Any way to identify what is causing my forum to be really slow? We've not added anything and all of a sudden I'm getting members say that it either completely locks up on them or it's so slow that they give up trying to make a post or reply.

I've personally not noticed the slow down, the only thing I have noticed on my end is that when jumping from post to post or forum to forum that there is a "lag" between the page loading and the calendar seems to appear full screen for a split second. Any of this making sense to anyone? Thanks in advance.

FWIW, I've had periodic problems with slowness also, even when not many people are on the site. For me restarting the SQL server seems to fix it. Seems sometimes something in the SQL queries hangs and slows everything down. I've been trying for sometime to pinpoint what it is, but so far have not been able to. I even tried configuring MySQL to log slow queries, but that didn't show anything either. Last night for example, my users were complaining of a very slow forum, but this AM it's fast as lightening!

Are they using Cox Internet Services?

Not sure what ISP they are using. I can ask of course. Like I said though, I have noticed that between refreshes from page to page, the calendar appears full screen for a split second, sometimes a little longer. The forum is lightning fast as of right now though. I did a repair on the databases at the request of my host provider. Not sure if that did anything useful or not.

If you are on a shared server, the issue might be related to other traffic on the server. Perhaps at a time when your host is running a backup etc.

Try and get a log of times to give to your host and find out the load at those times.

Was the issue with IE and the Shout Box Resolved?
Wasn't it a IE7 issue for those users?

Appears that most users that were complaining used IE. I don't use the shout box on the site anymore because I know for a fact that it was causing the site to lag. Anyhow, I'm thinking that most of these issues are coming from my host and not something that I can fix.

I see your using Bluehost. I know for a fact that other message boards running on their service has had problems in the past. They limit CPU usage severely as well as other resources.

I understand they are amongst the cheapest of the hosting places but in turn if your paying bottom dollar I wouldn't expect to much in that case.

you get what you pay for

Exactly why I own my own place and host my self. I use to be hosted by another place but you couldn't even talk to them as they were always right even when they were wrong and wanted to charge you for their problems.

If there server was down it was your fault and they wanted to charge every customer that called to fix their own stuff.