Is my computer too slow?

Question

Hey all
I'm running Windows XP (sp2) on a intel celeron 1.2 ghz with 256 mb ram Dell stationary computer. I have set up a JSP/MySQL connection at work on a fast computer and know my way around stuff, but at home I when I use my Dell computer I constantly get this error report when I try to read from a single SQL table:
javax.servlet.ServletException: Communications link failure due to underlying exception:
** BEGIN NESTED EXCEPTION **
java.io.EOFException
STACKTRACE:
java.io.EOFException
     at com.mysql.jdbc.MysqlIO.readFully(MysqlIO.java:1903)
     at com.mysql.jdbc.MysqlIO.readPacket(MysqlIO.java:483)
     at com.mysql.jdbc.MysqlIO.doHandshake(MysqlIO.java:965)...
Last packet sent to the server was 63 ms ago.
     org.apache.jasper.runtime.PageContextImpl.doHandlePageException(PageContextImpl.java:848)
     org.apache.jasper.runtime.PageContextImpl.handlePageException(PageContextImpl.java:781)
com.mysql.jdbc.CommunicationsException: Communications link failure due to underlying exception:
** BEGIN NESTED EXCEPTION **
java.io.EOFException
STACKTRACE:
java.io.EOFException
     at com.mysql.jdbc.MysqlIO.readFully(MysqlIO.java:1903)
     at com.mysql.jdbc.MysqlIO.readPacket(MysqlIO.java:483)
I've tried changing to different Connector/J versions but without avail, should I consider getting a faster computer to get it to work or do you think that it only is a software issue? I'm not running any other programs than Firefox and Tomcat along with JRE 1.5.0 when I try to connect to the database. As I earlier mentioned I've got this exact code along working fine at work, that's why I figure that it might be that my computer isn't up to par.
Here's an excerpt from my get.jsp file that tries to read from the SQL database:
</p>
          <%      String moviename;
               Class.forName("org.gjt.mm.mysql.Driver").newInstance();
               Connection visaConn = DriverManager.getConnection("jdbc:mysql://localhost:8080/test", "root", "*");
               Statement visaStmt = visaConn.createStatement();
               String visaQr = "SELECT * FROM movies";
               ResultSet rslt = visaStmt.executeQuery(visaQr);
               while(rslt.next())
                    moviename = rslt.getString("*");
                    out.println("Personnummer: <b>" + moviename + "</b><br/>");
               rslt.close();
               visaStmt.close();
               visaConn.close(); %>

Answer 1

What makes you think it's a hardware problem?
This is not the code that's "working" somewhere else.
I'll also question your statement "know my way around stuff". It's not apparent from your code.
Look at the URL you use to connect to MySQL. Your host is "localhost" and your port is - 8080? That's the port that Tomcat listens on, not MySQL. The default MySQL port is 3306.
In general, I object to putting scriptlet code in JSPs. If you must do database calls, I'd recommend learning JSTL. Better yet, move that code into an object that you can test without requiring a container. Have it working 100% and then get your JSP to call it.
What if your result set or statement throw an exception when you close them? Your connection will never be closed, and your application will eventually exhaust the available connections.
No connection pool? Your app won't scale very well.
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