Back to the original question for a sec, I also find diynot's forum very slow indeed, and not just from here (8 meg, about 7600 actual) .
Heres another speedtest, personally I find these ones much better
http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest.html http://speedtester.bt.com/
If you consider your connection speed isnt up to it, after eliminating cheapo nasty modems and routers, try disconnecting, use the username speedtest@speedtest_domain rather than your own, (if using a router you will need to change this on the router), reconnect, then navigate to
http://217.32.105.42/ (which is the bt speed test above)
Now if you get a noticably better connection this time, then there is an issue with your ISP so you need to call them, depending on the ISP, you might or might nog get fobbed.
Of course remember that if you have any p2p software runnig, AV updates going, winows doanloading updates or whatever then that will affect your speed.
Edit, you wont be able to get normal pages if you connect using those details, remember to change them back !