Question Bad ping/latency, but only at night ?

[CaseySnow]

So I have basically been having this issue for around 6 months, every night between 4-7 to probably around 3am-5am, I will have 3-5x more ping to every game, and every server, when running a speedtest, it is at the same speed of 900MBPS as during the day when it is not having this issue, I have had multiple technicians who just checked the modem and said everything looks fine. The ping to the isp server down the road will be about 5ms, however during the night when I have this issue, it will be about 80-90ms, I have tested both different devices and different houses, and the problem persisted across the board, I know it is not a traffic issue, as even the techs said the traffic isn't high in my area, but since the download speed is fine, the isp considers it good, even though they advertise better ping 24/7 on their website. How can I determine what this is, and how to fix it? I am convinced it's a routing issue with the isp, since the single hop to their server during this can hit 100ms, it affects every game and most games even kick me for bad networking, so I feel like it's an issue since they won't look into it further, yet advertise it doesn't do this online

 

[Aeacus]

Most ISPs do their server maintenance during night, since at that time, there's least amount of traffic. So, most likely your ISP doesn't want to disclose to you, that they do the maintenance at night, while limiting the ping. Then again, they are not obligated to tell you that, as long as you still have live connection (albeit a slower one). Now, if the net connection would drop completely, then letting their customers know, would be good sportsmanship.

My ISP lets me know a week in advance, when their night time maintenance is going to drop my net connection. And they always include timeframe of the planned works (usually 1AM to 6AM).

 

[CaseySnow]

Most ISPs do their server maintenance during night, since at that time, there's least amount of traffic. So, most likely your ISP doesn't want to disclose to you, that they do the maintenance at night, while limiting the ping. Then again, they are not obligated to tell you that, as long as you still have live connection (albeit a slower one). Now, if the net connection would drop completely, then letting their customers know, would be good sportsmanship.

My ISP lets me know a week in advance, when their night time maintenance is going to drop my net connection. And they always include timeframe of the planned works (usually 1AM to 6AM).

Thats what I thought as well, but they even brought up the fact that this isn't the case, as they will send you the days when they do and times if you request, they don't do it too much as Alaskan ISPs are alot smaller with alot less to manage compared to bigger ones in the states

 

[bill001g]

This is kinda the reverse of what we see. Normally you see time of day issues when everyone gets home from work, pre work from home, and all start watching say netflix. By early morning everyone has gone to bed and it can run better.

So when you say you ping the ISP server do you mean you did a tracert and ping likely hop 2. If not can you explain what you mean. What type of connection do you have to your ISP. Is it some kind of radio connection or is it a wire/fiber of some kind.

There is only 1 path most times between your house and the ISP first router. It generally can't be a "routing" issue because there is only a single path to choose. If this was farther into a network you can sometime see it take a different path because there are redundant connections to various ISP and it may have changed. It generally does not happen on some fixed schedule it is more of a failure backup thing. BUT you can do nothing about the actual route you data takes. Your only option is to send and receive data over the link coming to your house you have no control over what happens past that point. If you were to have some sites that work ok and other do not that "maybe" you can use some other solutions.

Latency ie ping time, generally is either a distance things or data is being held in buffers because of overload. In some ways it is strange that you get good speedtest numbers you would think a load condition would drop your speed a bit. Even if your connection was on some backup fiber it would have to be going almost to the other side of the world to add 100ms.

Not sure what to suggest. You have already tried a different pc which should eliminate software on the pc. Trying it in a different house is a step above trying a different router or plugging directly into a modem which is my second common recommendation.

All I can think of is some business is running a backup during that time that is somehow overloading the ISP network.