Random Packet Loss

[aroo]

Hi, I've recently bought a ethernet cable to connect my computer to my router. It was working fine for a couple of weeks and recently every ~20 minutes my packet loss will randomly jump to 5-10%. It is quite annoying when playing games knowing that im going to disconnect at a random time.

I have a Linksys EA6100 Smart Wifi Router.

Any help or tips on what I should do?

If you need more information just ask and I'll happily give it out.

 

[Dogsnake]

Packet loss is outside your control. It occurs along the route that your ISP hands your connection off to. Your connection to a game server goes through many servers between your ISP (local) and the final destination. In short there is nothing you can do about it. If you run a Trace Route you will see where it occurs but still won't be able to change it.

 

[aroo]

So I can't do anything about it? I dont really understand how that is possible.

 

[Dogsnake]

I will try to explain. You connect through the internet to reach the game server you want to play on. For example you live in New York and the game server is located in Seattle. Now you do not make a straight through connection along wires or anything to that server. The way the internet works is that you request a connection to the game server when you log in. That request goes to your ISP server(s). Then using standard protocols that manage traffic across the entire internet, a request for the "best" routing to the game server determines how your connection shall be made. So from NY it may go first to Atlanta, then to Chicago, Houston, San Francisco, on and on till it reaches the servers in Seattle. The rout is established not by what is closest but by what the protocols determine will be the fastest base of internet traffic and other factors. Each hand off is called a "hop" and you could have 30-50-? hops. No telling unless you do a rout trace to see. Each of these servers that your request passes through can and do experience issues. Each server and the network of wires and switches are a possible site of packet loss. Once your connection is established it remains pretty much static for your playing secession. For you to play the connection is bi-directional. You press W that data goes out; the game server gets it and sends back the results showing on the screen that you moved forward and all the changes that caused. It is very data bit intensive. Now as you play over time the conditions at each of those servers change. Their traffic loads vary and a number of conditions are in constant change. So where you start out and all is well, maybe an hour in things get laggy because a server in the rout is no longer operating optimally. There are also protocols that manage the timing of how packets are assemble and the timing of when they are sent back and forth. If for some reason there is delay in your connection and the packets do not arrive in a given time the server may drop them thinking they are incomplete or corrupt. It waits for them to be re-sent as there are confirmation protocols in place that notify the servers when data is received and sent out. They are like receipts for a package delivery, sort of. Since the packet loss occurs in most cases "down the line" from your system there is nothing you can do about it. You might try to Google "How the internet works" and read a basic article to get a better idea of how it is all strung together.

 

[bill001g]

With that router you obviously have some form of modem in between. Try plugging your PC directly into the modem. It will likely make no difference but it prove your router is not the cause of the issue.

After this you need to verify you do not have any issues with the cabling in the patch between the modem and where the wires enter the house.

Pretty much past this point you will need to call your ISP to have them test that the connection between your house and the ISP has no errors.

If the errors are not in your equipment in your house or in the wires to the ISP it is going to be very hard to get errors like that fixed. Luckily the most common cause is the wires that come to your house causing these issues.

 

[Mechonis]

If this thread is still relevant, I may be able to help you find the source of the issue. If you have a Windows PC, open up a command prompt (Search: cmd) and type the command "tracert -d www.google.com" and the hit enter. This will give you a list of every IP your connection bounces through to get to a connection. In this instance, it will be checking every IP your connection passes through to get to www.google.com. You can change the destination by changing "www.google.com" to almost any website or IP address (some sights wont work, though).

Once you find out the path your connection takes, open a new command prompt window for every connection in the path (I'd skip any that the tracert -d command prompt timed out on). In each of these command windows, enter the command "ping -t" and then space and enter a different IP address from the route that tracert -d revealed (hit enter once done).

Line up your ping command windows in the order that tracert -d shows them in. The ping -t command will continually ping the IP you enter and reveal when there an issue by saying "Request timed out." When multiple IPs timeout simultaneously, then that means that there is an issue with the machine that has the closest IP (farthest up on tracert -d) to you.

If you are using a connection with 1 router and a modem, then the 1st IP will be your router and the second will be your modem (your modem will be your 1st IP if you are connected directly to the modem). If the issue is due to these components, you may be able to solve the problem yourself. If the issue is in the IP after your modem, then the line is probably to blame. Anything after the modem will most likely have to be taken care of by your ISP. If you can only use modems provided by the ISP, then it is likely you will have to deal with the ISP to resolve the issue as well.