Large Ping Spikes When Gaming

[#1]

I am having trouble with my PlusNet internet, previously I had a fault outside my house which was resulting in a heavy amount of disconnections and slower speeds.  However, now that is resolved, I don't seem to get disconnections anymore but I still have loads of problems with large ping spikes when gaming.

This is ok to put up with every now and then but when it happens constantly throughout a game and in the middle of a firefight, it can quickly make my blood boil.  I've been putting up with this for a really long time now and don't know what is causing it.  I have never had this issue with any of my previous providers before.

See screenshot of the game I just played (note sometimes I can play games for hours with no issues at all), 1198 ms ping spike.  Eventually back down to 8 ms.

[#2]

Another day, another set of spikes, see attached.

[#3]

Third day, ping spikes again :(.  Also, to clarify, I have a wired ethernet connection directly from the router to my PC, this is not a WiFi issue.

[#4]

Just recieved some chocolate from PlusNet for my previous (now fixed) outage, a very nice and unique touch (see attached), thanks :).

I hope we can fix this issue with the ping too, then I will be a really happy customer.  Maybe there is some network configuration that can be done? I guess packets are just being lost on the routes that my connection currently goes through.

[#5]

Day 4 ping spikes, see attached.

[#6]

Hi @Faisal787, I'm really sorry that you're still having some issues.

I have tested the line today but this hasn't highlighted anything that could be causing these issues. If you haven't already, I'd advise getting your router into the test socket for the time being and leaving it there, it may be worth trying an alternative Ethernet cable also just to rule it out.

Can you advise if you've noticed similar issues on other games? Do you have any issues with other devices?

On a wired connection (ideally with no other devices/applications heavily using the connection) we'd advise running trace route to the address pingbox1.thinkbroadband.com

(This address unlike a lot of others accepts these pings with no traffic management which may interfere.)

Steps on how to do this are below:

- Open the windows command prompt by either pressing windows key + R or going to start > run and typing cmd and pressing enter/OK. (If windows 10 then simply pressing start and typing cmd should bring up the command prompt app you can open).

- Once the command prompt is open you can run a trace route by typing 'tracert pingbox1.thinkbroadband.com' and then pressing enter.

If you can print screen/capture any trace routes you notice ms higher than 40 ms this may help us narrow down where on the network the issue is occurring.

[#7]

Hi @LaurenB, thanks for responding.

I have run the trace route, please see the results below:

C:\Users\Home>tracert pingbox1.thinkbroadband.com

Tracing route to pingbox1.thinkbroadband.com [80.249.99.164]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 1 ms <1 ms <1 ms PNHUB1 [192.168.1.254]
2 6 ms 8 ms 6 ms 172.16.14.55
3 * * * Request timed out.
4 8 ms 9 ms 10 ms 136.hiper04.sheff.dial.plus.net.uk [195.166.143.136]
5 20 ms 7 ms 8 ms core1-BE1.southbank.ukcore.bt.net [195.99.125.130]
6 18 ms 23 ms 9 ms peer7-et-3-1-2.telehouse.ukcore.bt.net [109.159.252.230]
7 * * * Request timed out.
8 9 ms 9 ms 9 ms te2-3-14.bdr-rt3.thdo.ncuk.net [80.249.97.112]
9 8 ms 9 ms 9 ms po4-31.core-rs4.thdo.ncuk.net [80.249.97.85]
10 8 ms 8 ms 8 ms pingbox1.thinkbroadband.com [80.249.99.164]

Trace complete.

It's a bit difficult for me to move the router to the test socket as currently the router is connected to an extension socket which is where the landline plugs into (via the filter) and everything else plugs into it there, including my home CCTV system, second computer and the computer I am currently using (all via Ethernet cables).  I don't think that is the problem as I've had this setup for over a decade and not had this problem with previous providers, but could test it as an absolute last resort.

I don't really play any other FPS games so haven't noticed this elsewhere, other games I play are like racing games (Forza Horizon 4), but it's hard to tell if you get a ping spike in those sort of games.  I've played Rainbow Six Siege regurarly since around 2016 so am pretty used to knowing when I have a good connection or not.

---

[#8]

Hi @Faisal787

That trace route looks absolutely fine - the hops are all low ping with no visible issues.

Having read your description of your setup, I would strongly recommend that you test this via the test socket if possible (even if it's just temporarily on a laptop for ping tests) and that you detach anything else that's connected to the router when this occurs - devices, especially things like CCTV use a massive amount of bandwidth and this coupled with an extension socket is going to cause intermittent connection issues.

As things stand, your connection seems fine from our side and that trace route doesn't raise any red flags with your connection overall. I would genuinely recommend that you start to narrow down the cause of the lag spikes from your side as they do appear to be a product of your environment rather than the connection we're providing.

Thanks

Dave

[#9]

This is more than likely due to the path mode on the down stream being set to interleaved from fast. Are you able to see the DSL stats on your router? I would ask for a DLM reset and see if that improves things although that still isn’t guaranteed to change the path mode. It depends on the quality of your line to the cabinet. My line has also recently been set to interleaved with a value of 552 and my pings are up from 10 to 19.

[#10]

@RandallFlagg yes, I agree the trace route looks fine, however that is only a snapshot of some seconds.  This issue occurs occaisionally on a daily basis, so it is very hard to diagnose.

As I've mentioned before, I have not had issues with my setup for years, I've only noticed it since I switched to PlusNet.  I can see why you would want to test the setup, I will have to arrange a time to do it and maybe test it for several hours to see if it makes any difference.  I will see if I can do that this weekend, otherwise will try for a later date.

I was hoping that something else could be tried in the meantime? For example, I checked my Ethernet adapter settings and disabled the QOS Packet Scheduler 2 days ago.  I have not seen the huge ping spikes where my game just freezes for a few seconds since doing so - so my ping remains stable, however I do see regurar network indicators showing packet loss but the game is much, much more playable (the network loss is hardly noticiable now).  I think this difference is related to disabling that QOS option, but will need to do more testing to make sure it is not just a conincidence.

I know on the ISP side you may be able to try other things if they are relevant, like looking at interleaving settings.  At this stage I am open to experienting with anything, without modifying my setup.

[#11]

Interleaving isn't going to cause large spikes.  It's a form of continuous error correction that over all adds some latency to help recover from missing packets.   It definately sounds like something becoming congested between your device and the game server.

As advised by @RandallFlagg definitely rule the rest of the house out.  Go into the test socket, and ensure everything else is disconnected and see if it still happens.

[#12]

I've been using the internet for a few weeks now, it does seem better (no longer getting ping spikes daily) but not completely fixed.

I have however noticed on a few occaisions that I've lost connection and the speed has come back up at a pretty slow speed.  It's showing as the below at the moment (this speed is less than the slower speed package :():

Line state:	Connected
Connection time:	3 days, 17:20:43
Downstream:	22.94 Mbps
Upstream:	11.01 Mbps