Too much Javascript/AJAX driving my Pentium 4 at 100% with IE6/W2K

Pepinno · Jan 19, 2012

I have an W2K workstation where I run IE6 (also, Firefox 3.6, but that's besides the point). This machine has a 2 GHz Pentium 4 and 1.5 GB of RAM.

Well, it so happens that browsing this forum with IE6 drives CPU use up to 100%, anytime I click on a subforum or on a thread. It stays at 100% for about 5 seconds, while the page loads and renders, and then the CPU goes back to normal (about 1% usage). While the CPU is at 100% the page appears frozen in the screen, no scrolling is possible, etc. It's annoying.

I think the AJAX in vintage-computer.com/vcforum is too much to bear for IE6's javascript engine. Is anyone else experiencing this?

Chuck(G) · Jan 19, 2012

Not really. I just finished browsing the forum using Firefox on a 1GHz dual P3 running Win2K. The speed seemed pretty decent to me.

I do block a lot of sites/domains however. It might not be the forum, but one of the advertising links. I've noticed that cloudfront.net seems to be getting more ugly in terms of being a CPU vampire. SiteBlock is good for a FF plugin, but some of the really bad ones I have blocked in my server's dnsmasq.conf file.

Also, what antivirus software are you using? They can be huge cycle-stealers.

commodorejohn · Jan 19, 2012

I know it's trite to say this, but really, IE6?

That said, I do agree that one might reasonably expect a vintage computing forum to be a little more...well, vintage.

Chuck(G) · Jan 19, 2012

commodorejohn said:
I know it's trite to say this, but really, IE6?

That said, I do agree that one might reasonably expect a vintage computing forum to be a little more...well, vintage.

I use IE6 as a matter of course on Windoze, because it's the earliest release that can handle MS updates. It can also be useful to run IE-only stuff that doesn't render correctly on other browsers. Most of the time I'm using Opera or Firefox.

Pepinno · Jan 19, 2012

Chuck(G) said:
Not really. I just finished browsing the forum using Firefox on a 1GHz dual P3 running Win2K. The speed seemed pretty decent to me.

Also, what antivirus software are you using? They can be huge cycle-stealers.

Yes, I have no trouble browsing this forum with Firefox. It is the javascript engine of IE6 which has big performance problems with the "ajaxy" features of the forum.

I do not run any antivirus software. Instead, I work with a standard/restricted user.

commodorejohn said:
I know it's trite to say this, but really, IE6?

IE6 is the only multiprocess browser that you can run in W2K. Firefox is a single monolithic process, and Chrome won't install in W2K...

That said, I use Firefox 3.6 also, but I already have it running in a 10 days session with many tabs open and I don't want to crash it right now. Much easier to launch a dedicated IEXPLORE.EXE process to access this forum, if it wasn't for this poor AJAX performance of IE6 with this forum.

Chuck(G) · Jan 19, 2012

I hadn't realized that FF wasn't multiprocess-capable. I'd just assumed that this project had gained traction. It seems to me that what really kills performance is add-ons like Flash.

Have you tried Avant 2012? I don't know a thing about it, except for the claims.

commodorejohn · Jan 19, 2012

I'm more surprised that IE6 is. I never would have guessed.

Pepinno · Jan 19, 2012

commodorejohn said:
I'm more surprised that IE6 is. I never would have guessed.

IE has been multiprocess at leat since IE5, probably IE4 also...

Code:

C:\Documents and Settings\Administrador\Mis documentos>c:\usr\pstools\pslist.exe -t

pslist v1.28 - Sysinternals PsList
Copyright ® 2000-2004 Mark Russinovich
Sysinternals

Process information for W2KSERVER:

