Sudden high ping spikes on wired connection

[themarn23]

Hey all, to give some context: I've moved into my new (student) home last June, sharing my the building with 8 other people. Now before the summer break and shortly after I've gamed and had no issue whatsoever. I play a lot of Overwatch and Battlefield and used to have no problem. Now I suddenly get (since about 1.5 month already I think) a lot of high ping spikes. Games become unplayable for me. With battlefield games I just get kicked out for high ping, which is even more frustrating as I played the BFV Beta with no problems and now when the game comes out I will probably even not be able to play it.

Just some more information about this complex. Everyone gets their own ethernet connection in their room te set up their own wi-fi or whatever they want. I have my own router plugged from my ethernet port in which then connects to my pc.

I've tried unplugging the router etc. the usual stuff. I've tried plugging the ethernet cable from my port directly into my pc, (so with no router interference), reset the modem downstairs (where the internet connection from the ISP comes in), and resetting the divider which divides this connection to all the rooms. The problem still persists. It's super frustrating as this takes all the fun away from my moments of relaxation, but as other things such as surfing, and youtube etc. are not affected by this much my roommates don't notice it as I've asked them and I don't really notice these problems in everyday browsing aswell.

I did a traceroute test, which looks like this:

I've then subsequently pinged the first and second hop, and the ip 8.8.8.8 below:
First hop:

Second hop:

Ping of 8.8.8.8

I've looked at a lot of Fora searching for an answer, and my landlord isn't really helpful either. I've read that this problem at the second hop might be something with the ISP is it not? Might they be able to resolve the issue?

This has been a long description of a problem and I sincerely hope someone can help me out, it would mean the world to me. Thanks in advance and have a nice day!

 

[anotherdrew]

A lot of good information ... thank you.

The first hop (192.168.0.1) is your router and clearly there is no problem there.
The second hop (192.168.1.1) is your landlord's router (often a 2nd router is an ISP router, but not in this situation) where 1 ping in 20 (5% of the time) is delayed (lag). This is not shocking with 8 of you sharing the connection. Your landlord likely has a basic router with no QoS implemented and as a result a single person in the house can swamp the connection and create lag for everyone else.

Can you do anything .. no.
Can your landlord do anything ... yes. A decent router with a decent QoS implementation could help ... but even then there will be times with lag.
Will your landlord help ... ???

 

[themarn23]

A lot of good information ... thank you.

The first hop (192.168.0.1) is your router and clearly there is no problem there.
The second hop (192.168.1.1) is your landlord's router (often a 2nd router is an ISP router, but not in this situation) where 1 ping in 20 (5% of the time) is delayed (lag). This is not shocking with 8 of you sharing the connection. Your landlord likely has a basic router with no QoS implemented and as a result a single person in the house can swamp the connection and create lag for everyone else.

Can you do anything .. no.
Can your landlord do anything ... yes. A decent router with a decent QoS implementation could help ... but even then there will be times with lag.
Will your landlord help ... ???

I see. So basically there's nothing I can do. But the thing thats bugging me is the fact that it used to work perfectly, but the last couple of weeks this is occuring. I have contacted my landlord but he does not seem very convincing in wanting to help me.

 

[bill001g]

It is very strange to see spikes to a lan ip on a router. This is basically a switch hooked to the router port. The traffic does not actually go to the internet. If the landlord has a low end router it might be overloading the CPU and it be too busy to respond. Still it takes a lot of traffic to do that.

If you had not said you were running wired I would blame this on a wifi connections since what you post is very common for people using wifi.

Pretty much the reason nobody else is seeing a problem is they are not running games. Almost every other application can tolerate small delays because they use buffers to hide it.

I would try running late at night when everyone else is sleeping and see if the problem is better which would indicate a utilization problem. It could also be another device interfering in some way...like a duplicate ip or something. Those type of errors are extremely hard to find even when you have full control over all the devices in the house.

 

[themarn23]

It is very strange to see spikes to a lan ip on a router. This is basically a switch hooked to the router port. The traffic does not actually go to the internet. If the landlord has a low end router it might be overloading the CPU and it be too busy to respond. Still it takes a lot of traffic to do that.

If you had not said you were running wired I would blame this on a wifi connections since what you post is very common for people using wifi.

Pretty much the reason nobody else is seeing a problem is they are not running games. Almost every other application can tolerate small delays because they use buffers to hide it.

I would try running late at night when everyone else is sleeping and see if the problem is better which would indicate a utilization problem. It could also be another device interfering in some way...like a duplicate ip or something. Those type of errors are extremely hard to find even when you have full control over all the devices in the house.

Thank you for your response. The thing that puzzles me the most is that this happened recently and before it was running fine. I briefly got in contact with my landlord and I looked into the "Divider" which is just an unmanaged switch. He said that he would test the connection himself and maybe consider placing a managed switch, which will more equally divide the bandwith etc. but I am not really sure if it will solve the problem will it?

Sometimes at random moments (even on peak hours in the evening) or in the afternoon these ping spikes don't happen for a short time span ( say 30 mins or so ) and then they reoccur. I have not extensively tested whether they occur at night, though I have tried it once for a very short period of time and they seemed not to happen, but I don't know for sure. I will have to try that more often to see if that works.

I guess it's just a problem with how many, and how people in the house are using the network. But as said before I don't see why it would work fine before and suddenly stop working correctly.

 

[bill001g]

It would be very rare to find a switch that can divide bandwidth that is more a function of a router. Most switches can pass 1gbit of traffic both up and down on every port at the same time. It is unlikely the switch is the problem.

If you are overloading the internet connection then that you might be able to fix. It tends to take investigation into what the real problem is to get a good QoS setting on the router. Most router do not have good QoS and it is not trivial to get something that works without putting unrealistic restrictions on people. It is easy when you can say my traffic is more important than everyone else but unless you own and pay for the connection everyone thinks their traffic is most important.

Unfortunately you need a device that can look at all the traffic and see what is causing the load. Normally you would put a some form of pc in place of the router so you can get logs. They make firewalls that can do this but they are fairly costly. You not having full control of the network makes this very hard.

I am so glad I don't have to share internet with anyone

 

[themarn23]

It would be very rare to find a switch that can divide bandwidth that is more a function of a router. Most switches can pass 1gbit of traffic both up and down on every port at the same time. It is unlikely the switch is the problem.

If you are overloading the internet connection then that you might be able to fix. It tends to take investigation into what the real problem is to get a good QoS setting on the router. Most router do not have good QoS and it is not trivial to get something that works without putting unrealistic restrictions on people. It is easy when you can say my traffic is more important than everyone else but unless you own and pay for the connection everyone thinks their traffic is most important.

Unfortunately you need a device that can look at all the traffic and see what is causing the load. Normally you would put a some form of pc in place of the router so you can get logs. They make firewalls that can do this but they are fairly costly. You not having full control of the network makes this very hard.

I am so glad I don't have to share internet with anyone

I see. Maybe the landlord will try getting this managed switch and it will all be solved. But reading what you just said does not give me a lot of hope. The landlord does not seem like someone that will extensively look into the problem.

I guess I might just have to live with it. A lot of thanks for your replies though. If I get any more information I'll post it here.