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Extreme latency spikes and low speeds

FTMalik
Newbie
Posts: 5
Registered: ‎16-04-2014

Extreme latency spikes and low speeds

Hi all,
I've been having a major problem with my latency, as well as a little speed issues. For the last 4 weeks, while I play games online, such as the Battlefield and Counter-Strike series, I get random moments of rubberbanding (stuttering movement) which makes the game unplayable. My ping can go from 40ms all the way to 1500ms, and normally spikes to 850ms. After I requested interleaving to be disabled the pings went down to 25ms but the spikes remained. There is no firewall problem, neither with the routers firewall or Windows' firewall, nor any similar problem.
I've ran tracert tests, with two different Ethernet cables on both my gaming PC and then laptop, yet I still get the same issue. The gateway hop is never at '<1ms', except when the test is done to '192.168.1.254'. Even the test to 192.168.100.1 (Home Network Default IP Address) is showing issues.

C:Windowssystem32>tracert bbc.co.uk
Tracing route to bbc.co.uk [212.58.244.20] over a maximum of 30 hops:
1 95 ms 98 ms 98 ms dsldevice.lan [192.168.1.254]
2 13 ms 12 ms 13 ms lo0-central10.pcl-ag04.plus.net [195.166.128.185]
3 12 ms 12 ms 12 ms link-a-central10.pcl-gw01.plus.net [212.159.2.172]
4 33 ms 12 ms 11 ms xe-0-2-0.pcl-cr01.plus.net [212.159.0.204]
5 11 ms 11 ms 12 ms ae1.ptw-cr01.plus.net [195.166.129.0]
6 13 ms 11 ms 12 ms kingston-gw.thdo.bbc.co.uk [212.58.239.6]
7 * * * Request timed out.
8 * * * Request timed out.
9 13 ms 12 ms 12 ms ae0.er01.telhc.bbc.co.uk [132.185.254.109]
10 13 ms 13 ms 13 ms 132.185.255.149
11 18 ms 12 ms 13 ms fmt-vip71.telhc.bbc.co.uk [212.58.244.20]
Trace complete.
C:Windowssystem32>tracert 212.58.241.131
Tracing route to virtual-vip.thdo.bbc.co.uk [212.58.241.131] over a maximum of 30 hops:
1 39 ms 98 ms 98 ms dsldevice.lan [192.168.1.254]
2 49 ms 33 ms 14 ms lo0-central10.pcl-ag04.plus.net [195.166.128.185]
3 12 ms 12 ms 12 ms link-b-central10.pcl-gw02.plus.net [212.159.2.174]
4 12 ms 16 ms 12 ms xe-0-2-0.pcl-cr02.plus.net [212.159.0.206]
5 16 ms 11 ms 12 ms ae2.pcl-cr01.plus.net [195.166.129.6]
6 12 ms 12 ms 12 ms ae1.ptw-cr01.plus.net [195.166.129.0]
7 12 ms 11 ms 12 ms kingston-gw.thdo.bbc.co.uk [212.58.239.6]
8 * * * Request timed out.
9 17 ms 15 ms 13 ms ae1.er02.rbsov.bbc.co.uk [132.185.254.70]
10 12 ms 17 ms 12 ms ae7-vrf-Mitigate.rbsov.bbc.co.uk [132.185.254.154]
11 13 ms 12 ms 12 ms ae0.er01.rbsov.bbc.co.uk [132.185.254.49]
12 12 ms 13 ms 13 ms vlan400.hsw5.rbsov.bbc.co.uk [132.185.255.60]
13 12 ms 12 ms 12 ms virtual-vip.thdo.bbc.co.uk [212.58.241.131]
Trace complete.
C:Windowssystem32>tracert google.co.uk
Tracing route to google.co.uk [173.194.41.159] over a maximum of 30 hops:
1 60 ms 98 ms 98 ms dsldevice.lan [192.168.1.254]
2 20 ms 31 ms 28 ms lo0-central10.pcl-ag04.plus.net [195.166.128.185]
3 244 ms 17 ms 60 ms link-b-central10.pcl-gw02.plus.net [212.159.2.174]
4 26 ms 27 ms 29 ms xe-0-2-0.pcl-cr02.plus.net [212.159.0.206]
5 18 ms 70 ms 61 ms ae2.pcl-cr01.plus.net [195.166.129.6]
6 19 ms 29 ms 32 ms ae1.ptw-cr01.plus.net [195.166.129.0]
7 14 ms 32 ms 32 ms 72.14.222.97
8 26 ms 11 ms 11 ms 209.85.246.244
9 12 ms 13 ms 12 ms 72.14.238.55
10 12 ms 12 ms 13 ms lhr08s03-in-f31.1e100.net [173.194.41.159]
Trace complete.
C:Windowssystem32>tracert 209.85.147.94
Tracing route to 209.85.147.94 over a maximum of 30 hops:
1 85 ms 98 ms 98 ms dsldevice.lan [192.168.1.254]
2 15 ms 11 ms 12 ms lo0-central10.pcl-ag04.plus.net [195.166.128.185]
3 12 ms 12 ms 12 ms link-a-central10.pcl-gw01.plus.net [212.159.2.172]
4 11 ms 13 ms 12 ms xe-0-2-0.pcl-cr01.plus.net [212.159.0.204]
5 12 ms 11 ms 12 ms ae1.ptw-cr01.plus.net [195.166.129.0]
6 to 30 * * * Request timed out.
Trace complete.
C:\Windows\System32>tracert -h 5 192.168.1.254
Tracing route to dsldevice.lan [192.168.1.254] over a maximum of 5 hops:
  1    <1 ms    <1 ms    <1 ms  dsldevice.lan [192.168.1.254]
Trace complete.
C:\Windows\System32>tracert -h 5 192.168.100.1 (Home Network Default IP Address)
Tracing route to 192.168.100.1 over a maximum of 5 hops
  1    44 ms    98 ms    98 ms  dsldevice.lan [192.168.1.254]
  2    17 ms    29 ms    36 ms  lo0-central10.ptw-ag04.plus.net [195.166.128.194]
  3  126 ms    18 ms    63 ms  link-a-central10.ptw-gw01.plus.net [212.159.2.156]
  4    *        *        *    Request timed out.
  5    *        *        *    Request timed out.
Trace complete.

