Question Internet issues, lag spikes ?

[Loladin]

I've been having lag spikes (400-600ms for about 4-5 seconds sometimes every minute, sometimes every 2 minutes) for a month now, im using ethernet, tried factory resetting the router, called ISP (tehnicians checked network remotely, came to my house to take a look at everything, said everything looks fine) dunno what to do really anymore and what is causing this. This is making online gaming pretty miserable and not enjoyable.

Router restart sometimes works but after 15-20 minutes the problem returns.

I used ping plotter to get results and would be glad if somone who understands it could explain maybe what exactly is causing the problem.

https://ibb.co/rG3Cf07 - Yesterday evening during gaming

https://ibb.co/9t7chNd - I let the ping plotter run overnight and semms overnight it got worse

https://ibb.co/3R0fgp9 - This is after i restarted my router, seems to have fixed the issue but its showing 70% packet loss on 1st hop.

Some answers would be helpful.

 

[Lutfij]

Welcome to the forums, newcomer!

tried factory resetting the router
Make and model of your wireless router? If this is a device that's off the shelf(not bespoke to your ISP) then you might want to see if it's got any firmware updates pending.

You speak of hooking up through Ethernet, are you working off of a laptop or a desktop? If a desktop, please mention the make and model of your motherboard and BIOS version. If a laptop, please state the make and model of the laptop and it's BIOS version at this moment of time.

 

[Loladin]

Welcome to the forums, newcomer!

tried factory resetting the router
Make and model of your wireless router? If this is a device that's off the shelf(not bespoke to your ISP) then you might want to see if it's got any firmware updates pending.

You speak of hooking up through Ethernet, are you working off of a laptop or a desktop? If a desktop, please mention the make and model of your motherboard and BIOS version. If a laptop, please state the make and model of the laptop and it's BIOS version at this moment of time.

https://ibb.co/dBDZsfG - The router is provided by the ISP (Arcadyan VRV9518BA-2C)

Im using laptop (Acer aspire 7 - A715-72G-59V9)
BIOS Version/date - Insyde Corp. V1.24, 05/12/2018

 

[bill001g]

The 70% loss to your router is a false test result.

The much more important one was the one you see before where you see the about 1% loss starting at your router and then continuing all the way to the end. That represents a real issue. If you lose 70% in the first hop then that would mean you lose 70% of the traffic to the end server. Since the test shows no loss to the final server it can't be real loss.

The test that shows the really high latency starting in hop 2 is also very concerning.

Since reseting the router fixed it I would be suspect of the router. In your case since it is a DSL connection it could also be that.

It tends to not be the router itself. In theory they could have a bug in the firmware but most times you only see that on very new routers. You could check for firmware but I doubt there is anything.

I would check with your ISP and see if they see any errors on the line.

 

[Loladin]

The 70% loss to your router is a false test result.

The much more important one was the one you see before where you see the about 1% loss starting at your router and then continuing all the way to the end. That represents a real issue. If you lose 70% in the first hop then that would mean you lose 70% of the traffic to the end server. Since the test shows no loss to the final server it can't be real loss.

The test that shows the really high latency starting in hop 2 is also very concerning.

Since reseting the router fixed it I would be suspect of the router. In your case since it is a DSL connection it could also be that.

It tends to not be the router itself. In theory they could have a bug in the firmware but most times you only see that on very new routers. You could check for firmware but I doubt there is anything.

I would check with your ISP and see if they see any errors on the line.

So i tried tracing with pingplotter to my router and this is the result i got.

Link: https://ibb.co/f9PYJwM

What does this mean ? I just want to know if the issues are from the ISP's side, or some faults in wiring or router.

 

[bill001g]

Running pingplotter to your router IP is kinda silly, a simple ping command will test the same thing.

It is kinda rare to get packet loss in your house. You have to be somewhat careful to be sure it is not testing error. Many times routers are designed to only respond to ping requests at certain rates to avoid too much cpu load on the router doing testing rather than actually passing traffic.

