Troubleshooting gaming lag spikes -- WinMTR results

[myheartisundead]

Hi folks. I have an ongoing saga with troubleshooting latency spikes for Heroes of the Storm. I was hoping I could get some expert eyes on my WinMTR results here:

https://imgur.com/a/yYQG0Rs

I'm not sure if I'm committing a serious faux pas by posting WinMTR results or not, but there they are.

After a long and exhaustive troubleshoot over the course of a few weeks (including but not limited to entirely replacing my modem, router and upgrading my internet package), I finally contacted a representative at Blizzard. They had a look at my WinMTR results and told me that the issue was with my ISP, not my home network or my computer (I guess because of everything I had tried before contacting them).

So, my question(s) to you clever-types is: What can I conclude from these WinMTR results, if anything? (so I know what I'm talking about when I contact Spectrum); and is the Blizzard representative correct in shifting the blame to my ISP?

To my layman's eyes, after watching WinMTR work ping by ping for a while, it will be normal at 40-50ms and then suddenly spike to 150-200ms across the board, pushing the average up. This is almost certainly the source of my in game lag spikes. Is this sort of thing fixable?

Thank you in advance! Sorry for the long post. For those interested, I have threads here: https://us.battle.net/forums/en/heroes/topic/20767437056 and here: https://www.reddit.com/r/techsupport/comments/966dqx/inconsistent_lag_spikes_during_gaming_sessions_on/ detailing my steps and my lag and so on. Fair warning, they're walls of text.

 

[bill001g]

They are correct the ping spikes are happening in the connection between your house and the ISP in hop 2.

You likely are better off running manual ping commands both to your router and to the ISP ip in hop 2. The first level support tech will have a better chance of understanding this that winmtr. It is pretty simple you show your router has no issue but the connection to your house does.

Now this may or may not be the ISP. You have to be very sure you have no other traffic using your internet connection. This is especially true if you have a smaller internet connection. I will also assume you are not using WiFi for this since what you show is extremely common on wifi but most times those spikes show on hop 1 in mtr

The ISP may not be able to fix this...or more they don't want to. A actual problem with the connection to your house most times show packet loss. Those problems tend to be easier for the ISP to fix since it generally is some cable problem or some equipment issues. Delays are many times cause by traffic congestion in the ISP network. It can be all your neighbors competing for the same bandwidth. Try testing say between 1am and 3am when most people are not using their home internet.

Maybe you get lucky and the ISP has some issue they can fix

 

[myheartisundead]

They are correct the ping spikes are happening in the connection between your house and the ISP in hop 2.

You likely are better off running manual ping commands both to your router and to the ISP ip in hop 2. The first level support tech will have a better chance of understanding this that winmtr. It is pretty simple you show your router has no issue but the connection to your house does.

Now this may or may not be the ISP. You have to be very sure you have no other traffic using your internet connection. This is especially true if you have a smaller internet connection. I will also assume you are not using WiFi for this since what you show is extremely common on wifi but most times those spikes show on hop 1 in mtr

The ISP may not be able to fix this...or more they don't want to. A actual problem with the connection to your house most times show packet loss. Those problems tend to be easier for the ISP to fix since it generally is some cable problem or some equipment issues. Delays are many times cause by traffic congestion in the ISP network. It can be all your neighbors competing for the same bandwidth. Try testing say between 1am and 3am when most people are not using their home internet.

Maybe you get lucky and the ISP has some issue they can fix

Hi there! Thank you for the advice.

I'm using an ethernet cable hooked into the router. My wife uses the WiFi, and that would be the only other source of traffic. I have tested the internet while she isn't home and her devices are either off or not at home. I have also hooked the ethernet directly into the modem with the same results. I don't believe there should be any other traffic other than my wife when she's home. My last WinMTR was unfortunately from a few hours ago US West coast time, so at about 2am when there should be minimal bandwidth competition. I suppose I should just bite the bullet and give them a phone. I recently moved to the states and there seems to be a bit of a monopoly on internet services in certain areas such as mine, so I can't even switch providers unless I'm willing to downgrade to 6-15 mbps from 100mbps. Crazy.