Question Unstable Latency and Lag while gaming

[Pnuh]

Pre-Read
ISP- Sudden link Communication
Internet- 200Mbps download and 15 Mbps Upload.
I am playing Wired.
ISPs- Modem/Router Combo is a Hitron-CGNM 2250
Location- West Virginia

For the past 4+months now I have had unstable latency and lag while trying to game. Overtime it has gotten to the point where it is unbearable, I don’t even want to play anymore. I have had 3 Technicians sent out and they come for 15 mins say everything is fine and leave. They really just don’t care. I’m starting to think it is a coax wiring issue. They put a new cable line in the ground 6+months ago as well, which could also be the culprit. When I run speed test I am usually getting 200Mbps Download and around 7 Upload, sometimes it will show packet loss, sometimes it won’t. While gaming my latency used to be very stable around 35-60ms, now it will jump from 55ms to 150+ms every single game every 10-15 seconds which will cause me to lag. I restart and reset the modem/router almost everyday as well. I even tried using a new modem/router combo but the same problems persist which tells me it can’t be their modem. Everything start pointing to a line or wiring issue.
Any help would be much appreciated! I’ve lost all hope at this point.

 

[bill001g]

I have not used that brand of modem but most cable modems have both a screen with log error messages as a screen with the signal levels. Look for messages in the log. You will always find some. You want to try to find ones that correspond to when you see problems. Things like SYNC errors tend to be the ones that cause lag without actually causing the connection to reset. Verify that you levels are ok the table of recommended values varies a bit depending on what kind of docsis is being used so I will let you search for this rather than try to duplicate it. Most problems are in the upload channels being too high. This would be one of the common symptoms of a cabling issue if you have one.

If you find nothing interesting then you go back to the try to find where the problem is happening.

First run tracert to some common IP like 8.8.8.8. It will not likely show anything bad. What you are looking for are the ip addresses in the path. Most important are hop 1 which is your router and hop 2 which is the ISP router on the far side of the cable in most cases. You want to leave constant ping run to both of these in background windows so you can quickly check when your game says it has issues.

 

[failboat]

What all is happening on your network? Are a lot of people using the internet or are you downloading/uploading? Something like watching 1080p/4k netflix might make you buffer for a brief time. Streaming might be using most of your upload and then brief downloads will use the rest as most packages only give you enough upload in order to not slow your tcp downloads. Have you tried a gaming session only on the modem? The ISP will come out and test the connection on the modem. Anything past that is your responsibility. If hit 200 down or 15up buffering is normal which will result in both packet loss and increased latency. If you have a bottleneck internally you may be buffering on LAN. If you're wired(not counting powerline) @ 1Gbs this would be unlikely.

A game jumping from typical 60 to 150ms means its buffering somewhere.

 

[Pnuh]

I have not used that brand of modem but most cable modems have both a screen with log error messages as a screen with the signal levels. Look for messages in the log. You will always find some. You want to try to find ones that correspond to when you see problems. Things like SYNC errors tend to be the ones that cause lag without actually causing the connection to reset. Verify that you levels are ok the table of recommended values varies a bit depending on what kind of docsis is being used so I will let you search for this rather than try to duplicate it. Most problems are in the upload channels being too high. This would be one of the common symptoms of a cabling issue if you have one.

If you find nothing interesting then you go back to the try to find where the problem is happening.

First run tracert to some common IP like 8.8.8.8. It will not likely show anything bad. What you are looking for are the ip addresses in the path. Most important are hop 1 which is your router and hop 2 which is the ISP router on the far side of the cable in most cases. You want to leave constant ping run to both of these in background windows so you can quickly check when your game says it has issues.

I

I have not used that brand of modem but most cable modems have both a screen with log error messages as a screen with the signal levels. Look for messages in the log. You will always find some. You want to try to find ones that correspond to when you see problems. Things like SYNC errors tend to be the ones that cause lag without actually causing the connection to reset. Verify that you levels are ok the table of recommended values varies a bit depending on what kind of docsis is being used so I will let you search for this rather than try to duplicate it. Most problems are in the upload channels being too high. This would be one of the common symptoms of a cabling issue if you have one.

If you find nothing interesting then you go back to the try to find where the problem is happening.

First run tracert to some common IP like 8.8.8.8. It will not likely show anything bad. What you are looking for are the ip addresses in the path. Most important are hop 1 which is your router and hop 2 which is the ISP router on the far side of the cable in most cases. You want to leave constant ping run to both of these in background windows so you can quickly check when your game says it has issues.

Thank you for responding. So I tried to find the logs on my modem and couldn’t find it anywhere. I was able to run tracert though and did as you said but I don’t really know if anything I saw had any value or not.

 

[Pnuh]

What all is happening on your network? Are a lot of people using the internet or are you downloading/uploading? Something like watching 1080p/4k netflix might make you buffer for a brief time. Streaming might be using most of your upload and then brief downloads will use the rest as most packages only give you enough upload in order to not slow your tcp downloads. Have you tried a gaming session only on the modem? The ISP will come out and test the connection on the modem. Anything past that is your responsibility. If hit 200 down or 15up buffering is normal which will result in both packet loss and increased latency. If you have a bottleneck internally you may be buffering on LAN. If you're wired(not counting powerline) @ 1Gbs this would be unlikely.

A game jumping from typical 60 to 150ms means its buffering somewhere.

Usually it’s just me on the internet. Even when I’m the only person using it, my latency is unstable and I’m still lagging. When streaming Netflix and stuff like that, I never experience buffering at all. Thank for the reply!