You and i have the same issue, so do alot of my friends when viewing at work, i think you have to go to user cp first and then load the link.
Its like the popup is there letting you know there is a new message, but some systems block it or will not load it.
So i suggest you get rid of the pm pop up in user cp, you will automatically see the pm count when you log in right? Im just saying thats the first thing i see when i log in, check pms, if there is a number there i know to wait for the pop up after a few seconds instead of trying to keep going.
If you get turn off the pm notification then there will not be a pop up waiting to load after the banners and ads.
Sgrim, i noticed tonight that i loaded pages not logged in with 0 cookies, there was a AD a few posts, or the second post down that slowed me down too.
Just throwing that out there, some times its really fast, alot of times it is really slow. I dont think its my computer, ebay, craigslist, and all my other sites i go to do not take more than a second to load.
BW