[SOLVED] Unknown reason for packet loss ?

[ItsKieran]

Hey,
I have done some tests on my computer(the device with the issue) on numerous online tools and in game statistics. The tests i have used were speedtest.com, packet loss tester and fortnite's in game statistics.

My internet speed is not as fast as it used to be but i have up to 2-3% packet loss on fortnite and through packet loss tester i have around 1% of packet loss. It is noticeable in other games such as scrap mechanic, rainbow 6 siege and overwatch. Which led me to do more, i have tried wired and wireless connections and experienced the same result so it is not the wifi card nor the ethernet port.

I am quite stumped and done countless hours of research on this topic. In conclusion, i am certain the packet loss issue is with my computer as all other devices works exceptionally well and i have performed a reinstall of windows 10 and uninstalled and reinstalled the network drivers but nothing has worked.

Cheers Kieran

 

[bill001g]

Even 1% packet loss is huge for a game.

I would always test on ethernet. It is very common to get packet loss on wifi and it can confuse your test results.

Your first test is to leave a constant ping run to the router IP. This should test you PC and the connection to the router. If this does not show anything try running it in a background window while the game runs sometime you need more traffic than ping generates to cause the problem.

If you see no loss in the ping command then you can be fairly sure the problem is farther into the network. The most common place to see packet loss is in the internet connection to your house.

If you see packet loss there is not much it can be. Ping is a extremely simple command that is not affected by much in your machine. I guess you could boot a linux image off a USB stick. You can then ping your router and see if you get loss. This would indicate a hardware issue. The only thing you can try is a new ethernet cable really. Bad ethernet cables is also very common. Your wifi loss might have been the "normal" loss you see and hides a bad cable. Note just because a cable works on one machine but not another does not mean the cable is good. Some machines tolerate a cable that is out of spec more than others.

 

[ItsKieran]

I am within 5 meters of the main router with only one wall in the way, also unable to have an ethernet cable connect the two, I have had no issues before. I have wiped my boot drive completely and installed a fresh version on windows and new drivers. How could i test to narrow down the problem as i hope its just the internet unable to provide enough for my computer. I also did some further tests. I have been using a wifi extender for a long time and had no issues before. To ensure i can narrow down the issues i tested the wireless connection to my router(some packet loss), wireless connection to the wifi extender(some packet loss) and ethernet to the wifi extender(some packet loss).

edit: i conducted a few more tests through the comand line interface
i have tested the connection to the router to see if there is not enough coverage, 0% packet loss
also tested for network congestion still 0%packet loss

 

[bill001g]

I am confused. You say you get loss to various places but these are all wireless connections and that would be expected.

You then say you test to the router and see no packet loss.

You are going to have to be more clear what does not see the loss.

The next step is to run tracert to 8.8.8.8 and then run ping commands to hop 2 which is the ISP first router. The problem you have is even if you see loss to this ip it means very little because the loss could be occurring in hop 1 (wifi to your router). Normally your test would be to show no loss to hop 1 and loss to hop 2. You could then call your ISP and try to get them to fix it. If you have loss in hop 1 though they will correctly try to say it is your problem with your wifi because you can not prove it is not.

 

[ItsKieran]

I used cmd to ping my ip address n google.com but only a few packets are lossed. Is this just a network limit issue. Just to be clear my old computer has not had any issues with lost packets and is this due to the router or my computer.

 

[bill001g]

It is hard to say. There is a lot of stuff between you and google that can cause loss. The path might be different than to the other testing sites.

You need to do more detailed testing to find it. Run tracert and then use the ping command to try to find what is different between google and the other testing sites. It should not be a network limit unless you are exceeding your bandwidth. BUT running more traffic does increase the amount of loss you see when there are errors.

You can do the ping tests in background windows while the game runs. You can then see if the loss on the ping commands shows similar to the game.

Again you really need to find a way to test on ethernet. A wifi connection can get all kinds of random loss and will make it very hard to get data that is not contaminated.

 

[kanewolf]

I am within 5 meters of the main router with only one wall in the way, also unable to have an ethernet cable connect the two, I have had no issues before.

Unless you are using public WIFI, you can always test with an ethernet cable. You may have to move your PC to do it, but it is a necessary test.

 

[ajohnson30]

you really need to find a way to test on ethernet. A wifi connection can get all kinds of random loss and will make it very hard to get data that is not contaminated.

This. Just because it worked in the past does not mean it will work right now. It may very well work 10 minutes from now and stop working again.

The nature of wi-fi is such that the radio signal can be interfered with not only by stuff in your wall, but microwave ovens, refrigerators, and also your next door neighbor who just got a brand new wi-fi router on the same channel as yours.

I also had a situation where I had a 2.4ghz wifi network that worked great, but also a cordless phone system that also ran on 2.4ghz. Every time the phone rang, the wifi dropped....