Mystery: certain urls load slowly, others not, only on one MPB

Thanks for taking a stab at it, Eric. I tried both suggestions in Safari, and unfortunately neither the reset nor removing the .plist had any effect on the load times of those two particular sites. I didn't try it in the other two affected browsers because the procedure showed no impact in Safari (and as resetting does cause some additional effort in future browsing).

I do thank you for the idea.

Thanks for pitching in, Kristoffer. I hadn't tried Google's public DNS, but as I mentioned I had tried OpenDNS's, which provided no faster load time on those sites. At your behest, though, I did try Google's DNS servers, and unfortunately, they didn't change the load time either. Again, thanks for the idea.

Linc, thanks for taking a look at it. One of the sites in question is http://www.TroubleEnsued.com

Again, the strange thing about this situation is that two same-model computers running side by side on the same wireless network using the same DNS servers are loading this site with consistantly different speeds. So to a certain degree no matter what speed it loads for others outside my network...I will still need to figure out why it loads so radically differently on our two laptops here.

Only difference I can see so far is that the slower one is running OS 10.8.4, the faster one is still on 10.8.3. However, as I mentioned, all of the rest of my urls are resolving as quickly as usual so doesn't seem to be a systemic issue. That's what makes it a mystery.

Thank you very much for taking an interest in this mystery, Linc. I followed the procedure you detailed.

The first time I did it, it didn't return any output within five seconds. But as I was rereading your note to make sure I did it correctly before quitting Terminal, it eventually did return this as the first of those three lines:

real 0m17.583s

I also tried the same procedure in Terminal on my husband's MBP which I mentioned consistently loads this same page quickly. (As detailed before, his is MBP the same model machine, on the same wireless network, with the most obvious difference I can think of being that he is running OS 10.8.3 and I am running OS 10.8.4). The first of those three lines in Terminal on his machine was:

real 0m0.731s

I guess comparison of this data backs up my contention that his MBP does load this page faster.

By the way, just for comparison, I also tried the same Terminal procedure on my MBP with another unrelated website (Facebook). It returned this output immediately, and shows that my connection does perform well with other sites.

real 0m0.153s

Mystery.

Thanks for further inspection, Linc. Followed your instructions. Disconnected all peripherals. Booted in safe mode.

Terminal output after a wait was:

real 0m13.717s

For comparison, while booted in safe mode, I also again tried running that terminal command directed to the Facebook website. Output once again was almost immediate, a considerably faster:

real 0m0.246s

As instructed, I rebooted as usual (not in safe mode), and Terminal output was:

real 0m15.674s

Tried again with peripherals reconnected, and it was:

real 0m13.946s

Much faster, as I mentioned on both previous test posts when I tried it the command directed to Facebook.com. I tried the one you just provided to Apple, terminal returned:

real 0m0.137s

So...it's fast! The slowdown *only* seems to occur with two sites that I know are hosted on the same GoDaddy server. But I eliminated my initial concept that it was a server problem because as previously stated (and documented today through Terminal), my husband's MBP does not experience this slowdown to either site at all! Thanks for pondering this, Linc. Strangest thing, huh?

Linc...I may be onto something. I need to go offline now, so let me experiment with it more overnight before I jump to a conclusion. If this turns out to be the solution, I'll post in the AM. Again, thank you so much for working with me on this. I won't leave you hanging...

Hi Linc. Thanks again for the further instructions.

I stumbled onto something yesterday that is fascinating. My husband left for the evening, and all of a sudden my ability to go to those two sites became significantly faster. As fast as his MBP's load times normally are. I experimented throughout the day today to make sure that the problem can be consistantly replicated. It can.

This is a little hard to explain in writing, so I hope you can hang with me. First, as background: both sites I experience a slowdown with are self-administered Wordpress-based sites hosted on the same GoDaddy server. One is mine, one is his. What I eventually discovered is that whenever his laptop has a browser window open in which he is logged in as the administrator of HIS Wordpress site, then my browser speed is completely bogged down in trying to load MINE (even just as a viewer...not even trying to log in). Keep in mind that each of these two sites have completely DIFFERENT domain names. But again...I do know that they are hosted on the same server.

In a nutshell: if he is logged into his site on his computer, then my speed reduces drastically loading the other (my own) site on my computer. Every. Single. Time.

The minute I close his browser window on his MPB, then my MPB's speed to load my site's url is is returned to normal.

I initially thought maybe it was some kind of "first in" gets priority...perhaps because our wireless network is set up to share an IP address using DHCP. BUT, when I reverse the procedure and log into one of the sites first on my MPB, his laptop still loads the pages with full speed. It is only when *HIS* MBP logs into one of the pages first, that my MBP load times increase exponentially.

Obviously, this does give me a non-elegant workaround (make him log off, if I need to look at my site)...but it is still the biggest mystery. I just have no idea why it would behave in this way. It would seem that in a corporate environment that people on different computers are concurently hitting the same sites all throughout the day, with no painfully obvious slowdowns. So I don't know why my computer is bogging down...especially when I'm not even hitting the same SITE...just hitting a site hosted on the same server.

But that said, I did follow the instructions that you gave for the Network Utility (above), in case there was something in there that caught your eye:

Lookup screen:

Thanks again for taking an interest in this and guiding me through these various exercises. You have certainly pointed me in directions that helped me narrow this issue down (and let me know I'm not crazy). I certainly do plan to award "points" to you, but I don't want to accidentally end the conversation quite yet in case you have other ideas.