Annoying 5-15 sec total packet losses every other hour.

[Linghult]

So. I've been having this issue for almost a year now and trying to get it fixed by the help of my "looooovely" service provider (Bredbandsbolaget) here in sweden. I have a 100/10 connection atm and other than this its been working swell.

It seems im getting a packet loss every other hour at somewhat regular intervals. When i sent pictures looking alot like the one i will post here they ACTUALLY said that they couldnt find anything wrong with my broadband connection. I of course wrote them an angry email and sent them this picture to assure them they are wrong. Or are they? have i missed something? Maybe some of you guys have a better understanding of this stuff than the technicians at Bredbandsbolaget....cause i have 0 trust in them at this point. I have replaced the ethernet cable, modem and even the cable going to the modem from the phone socket in the wall.

Its worth noting that i've just recently upgraded my build to a z170 Pro gaming, i5 6600k, 8gb DDr4 RAM, Windows 10 and i'm not using any router. I figured maybe there was something wrong with my motherboard before, but the problem persists... so i guess not!

Anyway. I'll give you the picture here of the Pingplotter test period i did today:

 

[bill001g]

You are going to need to see what hop the loss really is at. You should be able to manipulate the graph from ping plotter to only show you data from the very narrow time where you see the loss. You can of course do it with a bunch of cmd windows run continuous pings all at the same time if you can not get the data from ping plotter

Your case is a little different since you do not have a router. Hop 1 loss normally means there is a issue in your house but in this case it could be a issue with your pc or it can be a issue with the connection to the ISP. If you had a router and hop 1 was good but hop 2 was bad it shows that your equipment is fine and it has to be the isp.

If you see the loss past hop 1 in your case it is well inside the ISP network so only they can fix that.

 

[Linghult]

Thanks for taking the time to answer!

This software seems quite limited in diagnostics. all i can do is double click on the lower part and the upper one changes thereafter... not sure what the upper graph exactly shows because when i focus on the lower ones vertical lines the ms seems to be 0. which i guess does indicate a total packet loss. But other than that i cant figure out how to narrow it down.

 

[Linghult]

Ah... might have found it. will give it a shot tomorrow!

 

[Linghult]

I've gotten their router set up for this session and this is what it looks like.
Seems no disturbance is on the 1st hop.

 

[bill001g]

The most common point of failure is the connection between your house and the ISP. What is strange though is problems with this are pretty much continuous or load related. They would not be time related unless you for example downloaded some big file at fixed times.

I would use the brute force method.

Open multiple cmd windows and run continuous ping to each hop. Really the important ones are say hop 1, hop 2 and then some other hop.

It is best if you can catch it doing the problem so you can compare the screens but you will still get total ping loss when you stop the ping commands in each window.

The goal is to find the hop that you see the loss start in. Loss in say hop 2 should cause loss in hop 3 and every hop past. You will see some random loss to any hop just because of the way ping is processed. If you actually have multi second outage you should loose 2 or 3 pings in a row.

 

[Linghult]

I cant seem to be able to answer to your replies directly....

Alright i'll wait for my provider to get back to me and if they dont get the drift i'll try what you told me here! Thanks a bunch. this is real nifty to have for Network troubleshooting in the future! Much appreciated 😀

 

[LadyD]

Hey @Linghult, I'm having a similar problem ever since my neighbourhood upgraded from copper lines to fibre optics, only mine is worse. We get a regular packet loss every 20-30 seconds. Tested on two PCs and the drop is simultaneous, regardless of which addresses we are pinging. Very noticeable in online gaming and Skype calls of course.

My loooooooovely service provider (Vodafone Egypt) and equally loooovely (ahem!) telecom company have said nothing is wrong from their ends. I've escalated my issue to try to get a durable solution. In the meantime my ISP was generous enough to provide me with a mifi. I recently discovered Speedify which is able to mitigate packet loss before it impacts your activities online. It is not perfect and I still get some lag spikes but my games and calls have become much much better because of it. You can try it out for free and they give you 1GB to use. It is an excellent temporary solution till your ISP and/or telecom get their act together.

Also, @bill001g, you seem really knowledgeable about this! Can you take a look at my problem here and tell me what you think? Check it out: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/answers/id-3036897/internet-dropping-seconds-ethernet-wired-wireless.html

Good luck Linghult, I know how frustrating it can be!

 

[Linghult]

@LadyD . yea... i'd imagine it has something to do with the house wiring as well. I'll def. try out that thing! Sounds like magic, but i'll give it a shot ;P

Thanks <3