Initial Page Load in Magento is Incredibly Slow

Question

I am running Magento CE 1.7 on a WAMP server and the initial page load time is ridiculously slow. I am running Apache 2.2.22 32 bit with PHP 5.3.13. The site is hosted on a box with a 4GB of RAM and a quad core 2.0ghz processor. We are running a T-1 connection to the box.

I have tried configuring the Magento cache, tweaking SQL my.cnf, have APC installed for PHP. I have even tried compiling the entire magento site and using flat catalog categories and products, but even when I try to load with those settings they make seemingly no difference at all.

It seems like every tweak I have tried to apply to the server does not improve load time at all. I used Chrome developer tools and it looks like the initial load time for the first page is what is taking forever (tried to attach a screenshot but it won't let me - load time is around 15 sec). Now I am beginning to wonder if it is a configuration problem with Apache or something. Any ideas at all?!

If you would like to see the live site it is currently at www.nitronewt.com

Thanks

Answer 1

You need to set your cache method to apc after installing apc for php.

To do it, open file MAGENTO_DIRECTORY/app/etc/local.xml

Add following tags in <global></global>

<cache>
<backend>apc</backend>
<prefix>YOURPREFIX_</prefix>
</cache>

Also confirm that all cache types are enabled in Magento admin System > Cache Management.

After editing local.xml, refresh all cache types.

Answer 2

If your home page consists of lot of images.

1)Check the image files size.Try to keep image files size minimum.
2)Use png images.
3)You can also try to compress the css files.
4)Try disabling log.
System > Configuration > Advanced > Developer > Log Settings > Enabled: No 
5) Try reindexing. 

Then check whether this works for you or not?