These are my DSL connection statistics:
Link Information
DSL Type: ITU-T G.992.3
Bandwidth (Up/Down) [kbps]: 760 / 4.343
Data Transferred (Sent/Rec.) [GB]: 1,99 / 1,99
Output Power (Up/Down) [dBm]: 12,7 / 0,0
Line Attenuation (Up/Down) [dB]: 32,8 / 55,0
SN Margin (Up/Down) [dB]: 8,4 / 9,1
System Vendor ID (Local/Remote): TMMB / ----
Chipset Vendor ID (Local/Remote): BDCM / IFTN
Loss of Framing (Local/Remote): 27 / 0
Loss of Signal (Local/Remote): 3 / 0
Loss of Power (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
Loss of Link (Remote): -
Error Seconds (Local/Remote): 4.016 / 0
FEC Errors (Up/Down): 0 / 0
CRC Errors (Up/Down): 5 / 25
HEC Errors (Up/Down): 2 / 131


I've noticed that the upload bandwidth is lower than what I receive, which is 630kbps. When I signed up with PlusNet, January 2013, I was told that I was guaranteed 6.5Mbps down and 1Mbps up, out of the maximum of 16Mbps. I used to receive ~6Mb down and ~0.9Mb up, but recently I've only been receiving 4Mb down and 0.6Mb up.
In conclusion, I think my internet problem is due to the both the high ping at the first, gateway hop and the low upload speed. Please advise what I should do from here on out.
9 REPLIES 9
chrispurvey
Plusnet Alumni (retired)
Plusnet Alumni (retired)
Posts: 5,369
Fixes: 1
Registered: ‎13-07-2012

Re: Extreme latency spikes and low speeds

Hi FTMalik,
Welcome to our community forums, let's hope we can get this sorted!
I can see you've had a fault raised with us recently that hasn't detected any issues.
Can you try a PING to the same destinations as the traceroute you've done so we can get the response times?
It may also be worth creating a ping graph if you already haven't.