In general you only have 3 things. It could be something wrong with the pc, it could be something wrong with the router, or the most common it could be a bad ethernet cable. Bad ethernet cables are still pretty rare but it has become more common with all the fake ethernet cables sold. Those flat cables do not meet the standards for ethernet because the wires are too small.

You could try a different ethernet cable would be the simplest first thing to try.

If you have another device see if you get ping loss to the router on that device. You could also ping between the 2 devices to see if that also show loss. If you see errors between the devices it makes it less likely it is the router.

It is unfortunate that you are using a DSL connection. It is a good test when you can remove the router and connect directly to a modem. Cable and fiber modems are very simple devices compared to DSL. Note I assume you have dsl based on the router you linked if you have a separate modem try to plug your pc directly into the modem.

 

[Loladin]

Running pingplotter to your router IP is kinda silly, a simple ping command will test the same thing.

It is kinda rare to get packet loss in your house. You have to be somewhat careful to be sure it is not testing error. Many times routers are designed to only respond to ping requests at certain rates to avoid too much cpu load on the router doing testing rather than actually passing traffic.

In general you only have 3 things. It could be something wrong with the pc, it could be something wrong with the router, or the most common it could be a bad ethernet cable. Bad ethernet cables are still pretty rare but it has become more common with all the fake ethernet cables sold. Those flat cables do not meet the standards for ethernet because the wires are too small.

You could try a different ethernet cable would be the simplest first thing to try.

If you have another device see if you get ping loss to the router on that device. You could also ping between the 2 devices to see if that also show loss. If you see errors between the devices it makes it less likely it is the router.

It is unfortunate that you are using a DSL connection. It is a good test when you can remove the router and connect directly to a modem. Cable and fiber modems are very simple devices compared to DSL. Note I assume you have dsl based on the router you linked if you have a separate modem try to plug your pc directly into the modem.

I tested my internet for "Bufferbloat" and it came positive that its bufferbloating. What would be causing the bufferbloating? Is it faulty router or bad ethernet cable or maybe even network wiring?

Bufferbloating results link: http://www.dslreports.com/speedtest/72317104

 

[bill001g]

You would think after all this time dslreports would actually explain what their tools do. I suspect they somehow get more money being deceptive.

Bufferbloat is not actually a problem. It is a good thing that was intentionally added to routers. It is used to increase stability of network connections and keep transfer speed more consistent.
The only people that don't like bufferbloat are gamers and is why manufacture continue to use buffers in their hardware since gamers are only a small percentage of most use.

Key here bufferbloat even for gamers is not the actual problem. Bufferbloat only happens when data is being held in buffers rather than being discarded. Data is only held in buffers when you are attempting to use more than 100% of your bandwidth.

This is why dslreports is being deceptive. They fail to clearly state if you are not using 100% of your internet you can not get bufferbloat. The test program they have actually keeps increasing transfer speed until you get to 100% and it will cause bufferbloat on even 5gbit connections.

Rather than deal with the real problem which is why are you using 100% of your internet connection they talk about using qos software to "solve" this issue.

Now back in the days when a 10mbps dsl internet connection was common you could easily overload the connection. Now days people have 100mbps so unless you are doing something strange.

If you feel you are actually overloading your internet connection and that is what is causing your issue then you need to consider how you can avoid overloading what you pay for or if possible upgrade the bandwidth you pay for. The bufferbloat "solution" are not a actual fix for the real problem. They actually reduce the total bandwidth. It might fix the performance for a game but in exchange the person who was watching 4k netflix can no longer watch because the total bandwidth was reduce by 10-20% and the game gets priority over what is left.

You need a special router anyway so you are much better off finding other solutions if you are overloading a internet connection.

 

[bill001g]

...............a added comment you are seeing issues between your pc and the router. Bufferbloat is on the internet connection itself.

 

[Loladin]

...............a added comment you are seeing issues between your pc and the router. Bufferbloat is on the internet connection itself.

About 3 months ago we did have lightning strike near our home and it fried the router, the ISP replaced the router but no one checked the network wiring, could it be that all of this is being caused maybe by network wiring being affected by the lightning?

