I am wondering what would be the optimal situation for DNN to run fast like most well built websites do. 

Should the SQL server be on its own machine?  Does it perform better on IIS 7 or does it matter... What is it going to take to make this web application run like a lamp site.

I have SQL Express 2005, IIS 6 and DNN running on the same machine with a few other websites.  It seems very unresponsive.  I seen a post where one asked if a page could be loaded first then load the modules so that the user does not stair at a blank screen.  This would help.... but I see sites with a lot of content like YouTube and Hulu load faster than a basic DNN site that says "Hello World" with one HTML module...

Please let me know what can be done for a perfect DNN 'environment.

Web caching helps I put it on heavy but i get a lot of glitches when modifying portals.  I turned caching off to help it work better, however performance is hard to wait for the site to show up, or change pages most all the time.

Thank you.

Thanks a lot for the assistance.  I suppose I need a windows 7 machine up.  I will see what I can do with the database.  It would be nice if there was a few utilities in the admin feature that where good at helping maintain the database with a few clicks.  Maybe there is and I have not found it yet...

I have a 2GB WIndows 2003 server that I run a number of sites on.  I am starting to think with the email issues I am having with trying to run websites as portals off one main portal I may have to break each site down into its own dotnetnuke installation.  Each portal should have its own SMTP settings, I have admins getting emails from other portals from my main portal that are not suppose to be viewed by them.

This is somewhat a security risk to me and I think I will post on it later.

Thanks again for your support I will see if I can speed things up.  I turned caching off since content wasnt updating well in forums and such.  Ever since 5.4.1 was release and I updated to this newer version I have had dissappearing headers.  Almost like something isnt right in the database.

Is there a database repair utilility where for stock DNN installations it will go through and validate all the sql provider functions and tables to ensure they are all properly functioning?

that's bogus advice about throwing hardware and software upgrades at the problem. every dnn site i visit - including this one - has painfully slow response time. i waited at least 30-45 seconds for the login screen to load on dnn. that never happens on other sites where i login. 

i am sure that the vendors of dnn are using maximum hardware for this site yet it is still very slow. moving from page to page can be take many seconds. i never ever experience this problem on normal sites.

i know the moderator thinks i am here to bash the product as he has deleted a number of my posts but there are inumerable postings on this topic - most of which have not yielded much satisfaction.

clicking return after a module has installed takes me about 30 seconds. to do what?