I use Firefox 7 and if I go to the blog first, then try to come to the forums, Firefox will stop responding for a bit, and it takes some time for the forum page to come up then load. But this only happens if I stop by the blog first, then try to access the forums. It sounds like my hard drive is working pretty hard when I try to go from the blog to the forums, it could be because Firefox momentarily stops responding. This was also and issue with Firefox 6.

I too have had problems with the chatbox not refreshing. Sometimes I'll be waiting for a very long time for someone to respond, only to find out if I refresh the page, a whole conversation has gone by.