 

[bill001g]

The wires coming to your house are huge percentage of internet issues. Lightning causes all kinds of strange damage and it sometime can take a while to show up.

I guess it all depends on if the loss you see to your router ip in your house is real. It is rather uncommon to have issues with the ethernet cables and ports. If you saw this on wifi it is extremely common.

The ISP should actually be able to tell without coming out to your house. They should be able to see the signal levels of your connection and also see if there are errors. DSL devices are not as nice as say cable modems where you can see all this information yourself. Maybe if you get lucky there is some data. Most issues are outside your house so only the ISP can fix it.

You could look at any wires inside your house for obvious damage.

I guess what is confusing is your test results. Maybe try a simple ping command to the router IP instead. Maybe it is just pingplotter testing errors. If that is clean then your problem is very likely in the wiring coming to your house.

 

[Loladin]

I pinged to my router with the command prompt and i do get request timed out somtimes.

results : https://ibb.co/5snJk71

 

[bill001g]

Do you have any other device in your house you could test ping commands to.

The most common cause of packet loss is ethernet cables.

 

[Loladin]

Do you have any other device in your house you could test ping commands to.

The most common cause of packet loss is ethernet cables.

Yeh i pinged it from brother's PC that is conncted via WIFI , same result

 

[bill001g]

If you saw loss when you ping your pc from another pc then it is likely your pc.

The most likely is still ethernet cable. You can eliminate the software as the cause by use a linux boot image. The ping command has a slightly different format but you can ping between your pc and the router to see if the problem persists.

If you replace the ethernet cable but you still have issue both on windows and on linux then you start to suspect a bad port in the pc. This is very rare but luckily pcie ethernet cards are cheap and if you really can't use a internal card USB ones will work also but should not be the first choice.

 

[Loladin]

If you saw loss when you ping your pc from another pc then it is likely your pc.

The most likely is still ethernet cable. You can eliminate the software as the cause by use a linux boot image. The ping command has a slightly different format but you can ping between your pc and the router to see if the problem persists.

If you replace the ethernet cable but you still have issue both on windows and on linux then you start to suspect a bad port in the pc. This is very rare but luckily pcie ethernet cards are cheap and if you really can't use a internal card USB ones will work also but should not be the first choice.

I meant i pinged the router from another PC, and it was the same as from my laptop (request denied sometimes)

 

[bill001g]

DSL routers tend to not have much in the way of firmware updates. You are quickly getting into the case that you are going to have blindly replace the router and hope it fixes the problem.

 

[Loladin]

If you saw loss when you ping your pc from another pc then it is likely your pc.

The most likely is still ethernet cable. You can eliminate the software as the cause by use a linux boot image. The ping command has a slightly different format but you can ping between your pc and the router to see if the problem persists.

If you replace the ethernet cable but you still have issue both on windows and on linux then you start to suspect a bad port in the pc. This is very rare but luckily pcie ethernet cards are cheap and if you really can't use a internal card USB ones will work also but should not be the first choice.

So if i did this correctly i pinged from my laptop to brother's computer (in cmd ping "ipv4 adress of brothers computer" -t) and vice versa and all im getting is request timed out. My laptop is connected via ethernet, brother's PC via WIFI.

EDIT: turned antivirus and firewall off on both laptop and pc and the pings went through without packet loss both ways. Im still only getting packet loss when im pinging my router (deffault gateway) both from pc and laptop.

Tried also pinging 208.67.222.222 (open DNS) and 8.8.8.8. (google DNS) 0 packet loss there.

 

[bill001g]

So now you have errors in the testing process covering the real problem.

If you can ping 8.8.8.8 with no loss then it doesn't matter if the router gets loss. It just means your router is designed to not have good performance with ping commands but it does have good performance passing ping traffic to other destinations.
Partially this is because the cpu chip itself in the router must respond to the ping. Normal traffic in most routers does not actually have to be processed by the cpu chip it stays in special asic based accelerators.

So you are now back to step 1 again.

You have to try to find where this problem is happening.