[SOLVED] Small Packet Loss/Ping Spikes

[shiroBlank]

tl;dr is at the bottom
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For awhile now I've been experiencing very small spikes in pretty much all games I play. I'm using a wired
connection to my PC. As for what kind of internet I have, it is Gigablast from Cox. I've attempted to use
their support multiple times, but on there end it seems like there are no issues so I'm kind of at a lost.
I recently got a new router too, going from a Netgear Nighthawk to Cox's Panoramic Gateway.

Valorant, CSGO, and Rocket League are the ones I have the biggest problems with. I've updated
all of my drivers (network, graphics, and chipset), bios, and windows hoping for some sort of fix
but to no avail. Resetting my modem/router does nothing, its on the latest firmware, and I've tried
multiple channels for my Wi-Fi (I know it doesn't really change my wired connection's perfomance
but im desperate)

If you're experienced with Valorant, I use both the text and graphics display for system performance.
I can see very miniscule packet loss spikes that go all the way up to 100%, but it only lasts for fractions of
a second. In CSGO and Rocket League, their network performance displays do not detect any problems. CSGO
claims that my performance is fine, with consistent +300 fps, pretty stable ping, and 0% loss in netgraph_1 , but
while playing I can see pretty big stutters every couple minutes. I use Command Prompt on the side, and consistently
ping 8.8.8.8 (as recommended on the searches I did), I can see spikes that go upwards from 100ms, where as it
usually sits roughly around 20ms. Very occasionally the requests even time out.

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TL;DR - I get many small spikes in packet loss and ping on my wired connection. Updating windows, bios,
and all drivers didn't fix it. Got a new router 2 months ago but the problem still persists. Cox reports back
as there are no issues in my network.


If anyone has any idea as to what is happening or a potential fix, I'm all ears.

Here as some of results from a two hour ping test.

https://imgur.com/wf95sn2

View: https://imgur.com/wf95sn2

https://imgur.com/uKe4prI

View: https://imgur.com/uKe4prI

https://imgur.com/f5M3p9q

View: https://imgur.com/f5M3p9q

 

[shiroBlank]

Quick update, as I was looking at other threads for information that might be valuable.

No one else was on my network at the time of doing the tests.
A DNS flush/renew didn't fix anything

I was reading something about using the tracert command in Command Prompt, I did it but honestly didn't really
understand the results that I got back. I was also recommended to find my network traffic logs, but I have yet to find
where that is, Cox doesn't really make things easy with their routers.

 

[bill001g]

It is going to be extremely hard to find when you have such a tiny amount of packet loss. It really should have very little impact on your games.

Your average ping time is very close to the minimum which means the other than the couple of packets you completely lose the latency is ok.

What you want to do with tracert is test to various routers/hops in the trace. You have to be somewhat careful because some routers are configured to either ignore ping or give it low cpu priority to avoid denial of service attacks. So a random router in the path that is having issues generally is not a real problem.

In any case the first step is always leave a constant ping run to your router IP. You should get no loss and have extremely low ping times when you are using ethernet. If this is ok you work to hop 2 in the tracert which should be the first ISP router. It represent all the equipment between your house and the ISP. This is the most common point of problems and luckily the one you can get the ISP to fix. If both hop 1 and hop 2 are good you work your way out but the farther you get the less likely you will get it fixed. It could be in another ISP.

That said it is going to be extremely hard to troubleshoot this with the tiny amount of packet loss. It really should have minimal impact on your games. You can verify it is the packet loss by leaving a ping run in the background and when the game has issues see if the ping also.

 

[shiroBlank]

It is going to be extremely hard to find when you have such a tiny amount of packet loss. It really should have very little impact on your games.

Your average ping time is very close to the minimum which means the other than the couple of packets you completely lose the latency is ok.

What you want to do with tracert is test to various routers/hops in the trace. You have to be somewhat careful because some routers are configured to either ignore ping or give it low cpu priority to avoid denial of service attacks. So a random router in the path that is having issues generally is not a real problem.

In any case the first step is always leave a constant ping run to your router IP. You should get no loss and have extremely low ping times when you are using ethernet. If this is ok you work to hop 2 in the tracert which should be the first ISP router. It represent all the equipment between your house and the ISP. This is the most common point of problems and luckily the one you can get the ISP to fix. If both hop 1 and hop 2 are good you work your way out but the farther you get the less likely you will get it fixed. It could be in another ISP.