Name                             Pid Pri Thd  Hnd      VM      WS    Priv
Idle                               0   0   1    0       0      16       0
  System                           8   8  73  286    1696     212      28
    SMSS                         300  11   6   43    5280     420    1084
      CSRSS                      324  13  13  891   76444    4844    1804
      WINLOGON                   348  13  17  329   46580    1912    7400
        SERVICES                 376   9  32  647   65112    7956    4708
          WinMgmt                280   8   5  193   36660    1488    2616
          termsrv                476  10  15  129   48688    3584    2144
          svchost                596   8  11  435   23912    2776    1816
          spoolsv                628   8  11  148   46052    2772    3292
          svchost                680   8  20  454   42652    3724    3832
          srvany                 696   8   1   27    8980    1340     256
            ServUDaemon          720   8   4   84   25900    2068    2804
          poweroff               728   8   4   48   28408    2356     616
          RevUDF                 792   8   3   43   26944    1804     420
          mstask                 820   8   7  117   35780    1848    1260
          cygrunsrv              864   8   4   75  411640    1580    1092
          uphclean               940   8   2   43   10592    1184     620
          vmnat                  960   8   3   74   22456    1872    1172
          sqlservr              1012   8  29  306 1621080   12920   32216
          vmware-authd.ex       1020   8   6  147   30812    1520    2240
          svchost               1088   8  12  222   23696    3064    1688
          vmserverdWin32.       1104   8   5  190   50976    7600   16892
          benser                1516   8   5   49   24824    2164     852
          beremote              1540   8   6  107   36288    3956    4060
          pvlsvr                1572   8   9  207   51568    4192    3760
          beserver              1644   8  29  430  100788    9848   12288
          bengine               1764   8  13  211   52400    4224    5492
          benetns               1828   8   5   85   27172    2852    1152
        LSASS                    388   9  14  299   32504    3816    3844
      CSRSS                     2968  13  12  138   66688    1932     940
      WINLOGON                  3020  13  12  126   40184    1804    2580
        rdpclip                  684   8   2   32   24224    1476     392
sshd                             948   8   5  124  426344    1492    2232
bash                            1280   8   3  119  432360    1588    2264
explorer                        1448   8  13  543   83064    4036    6352
  mstsc                          604   8   8  154   42908    2344    5028
  IEXPLORE                       656   8  11  367  191200    3412   35132
    AcroRd32                    5320   8   3  143  136616    4988   39084
  notepad++                     1904   8   6  185   77688    5176   10904
  Ditto                         2140   8   4  166   40800    5124    1388
  firefox                       2144  10  19  422  915772  345484  706536
  IEXPLORE                      2368   8  13  423  182632    2204   57656
  TASKMGR                       2372  13   3   46   27640    3752    1024
  IEXPLORE                      2396   8  16  427  194724   24944   58152
  IEXPLORE                      2428   8  17  853  273296   26268   65776
  IEXPLORE                      2620   8  10  334  133880    5820   25744
  IEXPLORE                      4408   8  12  551  152360    1944   33508
  IEXPLORE                      4644   8  15  587  191648   69952   57496
  IEXPLORE                      4860   8  64 1399  730172   22852  392764
  IEXPLORE                      4908   8  12  601  221244   87972   70204
  IEXPLORE                      5056   8  19 1073  841228   28456  480292
  IEXPLORE                      5100   8  15  453  254948    3344   76744
  IEXPLORE                      5144   8  11  401  163312   26280   46256
  CMD                           5192   8   1   20   20768    1456     396
  IEXPLORE                      5396   8  21  614  312504   34764  145404
bash                            1464   8   3  119  432360    1868    2328
bash                            1616   8   3  122  432364    1700    2264
ssh                             1836   8   4  130  435548    2316    2336
bash                            1880   8   4  125  434412    1628    2248
screen-3.9.15.e                 1924   8   4  121  434272    1456    1804
  screen-3.9.15.e               2712   8   7  146  432720    1988    1804
rxvt                            2100   8   7  102  430900    1752    2468
explorer                        3300   8  11  381   72592    4568    6980
  CMD                           4960   8   1   21   20768    1400     364
    pslist                      3600  13   2   87   28628    2256     996
  explorer                      5504   8   4  227   53288    6888    3492
xterm                           4440   8   5  144  439348    2252    4340
bash                            4896   8   3  119  432360    1596    2328
mmc                             5012   8   3  107   47148    1496    2016
XWin                            5176   8   9  242  458860    6816   17684
bash                            5216   8   4  122  434408    1848    2240

C:\Documents and Settings\Administrador\Mis documentos>

The process EXPLORER.EXE with PID 1448 is the shell of the restricted user under which I work in the console, as you can see I have many instances of IE6 (IEXPLORE.EXE) running, where the crashing of any one of them won't bring down the others. I also have two firefox windows open each with as many as 15 tabs open, but my user is running only a single FIREFOX process. Thus, firefox is a monolithic process whereas IE6 is a multiprocess application.

The process EXPLORER.EXE with PID 3300 is the shell of a Terminal Server session against "localhost" where I logged with Adminitrator credentials to run the PSLIST.EXE command (courtesy of Sysinternals).

I'm also running several Cygwin/Linux tools under my restricted user account, but those appear "out of wack" in the nice process tree above, I don't know why (maybe the POSIX emulation/translation DLL from Cygwin is detaching from its parent/calling process the processes that are run through it?).

Chuck(G) · Jan 19, 2012

Can't you simply run Firefox with the -no-remote switch to get multiple instances?

commodorejohn · Jan 20, 2012

Seems like that'd be a worse solution than using a multi-threaded browser, though - less speedup on individual pages plus all the overhead of multiple full program instances...

Edit: unless I'm misunderstanding this and the only thing meant by IE6 being "multi-process" is that each window is its own instance of the program?

