDR2, with an Athlon II X4 640 quad-core CPU @ 3.0Ghz. He is using the 780G IGP, with hardware video acceleration disabled in Flash Player, because for some reason, playing back video is borked when that is enabled. Seems like the video-decode block in his chipset is slightly defective. He doesn't watch Blu-Rays.

Anyways, he also says he did a Flash Player update a few days ago, but says that the problem cropped up with the new (to him) monitor, and not the Flash Player update. (I have some doubts that the monitor alone is what is causing the issue.)

 

[Piroko]

Try upping the mouse sensitivity first, he might just not be accustomed to the new aspect ratio.

edit, misread, yea loading times can feel different with higher resolution. Definitely noticed that after I switched from 1680*1050 to 1440p.

 

[Denithor]

Try upping the mouse sensitivity first, he might just not be accustomed to the new aspect ratio.

edit, misread, yea loading times can feel different with higher resolution. Definitely noticed that after I switched from 1680*1050 to 1440p.

Except that 1280x1024 only has 1% more pixels than 1440x900 where you more than doubled your pixel count (209% increase) - meaning that your hardware has more than twice as many pixels to calculate & display for the same page to load.

Larry - get him a cheap SSD and be done with it. Seriously. I have started upgrading friends/family members' systems with SSD and everybody is completely blown away when they see/feel the difference that simple change makes.

 

[Jimzz]

Get him a 6450 video card or a cheap recent DX11 card. You can get them in the $20ish range after rebate all the time.

The onboard video in that system is piss poor for current usage IMO. It drags the systems I used it on down more than I thought it would.


I prefer the 6450 but here is a 5450 for $10 AR
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814131338

 

[alcoholbob]

A bad connection or video cable can cause severe lag, I've had severe lag before with bad HDMI cables.

 

[DominionSeraph]

edit, misread, yea loading times can feel different with higher resolution. Definitely noticed that after I switched from 1680*1050 to 1440p.

Switching between 800x600 and 2048x1536, I don't notice anything. This is on an X4 940 and 9600GT.

Larry, I see you mentioned a Flash update. I assume this means he's on Failfox? Have him switch to a real browser.
https://www.google.com/chrome/browser/

 

[sm625]

Loading more rows probably causes more cpu legwork compared to loading more columns. But I think its probably due to site preferences and cache than anything else. (I'm just imagining a poorly coded browser trying to load a cached page, having a bunch of rendering errors due to the screen being a different size, and finally having to go get a new page but not actually storing the new page in cache.) Eventually all the old crap will be cleared out and it will be fine.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Except that 1280x1024 only has 1% more pixels than 1440x900 where you more than doubled your pixel count (209% increase) - meaning that your hardware has more than twice as many pixels to calculate & display for the same page to load.

Larry - get him a cheap SSD and be done with it. Seriously. I have started upgrading friends/family members' systems with SSD and everybody is completely blown away when they see/feel the difference that simple change makes.

He has a 30GB OCZ Agility SSD I gave him a few years back. Win7 64-bit HP. Firefox.

 

[VirtualLarry]

A bad connection or video cable can cause severe lag, I've had severe lag before with bad HDMI cables.

Not on VGA.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Get him a 6450 video card or a cheap recent DX11 card. You can get them in the $20ish range after rebate all the time.

The onboard video in that system is piss poor for current usage IMO. It drags the systems I used it on down more than I thought it would.


I prefer the 6450 but here is a 5450 for $10 AR
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814131338

I actually gave him an A6-5400K APU and board and some RAM to upgrade a few months ago.

Edit: Perhaps I'll ask him for the Trinity rig back, and get him a video card instead. He's had it since June, and hasn't done anything with it.

 

[Denithor]

You're giving him all this stuff and he's complaining about screen lag? Wow. He's got a big pair hanging down there.

As mentioned, try a different video cable, if that doesn't do it, put in a real GPU of whatever variety you can get cheap. Hopefully that will take care of it.

 

[VirtualLarry]

You're giving him all this stuff and he's complaining about screen lag? Wow. He's got a big pair hanging down there.

Well, I actually gave it to him, because I had too many PCs in my apt, and I didn't see using it myself. Plus, his is like 5-6 years old. But yeah, he complains a lot about minor stupid stuff.
I was more than willing to help him set up the A6-5400K rig, but he hasn't decided to upgrade his yet, I guess he's comfortable with what he has. Which means he should really shut up about it I guess.

As mentioned, try a different video cable, if that doesn't do it, put in a real GPU of whatever variety you can get cheap. Hopefully that will take care of it.

I guess I don't see how a VGA cable, which is analog, can introduce lag of page loading.

I personally simply suspect that this is a direct result of the Flash Player update, and has nothing at all to do with the new monitor, regardless of what he claims.

I thought I detected a slight more bit of lag, when I connected my N2830 laptop (1366x768 15.6" screen) to my 1920x1080 24" HDTV / monitor, but I downgraded my browser from Waterfox 31.0 to 28.0, and now things are much better. Waterfox 31.0 is laggy.

 

[PliotronX]

Id try the basic Windows theme.

 

[Ketchup]

I'm betting on a combination of flash and pixels. It seems that flash is getting more and more demanding, and turning off hardware acceleration (education guess here) would still put a decent load on a CPU.

I would get a low-quality flash add-on for his browser and see if that makes a difference.

 

[taltamir]

I personally simply suspect that this is a direct result of the Flash Player update, and has nothing at all to do with the new monitor, regardless of what he claims.

Right on the money. correlation does not equal causation.
Being a PC tech I constantly get people giving me ridiculous and impossible wild theories about what caused their latest problem. they always have correlation but never causation.

Although it might not have been flash. It could be lots of things.

Although it could also be a case of him misusing words. He says "slowdown" but he could mean many different and completely unrelated things that are not slowdown.

 

[VirtualLarry]

http://betanews.com/2014/08/27/lizard-squad-goes-after-xbox-live-twitch/

Could have been that. My friend is constantly watching twitch streams.

 

[taltamir]

http://betanews.com/2014/08/27/lizard-squad-goes-after-xbox-live-twitch/

Could have been that. My friend is constantly watching twitch streams.

OH! This reminds me... my mom was constantly complaining about slow pc. even after many upgrades

finally it turns out she meant that youtube videos were buffering slowly.

 

[PliotronX]

OH! This reminds me... my mom was constantly complaining about slow pc. even after many upgrades

finally it turns out she meant that youtube videos were buffering slowly.

LOL dealing with the less technically inclined can drive ya nuts... an office that is out in the middle of bumf*** cow country can only connect to the internet with Skybeam, a shoddy satellite connection. After the owner paid us to set up a new server, he still bitches about how slow the internet is. No matter how many times we have tried to explain that we cannot defy the laws of physics, he still insists he was promised everything would be faster with a new server. The LAN sure is