excessive CPU usage

I have a phpbb based forum that ended up being moved to a different machine on my server for excessive CPU usage. I really am at a los as to how to correct this problem. My sites are hosted through Dreamhost, and they arent very helpful with figuring this out. the url for my forums is:

www.thepersonaboveyou.com

Here is a usage report from the server.

 

Forums use a lot of memory and CPU. And even more CPU if you don't have enough memory. Just a few people searching a forum can cripple an underpowered server.

 

I'd like to know hat the heck is this CPU usage thing is as well.

My site was down for 1 1/2 days last month and here is the email from my host:

Hello Roman,
It looks like your website is using over 25% of the servers allotted ram which is unacceptable for a shared account in general. Your site will remain suspended until you can let us know what steps you are going to take in order to bring this down to a more acceptable usage % as in 2-8%.


I have 150 GB of bandwidth, used only 10% and get shut down for CPU usage. They put my site back up but never explained any problem. All my pages are HTML and I use no server side scripts.

 

CPU, Memory, and Bandwidth are all different things.

 

I disabled the search function, we will see!

 

it's not just search, around 60+ active users per 15 minutes and you should start looking for your own dedicated server

 

So why do they sell 150 GB when 10% of that will kill your account?

All I want is not to have to worry about being shutdown because my site is growing and I'm getting to many people.

 

150 GB is Bandwidth, bandwidth has nothing to do with CPU usage.

You could use 1 megabyte of file space but if you were running an intensive CPU process it would get your account disabled as well.

Bandwidth is not processing power

 

I understand that but my average page including pics is 50K, All pages are html, no server side scripts. I get 3 - 4K uniques and 10 - 20K page views/day.

That's not a lot, how do I grow if I have their best package and am getting problems already.

 

I think your host sucks to be honest...

 

Yeah, what scares me is I checked whois and the site is in his name, not mine.

 

Well they can do that if you bought the domain through them. Which isn't smart, I found out too late, took me a year to get the domain back because their admin was apparently some angry psycho (bluehost)

 

How do you get the domain back?

 

transferred it to a 3rd party hoster, i recommend namecheap. used to like godaddy but apparently it's owned by some nazi freak

 

How do you transfer the domain name if it's not registered in your name?

There is no option in my account to transfer.

Am I skrewed?

Thanks

 

So, I guess the only way to handle this problem is to either get a dedicated server or close up shop?

 

Not necessarily...you can probably run your forums on a shared host (other than Dreamhost) and not have to worry about getting shut down because of CPU usage. For example, I've got a buddy on a shared host who has a constant 75 - 125 members (guests and members) on in 15 minutes...only sporadic "too many connections" errors here and there.

I don't think you need a dedicated server at this point, unless you just want one...I'd look into a VPS (virtual private server) instead.

 

Phpbb is known to be a resource hog once the forum starts getting a bit popular so server configuration and optimization should be handled accordingly. I would definetly not recommend running a popular forum through a shared host as shared servers can not handle or afford giving away all mysql or http connections to one single site on the server.

 

They are very different thing, the same goes to the cpu

 

Try to optimize your forum if it is possible else pay a server.first choise is better but u need to know very good php mysql.