Pepinno · Jan 20, 2012

Chuck(G) said:
Can't you simply run Firefox with the -no-remote switch to get multiple instances?

It seems I can create additional Firefox "profiles" and then launch additional firefox processes for the same user using a different profile for each process.

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Opening_a_new_instance_of_Firefox_with_another_profile

So it's doable, but in IE6 I have about 10 processes at once in a seamless way... Truth be told I don't feel now like creating 10 Firefox profiles and then having to deal with 10 different browsing histories, browsing caches, and so forth.

But thanks for the trick, I didn't know about that option. :D

Chuck(G) · Jan 20, 2012

Well, if you omit the -P "profile name" switch and just leave -no-remote, Firefox opens with the profile manager, so you can create a new profile and continue to it. A small step, but at least it's a little less onerous.

deathshadow · Jan 20, 2012

1) You're on a P4 -- why Win2k? XP SP3 is actually faster and uses less RAM. (much like 7 vs. Vista, or XP vs XP SP2, destroying the idea that new releases just add bloat)

2) You're on a P4, unless that's a P4D, multithreaded will be WORSE performing than single threaded since there's nothing to run those other processes on. NOT that javascript runs in it's own thread in any browser. Even if it has hyperthreading, that extra pretend core is best left for OS level stuff instead of applications.

3) CommodoreJohn hit it on the head... IE6? <miz>REALLY? REALLY?!? REALLY...</miz>

NOT that firefuxxors is going to be an improvement on said platform -- given it's allegedly fast javascript is basically neutered by it's piss poor slow element rendering. (much less the memory leak hell it's ALWAYS had -- and that they have yet to even admit is a problem). But then I'm probably the only web developer on the planet with unkind words for that fat bloated slow buggy steaming pile of garbage that really is little more than Nyetscape 4's sweetly retarded cousin.

Chrome has the fastest implementation of most things, but the browser's UI is like a trip in the wayback machine to IE3 (Safari being much the same) -- It's why I'm an Opera guy -- hell, I run the latest Opera on win98 using KernelEx.

Though I suggest switching it to the 'native' skin, and sticking with Opera. For some reason the UI intimidates new users -- some people even have the balls to call it bloated... funny since the distro and executable isn't significantly bigger than FF or Chrome, and yet it has 99% of the stuff people add 'extensions' to those browsers to do AND a fully featured mail client in it... That's not bloat.

... and I don't care how good a virus scanner you're running, in terms of using the Internet IE, even IE9, is basically painting a bullseye on your backside and running around a prison yelling "rape me, rape me". You use IE for anything more than windows update, you get what's coming to you.

Oh, and you could always just turn Javascript off. Using Opera I selectively disable javascript on a number of websites when on my netbook since these days people are slapping endless amounts of javascript on websites for christmas only knows what! Certainly nothing useful... see the idiotic nonsense of javascript frameworks like jquery or mootools.

Ranks right up there with the other idiotic nonsense of things like CSS frameworks (that defeat the point of using CSS), people sleazing out HTML 3.2 and slapping a 4 tranny doctype on it, and HTML5 (which basically undoes the past decade of progress in web development rolling the clock back to HTML 3.2).

Compgeke · Jan 20, 2012

One thing though is there is nothing that can be done about rendering as, unless we have someone feeling brave, I don't think anyone wants to really hack vBulletin. Although I do agree about using IE6. It may be the newest for 98\ME\2000\NT4, the alternatives are a lot better on rendering and such, plus you get support for some sites like my Website which just will not render in IE (I was told it had something to do with the wrong gzip headers by the developer).

commodorejohn · Jan 20, 2012

deathshadow said:
It's why I'm an Opera guy -- hell, I run the latest Opera on win98 using KernelEx.

Ugh, Opera. I have to respect it for being both capable/accurate and fast (it runs smooth on my little netbook where Firefox 2+ is slightly laggy at best,) but I wish to God it didn't feel the need to have the browser interface from Jupiter. Why can't there be a normal menu bar instead of this infinitely-nested single menu? Why can't blank tabs be blank instead of trying to guess what I want? ARGH GO AWAY AND LEAVE ME IN PEACE.

Oh, and you could always just turn Javascript off. Using Opera I selectively disable javascript on a number of websites when on my netbook since these days people are slapping endless amounts of javascript on websites for christmas only knows what! Certainly nothing useful... see the idiotic nonsense of javascript frameworks like jquery or mootools.

Ranks right up there with the other idiotic nonsense of things like CSS frameworks (that defeat the point of using CSS), people sleazing out HTML 3.2 and slapping a 4 tranny doctype on it, and HTML5 (which basically undoes the past decade of progress in web development rolling the clock back to HTML 3.2).

