Reducing the Load

I have a forum which has around 100 members online and anywhere from 50-200 guests online at a time. These are my server aspects:

• Intel Celeron 1.7 GHz, 400 MHz FSB
• 512 MB ECC RAM
• 60 GB hard drive
• 500 GB Monthly Transfer


My question is this: Lots of times the site goes extremely slow (during peak hours) and is sometimes even inacessible. Is there any way to reduce CPU load without locking some members out and without upgrading to a better server? I recently got a RAM upgrade that will soon be installed (increased to 1.5 Gigs of RAM).

Also, load average: 51.94, 52.56, 43.94 is what I get when the site is running slow. This is when the CPU hovers around 80-99 and RAM is about 1/6 available. What does load depend on, and how do you reduce it?

Thanks for your ideas and help.

 

 

 

 

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