CPU Throttling with WP site WordPress
Hello:
I need someone to tell me why the website indierockcafe.com is CPU throttling out of control with webhost.
Is it a plug-in (I'm using SuperCache)? Is it the amount of traffic (about 30K visitors a day), is the high volume of downloading (about 20 Gigs a day)
Because of this high rate of throttling my web host is threatening to suspend my account and I can't have that happen.
Is there a way to correctly diagnose the problem(s) and to resolve the CPU throttling issue? I would like someone who knows exactly what to do, of course.
Thanks
PS - I'm guessing some of the reason I alluded to above are partial reasons, but the throttling is mostly over the past three to four months. I use the Mimbo theme.
Answers (2)
Denzel Chia answers:
Hi,
Web host CPU throttling is normally caused by bad program codes. Could be some code doing unnecessary database calls or some suppressed errors.
Look into your error log from Web Host cpanel. Try to fix the error or is the error is caused by a plugin, deactivate it and see if it helps.
Don't think CPU throttling is caused by wp super cache, it is suppose to make it less database calls.
It is normally caused by some statistic plugins. Try to use only one statistic plugin.
For a start, screenshot your error log and post as an attachement for us to see.
Thanks.
Denzel
rilwis answers:
There're something you might consider about your website and host:
1. The 1st problem is your site is using Timthumb. Timthumb does a great job, but in fact, all requests to images are passed to Timthumb to generate thumbnails. That causes CPU loading. Even when generated images are cached, Timthumb still need a little CPU load to get the image. In addition, the URL to image is dynamic that will not allow browser to cache image, and decrease the performance of website.
To avoid this problem, you should switch to using built-in WP thumbnail feature.
2. Many files in your host don't have proper expire header, which allow browser to cache them (this will make server work every request of files). [[LINK href="http://www.deluxeblogtips.com/2010/06/htaccess-rules-website-performace.html"]]Here[[/LINK]] is a simple way to avoid it.
3. WP SuperCache is a good cache plugin, but in my opinion, W3 Total Cache is better. You should try it. W3TC is not only does a great caching job, but also does some improvement in website performance, that may help you to reduce server load.
4. A large number of visitors and hosting company may cause the problem, too. I've met this situation before when I have about 25k visits/day. My hosting company was Justhost, and my account was suspended twice. I switched to Bluehost, and my site runs well now (it has about 45k visits/day).
I insist that the server configuration is very important to high traffic website. If you have problem with the host (after all optimization have been done), you should think about changing into another host provider.
5. At last, you should follow [[LINK href="http://developer.yahoo.com/performance/rules.html"]]performance rules by Yahoo[[/LINK]]. Installing YSlow and PageSpeed addons for Firefox can let you see the problems.