Why is the website hosted on my VPS slow?

This article will cover some troubleshooting steps you can take if your website on your VPS is slow.

Please note: this article was originally created for our previous generation of Virtual Private Servers. As such, these instructions may not be relevant to our current generation of Virtual Private Servers.

Step 1 of 6

Perform a traceroute from an external source (i.e. not from your VPS).

Step 2 of 6

If you are experiencing slow download speeds, see how long it takes to download a file.

Linux

Login to your VPS using SSH and use the wget command to download a file.

Windows

Login to your VPS using RDP and download a file via a browser.

Step 3 of 6

Check the speed of your website, use the developers tools in your web browser
(Ctrl + Shift + I) and this will show you what your site is loading. Items that may cause your site to load slow include:

  • Large PNG files
  • javascript sliders
  • jquery forms and scripts

A large database could also affect the loading of your site.

Step 4 of 6

Check the resources of your VPS such as disk space, memory and cores. Upgrades can be purchased from the Manage VPS section of your 123 Reg user control panel.

Step 5 of 6

Check what process you have running on your server, here you would be looking for items such as:

  • A process using up your CPU
  • A backup process running
  • A script or database call that is struggling to execute

Linux
Login to your VPS using SSH and use the top command.

Windows
Login to your VPS using RDP and use Task Manager.

Step 6 of 6

Check the 123 Reg System Status Page for issues with the Network/Node that your VPS is hosted on as these can cause bad (slow) connections.

Please note: If you have troubleshooted your VPS and are not able to find the cause you can raise a support ticket. You will need to provide the following information when raising your ticket:

  • IP address of your VPS
  • URL of a website hosted on your VPS
  • Traceroute to your VPS from an external source
  • Details of any custom software you have running on the VPS