Is PHP the bottleneck?
 

Something seems slow here :error.

Perhaps servers have been scaled down?

Feels like it's 1997 again rocking a 33.6 Kbps modem lately here.


:helpme

running on a 300 baud modem

They’re just not feeding the hamsters as much as they used to…

300 baud modem:
30 chars/sec.
Text crawls like molasses.
Download a pic? Go eat dinner.

Pure 1980s pain. 😂

:1orglaugh :1orglaugh . . .

At least with a 300 baud modem you would still see it loading...

Are you seeing intermittent failed requests?

I would think it's outdated SQL version before PHP.

:2 cents:

this site is running an extremely old and hacked version of vbb, you can see it in the source code

According to Google-
vBulletin 3.8.8, launched around April 2013, is a legacy version, making it over 13 years old as of April 2026. While the 3.8 series was officially supported around 2010, this specific release was a late-stage update to the popular 3.x branch, often used for its stability in the early 2010s.

Release Date: April 2013 (Alpha 1).
Context: It is an end-of-life (EOL) product from vBulletin, often considered a legacy version compared to 4.x, 5.x, or current alternatives.

As of 2026, it is highly likely that any remaining 3.8.8 sites are running on severely outdated technology.

be a shame if someone used AI to pwn the site

Site is so old that AI actually dumps the tech stack onto gitlab, remakes it into a functioning version and then it gets instant 504 gateways.