...I'm not apparently the only person on the entire Internet who feels that designing HTML5 to enable the use of Javascript to develop in-browser application software is a ridiculously stupid idea? ...I'M NOT ALONE!!!

(What I'd like to do is implement a web browser in a web browser using these features, as a kind of protest performance-art, but I'd bet good money people would hail it as "brilliant" and "innovative.")

Pepinno · Jan 20, 2012

deathshadow said:
1) You're on a P4 -- why Win2k? XP SP3 is actually faster and uses less RAM. (much like 7 vs. Vista, or XP vs XP SP2, destroying the idea that new releases just add bloat)

You don't know what your talking about. On a P4, W2K is faster and uses less RAM than XP. That is just a fact.

deathshadow said:
2) You're on a P4, unless that's a P4D, multithreaded will be WORSE performing than single threaded since there's nothing to run those other processes on. NOT that javascript runs in it's own thread in any browser. Even if it has hyperthreading, that extra pretend core is best left for OS level stuff instead of applications.

Might be true, but is irrelevant to my use case. I might have several IE6 processes open at once, but I'm only interacting with the AJAX components in one of them at a time. So the multithreaded performance of the P4 is a non issue here.

deathshadow said:
3) CommodoreJohn hit it on the head... IE6? <miz>REALLY? REALLY?!? REALLY...</miz>

Yes, really. It is multiprocess in a seamless way, it's the fastest browser for W2K, and it is secure if you run with a standard user and if you configure the "Internet zone" with high security and then selectively add sites to the "Trusted sites zone" (this brings you about the same security than using Firefox with NoScript).

deathshadow said:
... and I don't care how good a virus scanner you're running, in terms of using the Internet IE, even IE9, is basically painting a bullseye on your backside and running around a prison yelling "rape me, rape me". You use IE for anything more than windows update, you get what's coming to you.

Windows Update is no more for W2k. And I don't run any antivirus software whatsoever. This machine was installed in 2002 and has not been reformatted ever -- I admin it, you know.

Chuck(G) · Jan 20, 2012

Sometimes motherboards can be foolers on speed. I've got a board here with a 1.8GHz Socket A Athlon. It uses 333 MHz DDR memory and I have 1G installed running XP. Today I dug out an old Compaq ENP tower. Originally, it had a 600MHz 100MHz FSB Slot 1 P3 on it. I upraded it with a Slocket to a 1.4GHz Celeron. It's also running a similarly-configured XP (i.e. both use the same disk drive, and the specs on the AGP cards are very similar, with an edge toward the Athlon. FSB is still 100MHz and it has 768M of PC100 memory. You'd expect the Athlon to run rings around the Celeron--but not so. In fact, it's quite the reverse--the Compaq box is very comfortable with XP and response is very respectable. The Athlon box is a snail compared to it.

I was very surprised--but I've seen the same sort of thing with Core 2 Duo systems being outrun by P4 Northwoods.

deathshadow · Jan 20, 2012

Pepinno said:
You don't know what your talking about. On a P4, W2K is faster and uses less RAM than XP. That is just a fact.

Two identical VirtualBox sessions. 2k SP4 on left, XP SP3 on right, vanilla installs.
http://www.deathshadow.com/images/xp_vs_2k.jpg

XP wins... though I did accidentally set up the XP one as dual processor... which should use MORE memory for the tasking overhead...

-- edit -- uploaded better image with both VM's set 100% identical.

THOUGH it will flip back around in 2k's favor if you turn on the goofy jelly bean buttons and don't kill the telnet server... one of the reasons I always ran XP in 'classic' mode and one of the first things I do is kill the telnet server.

Mike Chambers · Jan 21, 2012

IE6 is basically asking for drive-by download malware.

Mike Chambers · Jan 21, 2012

Chuck(G) said:
Sometimes motherboards can be foolers on speed. I've got a board here with a 1.8GHz Socket A Athlon. It uses 333 MHz DDR memory and I have 1G installed running XP. Today I dug out an old Compaq ENP tower. Originally, it had a 600MHz 100MHz FSB Slot 1 P3 on it. I upraded it with a Slocket to a 1.4GHz Celeron. It's also running a similarly-configured XP (i.e. both use the same disk drive, and the specs on the AGP cards are very similar, with an edge toward the Athlon. FSB is still 100MHz and it has 768M of PC100 memory. You'd expect the Athlon to run rings around the Celeron--but not so. In fact, it's quite the reverse--the Compaq box is very comfortable with XP and response is very respectable. The Athlon box is a snail compared to it.

I was very surprised--but I've seen the same sort of thing with Core 2 Duo systems being outrun by P4 Northwoods.

this is so very true. i've even seen pentium 2's outrun pentium 3's because of crappy motherboards.

Too much Javascript/AJAX driving my Pentium 4 at 100% with IE6/W2K

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