That said it is going to be extremely hard to troubleshoot this with the tiny amount of packet loss. It really should have minimal impact on your games. You can verify it is the packet loss by leaving a ping run in the background and when the game has issues see if the ping also.

It seemed like it was very tiny compared to the other threads I was seeing. I definitely feel it in the games I play though. Especially CS:GO, the most recent of the three that I've played, once every couple rounds, there would be a moments where I'm rubberbanding or lag past a corner im holding. Im grateful that the problem isn't as huge as some of the threads I've been reading, but its frustrating that I can't atleast get ahold of this issue. I don't think I can get a clip of it tonight, but at somepoint I'll try posting a gif to imgur of what the spikes feel like in game. I do notice that the pings spikes generally correspond with the ones I get in-game.

 

[shiroBlank]

It is going to be extremely hard to find when you have such a tiny amount of packet loss. It really should have very little impact on your games.

Your average ping time is very close to the minimum which means the other than the couple of packets you completely lose the latency is ok.

What you want to do with tracert is test to various routers/hops in the trace. You have to be somewhat careful because some routers are configured to either ignore ping or give it low cpu priority to avoid denial of service attacks. So a random router in the path that is having issues generally is not a real problem.

In any case the first step is always leave a constant ping run to your router IP. You should get no loss and have extremely low ping times when you are using ethernet. If this is ok you work to hop 2 in the tracert which should be the first ISP router. It represent all the equipment between your house and the ISP. This is the most common point of problems and luckily the one you can get the ISP to fix. If both hop 1 and hop 2 are good you work your way out but the farther you get the less likely you will get it fixed. It could be in another ISP.

That said it is going to be extremely hard to troubleshoot this with the tiny amount of packet loss. It really should have minimal impact on your games. You can verify it is the packet loss by leaving a ping run in the background and when the game has issues see if the ping also.

I was looking back at some of the clips I have, and found one of what one of the spikes felt like in game.

From a little over a week ago, excuse the quality, Imgur compressed it.

https://imgur.com/zdUMhw4

View: https://imgur.com/zdUMhw4

Thankfully it wasn't bad in this specific clip, but peeking corners with my packet loss randomly spiking is pretty annoying as it usually moves me past the corner. Thankfully Valorant has a graph so you can kind of see what is happening in regards to your Network Performance. I wish I could get you a more prevalent example of the spike but I don't record most of my games, usually only the fun ones I play with my friends.

 

[bill001g]

The problem with using a symptom in a game is it can be many things. I have a couple of games that are single player that do not really use network and i get massive lag spikes in them. Be nice if I could figure it out, it almost has to be one of the many video settings or maybe I need to try older video drivers but I can't blame a network issue even if I was seeing ping loss.

Your problem is to get a ISP to fix this you must somehow prove to them it is really their issue. They are going to claim it is your pc or the game because they can not detect the problems. Almost like you can barely detect the problems using network tools like ping. Not sure what to suggest.

It could also be that ping is not sending data fast enough and you are getting longer periods of time of outage than a single ping shows. Problem is you would need something like a server on the internet where you can control both ends to test stuff like this.

Still your best option is to try to locate where you are seeing the problem. You need to systematcilly test first by letting ping run to your router. At least if you see if here you are in full control. You then try the ISP first router and continue until you consisently can at least see some outages that correspond to your game outages. You may not be able to fix issues if they are in say the game companies ISP.

 

[SamirD]

I would see if you can connect your computer straight to a cable modem (either yours or theirs) and run your ping test there as well as run packetlosstest.com. If you've got loss or latency this way, then run packetlosstest.com under a linux live cd/usb. If you have loss and latency there, it's an isp issue, but unfortunately one that will be hard to get them to recognize and fix.

 

[RadixLecti]

Did you find any solutions yet? Ive got the same problem since Ive got a new PC. First I thought the LoL servers are the problem. I did some monitoring of my network to see if its my network of just LoL.

https://imgur.com/a/Prz2Hvv

View: https://imgur.com/a/Prz2Hvv
LoL is the orange line. the lags are marked with the arrows.

Its extremely inconsistent, sometimes I get 3 lags in 10 seconds, sometimes none for 10 minutes.