AndyH
Grafter
Posts: 6,824
Thanks: 1
Registered: ‎27-10-2012

Re: Extreme latency spikes and low speeds

Just a point - it's a characteristic of that router to have high response times when its busy. The important thing is the latency to your destination in the traceroute (all of which look fine to me).
Townman
Superuser
Superuser
Posts: 22,919
Thanks: 9,536
Fixes: 156
Registered: ‎22-08-2007

Re: Extreme latency spikes and low speeds

Hi FTMalik,
Welcome to the forums...
The details of your router stats are somewhat interesting!!!  The line DS attenuation is higher than some people's "rule of thumb" would prefer for ADSL2 operation.  This line is arguably in the "twilight zone" where ADSL2 delivers little if any benefit over ADSL(1).
The attenuation suggests that your line is 4km.  The reported synch speed is 10% above what might be expected on either of ADSL or ADSL2 and at a SNRM of 9dB to boot!!  I'm surprised that you were "guaranteed" 6.5M on a line with a 55dB attenuation.  Either there is something wrong with BTOR's circuit data (seen this before) which lead to an unattainable forecast or there is a joint fault on the line - however I do not think the error counts support that.  That however is a matter for PN to examine, rather than for me to speculate on.   Cool
The stats posted do not show the connection time, so it is not possible to assess the error rate / counts in respect of connected duration to determine if these are high or not.  That said the elevated SNRM of 9dB might imply that the target is higher than normal (giving a slower synch speed) possibly because of multiple / repeated disconnects or historical high levels of noise on the line.  Note aside from the local error seconds, the error counts are quite low given the volume of data shipper reported by the router.  @DCT is it worth checking the target SNRM and if elevated, determine why and if this can be reset?
The data transferred volumes (nearly 2G up and down) somewhat implies that every thing which comes to you is sent back out again - have you got any (hidden?) file sharing software running (on any internet connected device) which is "hammering" your broadband?
In such circumstances, as note by AndyH, pings and other diagnostics will get lower priority through the router and indeed on the target servers.

Superusers are not staff, but they do have a direct line of communication into the business in order to raise issues, concerns and feedback from the community.

FTMalik
Newbie
Posts: 5
Registered: ‎16-04-2014

Re: Extreme latency spikes and low speeds

Thanks all for the replies.
Quote from: Townman
I'm surprised that you were "guaranteed" 6.5M on a line with a 55dB attenuation.  

Sorry, my mistake. I was estimated 6Mb, and guaranteed 5.5Mb if I left Sky.
Quote from: Townman
The data transferred volumes (nearly 2G up and down) somewhat implies that every thing which comes to you is sent back out again - have you got any (hidden?) file sharing software running (on any internet connected device) which is "hammering" your broadband?

Nothing that I know of, no. Could it be viruses, malware etc.?
Quote from: AndyH
Just a point - it's a characteristic of that router to have high response times when its busy. The important thing is the latency to your destination in the traceroute (all of which look fine to me).

But in the 1 and 1/4 year I've been with PlusNet, I've never experience such frequent and high lag like this before, so is it down to the upload speeds?
Quote from: Chris
Can you try a PING to the same destinations as the traceroute you've done so we can get the response times?

