Weird Internet Issue

Hello fellas, my ISP is Comcast and I have their Performance Tier Cable Internet (12-15MBPS).

For the past 2 months, I have been getting lag spikes in my online games (League of Legends, etc.) The lag spikes last anywhere from a second to a minute or leads to a full disconnect.

Now, of course I called Comcast and they ran me through the typical power cycle routine and eventually sent a technician to my house and checked my lines and said nothing was wrong. Ok, now I know it's a problem with either my modem or router. I tried to narrow it down by directly connecting to my modem (Motorola Surfboard SB5101) and Speed Tests checked out ok, but my lag spikes were even WORSE. When I plugged it back into my router (Linksys WRT110N), the constant lag spikes when I was connected to my modem stopped, and now I am just getting the normal lag spikes.

Any ideas?

Is there any way I can test if the problem is my router or modem?

 

try these tools

Internet Connectivity evaluation tool by M$

Glasnot test

 

I hope you don't have any software set to auto-update.

 

Tried both tests, everything checked out ok.

Nope, I don't. Even than, when the problem occurs, it happens to ALL devices connected to the network.

Any ideas anyone?

 

its gotta be as you said one of the devices router, modem.

Anyone you know on the same ISP as you? maybe borrow the modem temporarily?

 

Post your Pingtest.net results here. The jitter and packets dropped might explain something.

Surfboards are really reliable, which leads me to believe its either your ISP or one of the other machines connected to the network is causing spikes. Try isolate the network as best you can.

 

I've never believed my modem to be the issue Flip but the fact that my lag spikes were occurring every 10 seconds while connected DIRECTLY to the modem is just odd. The fact that my connection is better when connected via wireless is an even bigger mystery.

I have ran tests on pingtest.net several times and have never had any packet loss, it's always been 0%.

 

Also, I don't know if this is helpful or not but...

I like to have LAN Parties with about 4-5 computers (League of Legends) and the lag is frequent, extremely slow internet speeds, usually resulting in a disconnect and only a power cycle will fix it until it happens again shortly after.

 

Have you tried different drop cables? Sometimes something as simple as a bad ethernet cable can drive you nuts.

 

latency issues (high ping times) are rarely a result of a router or modem unless it is malfunctioning.

What are you attempting to connect to (game server).

Download the trial version of visualroute

VisualRoute - Traceroute and Reverse trace - Traceroute and Network diagnostic tools

and run a trace to the game server and you will see where the latency is occurring--almost certainly many hops away from you

Unfortunately, there is nothing you can do about it, short of changing game servers.

 

I ran a trace to Leagueoflegends.com via Visualroute as you suggested.

Result:

The server is in Culver City (Southern California); I live in Northern California, so it can't be anymore than 500-800 miles away from me, not that far at all.

Analysis:In general this route offers a good throughput, with hops responding on average within 26ms.

 

Distance has nothing to do with it. You can get to any server in the world in 18 hops. It is also worth noting that the Leagueoflegends website may not host the game server.

A copy of the actual trace report might prove useful. Also, consider doing multiple runs since the spikes are not consistent

I just did a test from San Jose to the same website and the latency was HORRIBLE with a high of 1754 ms at one point in the route. The one point on the route was so bad it gave an average latency of 214 ms, even though most of the route showed low latency of 50ms and lower.

My guess is that a router somewhere along the way between you and the game server is failing or heavily congested.

Either way, there is not anything you can do other than change game servers (or internet providers, as that might result in a different route.

Even your situation may clear itself up eventually, as the other routers will try to reroute traffic around the bad spot.

 

If you're certain it's the equipment why not swap it?

Comcast will allow you to bring the modem into a local center and swap it for another one. You can also call their customer service line and they can mail you a replacement router (if you got the router from them) at no charge.

So replace the equipment and see if the problem goes away.

Otherwise... It could be time of day. I know Comcast has a "fair use" policy in place that monitors their network and if any one user is using too much bandwidth where it is causing a bottleneck in their systems they will throttle back the bandwidth for that user so that all users on the network get fair access to the resources. This mostly happens at times when there's high usage (ie early morning, lunch time, after dinner, etc).

But... I suspect it has nothing to do with Comcast itself but rather just the nature of the internet. As others have mentioned you have to go through hops to get to the game server. If either of these hops or the game server is busy then you will have lag. Sorry, that's the internet.

Take care,
Shannon

 

Exactly!

Shannon

 

I am convinced it is either my modem/router.

When I connect 4 computers to the network, the entire network just disconnects and speeds are SLOW, snail snow if that.

 

Check the router and modem stats for excessive dropped packets. Its usually a sign of impending hardware failure.

 

How would I test for the two individually? I believe I have checked for packet loss on the router via pingtest.net already? (0%)

-----------------------

Never mind, I ran pingtests to both my router/modem via the Command Prompt (ping 192.168.1. and 192.168.100.1 (modem)) and everything resulted in 0% packet loss.

 

Log into the modem stats page, that might show different.

 

I logged onto the Motorola Surfboard page and it doesn't show me packet loss. It shows me things such as Power Level, Upstream, etc. but no packet loss =/

Frequency 537000000 Hz
Signal to Noise Ratio 36 dB
QAM QAM256
Network Access Control Object ON
Power Level 1 dBmV

Upstream Value
Channel ID 7
Frequency 30600000 Hz
Ranging Service ID 9035
Symbol Rate 5.120 Msym/s
Power Level 46 dBmV