C:\Windows\System32>ping bbc.co.uk
Pinging bbc.co.uk [212.58.246.103] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 212.58.246.103: bytes=32 time=14ms TTL=55
Reply from 212.58.246.103: bytes=32 time=14ms TTL=55
Reply from 212.58.246.103: bytes=32 time=14ms TTL=55
Reply from 212.58.246.103: bytes=32 time=15ms TTL=55
Ping statistics for 212.58.246.103:
    Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
    Minimum = 14ms, Maximum = 15ms, Average = 14ms
C:\Windows\System32>ping 212.58.241.131
Pinging 212.58.241.131 with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 212.58.241.131: bytes=32 time=14ms TTL=244
Reply from 212.58.241.131: bytes=32 time=13ms TTL=244
Reply from 212.58.241.131: bytes=32 time=13ms TTL=244
Reply from 212.58.241.131: bytes=32 time=13ms TTL=244
Ping statistics for 212.58.241.131:
    Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
    Minimum = 13ms, Maximum = 14ms, Average = 13ms
C:\Windows\System32>ping google.co.uk
Pinging google.co.uk [173.194.41.151] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 173.194.41.151: bytes=32 time=14ms TTL=56
Reply from 173.194.41.151: bytes=32 time=13ms TTL=56
Reply from 173.194.41.151: bytes=32 time=13ms TTL=56
Reply from 173.194.41.151: bytes=32 time=13ms TTL=56
Ping statistics for 173.194.41.151:
    Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
    Minimum = 13ms, Maximum = 14ms, Average = 13ms
C:\Windows\System32>ping 209.85.147.94
Pinging 209.85.147.94 with 32 bytes of data:
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Ping statistics for 209.85.147.94:
    Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 0, Lost = 4 (100% loss),
C:\Windows\System32>ping 209.85.147.94
Ping statistics for 209.85.147.94:
    Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 0, Lost = 4 (100% loss),
C:\Windows\System32>ping 192.168.1.254
Pinging 192.168.1.254 with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 192.168.1.254: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.254: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.254: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.254: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Ping statistics for 192.168.1.254:
    Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
    Minimum = 0ms, Maximum = 1ms, Average = 0ms
C:\Windows\System32>ping 192.168.100.1 (Home Network Default IP Address)
Pinging 192.168.100.1 with 32 bytes of data:
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Ping statistics for 192.168.100.1:
    Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 0, Lost = 4 (100% loss),


Quote from: Chris
It may also be worth creating a ping graph if you already haven't.

I looked at that but it required a static IP, which I don't think I have on ADSL2.
FTMalik
Newbie
Posts: 5
Registered: ‎16-04-2014

Re: Extreme latency spikes and low speeds

Quote from: AndyH
Just a point - it's a characteristic of that router to have high response times when its busy.

So what about when it's not busy, and I'm still getting high latencies?
FTMalik
Newbie
Posts: 5
Registered: ‎16-04-2014

Re: Extreme latency spikes and low speeds

No one...?
AndyH
Grafter
Posts: 6,824
Thanks: 1
Registered: ‎27-10-2012

Re: Extreme latency spikes and low speeds

Hi
The main thing is to look at the latency to the destination (so the last hop). Or if you ping the destination.
It's general networking policy to set ping responses to low priority on devices, because other traffic is more important. This is why on a traceroute you may get very high ping response times on one or more hops. It's only something to generally worry about if the ping response times are high for the destination. I can show you a traceroute with 300-400ms response times to the PN Gateway (which will be busy) but my actual latency to the destination (bbc.co.uk) is only 4-5ms.
As for the router, even when you think it's 'quiet' there could be a lot of background traffic still passing through it. It's honestly nothing to worry about.
When you are gaming, is anyone else using the internet or do you run anything in the background on your computer?
FTMalik
Newbie
Posts: 5
Registered: ‎16-04-2014

Re: Extreme latency spikes and low speeds

Quote from: AndyH
When you are gaming, is anyone else using the internet or do you run anything in the background on your computer?

I have nothing running in the background while gaming, except Steam or Origin. But regardless of whether others are using or not using the internet while I game, I still get the ping spikes. I've narrowed it down to low speeds, 0.6Mb/s up and 4Mb/s down, and/or a faulty router. I'm 90% convinced it's the upload speed.
AndyH
Grafter
Posts: 6,824
Thanks: 1
Registered: ‎27-10-2012

Re: Extreme latency spikes and low speeds

I would think the upload speed should be sufficient for online gaming.
Your router stats do suggest that your upload is heavily used though. It wouldn't take much for it to start affecting your gaming, particularly if someone on your network is doing anything that maxes out your upload speed.