Lag during peak times

[#1]

Hello,
I'm getting some very annoying lag during peak times. All is smooth up until around 4-4.30pm then its a lag fest until 11-11.30pm. I'm on the the plusnet pro package with adsl max premium connected at 8128/832kbps. I've checked on wireshark and the traffic is getting prioritised (0xa0) but still laggy.
Heres a couple of traceroutes to a (Quake 3) server i normally play on:
  1    1 ms    1 ms    1 ms  menu [192.168.1.254]
  2    41 ms    44 ms    39 ms  lo0-plusnet.pcl-ag01.plus.net [195.166.128.27]
  3    47 ms    40 ms    39 ms  gi1-2-803.pcl-gw1.plus.net [84.92.5.57]
  4    39 ms    46 ms    50 ms  te2-2.pte-gw1.plus.net [212.159.0.186]
  5    43 ms    40 ms    45 ms  te2-4.pte-gw2.plus.net [212.159.1.102]
  6    53 ms    56 ms    68 ms  lon.tc2.leaseweb.net [195.66.225.100]
  7    49 ms    62 ms    60 ms  te9-2.sr8.evo.leaseweb.net [62.212.80.114]
  8    65 ms    66 ms    48 ms  94.75.238.102
  1    <1 ms    <1 ms    1 ms  menu [192.168.1.254]
  2    41 ms    66 ms    52 ms  lo0-plusnet.pcl-ag01.plus.net [195.166.128.27]
  3    42 ms    41 ms    58 ms  gi1-2-803.pcl-gw1.plus.net [84.92.5.57]
  4    46 ms    44 ms    54 ms  te2-2.pte-gw1.plus.net [212.159.0.186]
  5    46 ms    43 ms    44 ms  te2-4.pte-gw2.plus.net [212.159.1.102]
  6    60 ms    58 ms    54 ms  lon.tc2.leaseweb.net [195.66.225.100]
  7    64 ms    54 ms    50 ms  te9-2.sr8.evo.leaseweb.net [62.212.80.114]
  8    49 ms    56 ms    70 ms  94.75.238.102
I will post another traceroute early tomorrow too show the difference at off peak times.
Rebooting the router makes no difference. The lag is always there at peak times no matter what plusnet gateway I get connected to. PC is connected to router via ethernet cable with wireless disabled.  Nothing else running that would use bandwidth. Off peak times gaming is super smooth. I never had this problem with my previous ISP.
Is there anything I can try? Is anyone else having this problem?
Regards,
Matt

[#2]

Traceroute to a Quake 3 server run by plus.net:
  1    <1 ms    <1 ms     1 ms  menu [192.168.1.254]
  2    92 ms    52 ms    76 ms  lo0-plusnet.thn-ag3.plus.net [195.166.128.80]
  3    44 ms    74 ms    74 ms  vl303.thn-gw1.plus.net [84.92.3.177]
  4    42 ms    46 ms    41 ms  ae0-102.ptn-gw01.plus.net [212.159.1.53]
  5    72 ms    52 ms    90 ms  ptn-games01-if1.games.plus.net [212.159.6.211]
Trace complete.
Shocking.....

[#3]

That looks like an exchange or possibly a line issue.
Does your router give your error counts on your line?  (Often recorded as FEC/HEC errors).  If so, can you post them here.
What I think may be happening is that your line is suffering from higher-than-normal error rates, which cause packets to have to be retransmitted, which obviously causes your pings to increase.
It looks like you have interleaving removed from your line - this may actually be a mistake as this can help correct errors much earlier in the transmission stream and thus, in your case, may actually *reduce* your ping!
However, it may actually be exchange contention in which case there is little you can do about it until BT upgrade capacity at your exchange.
Check your router to see if you can post the HEC/FEC errors here - that should give an indication of where we need to look.
B.

EDIT:  Is your gameplay 'stuttery', or is it just constantly suffering from high pings?

[#4]

Thanks for your reply.
The gameplay is more "stuttery" as in constant lag spikes. I searched my router for error stats and I think this is the page but it doesn't have the FEC/HEC you asked for:
Details
DSL Connection Details
DSL Line (Wire Pair): Line 1 (inner pair)
Protocol: G.DMT Annex A
Downstream Rate: 8128 kbps
Upstream Rate: 832 kbps
Channel: Fast
Current Noise Margin: 15.0 dB (Downstream) 12.0 dB (Upstream)
Current Attenuation: 16.4 dB (Downstream) 8.0 dB (Upstream)
Current Output Power: 19.8 dBm (Downstream) 12.4 dBm (Upstream)
DSLAM Vendor Information: Country: {0xB5} Vendor: {TSTC} Specific: {0x00}
PVC Info: 0/38
Statistics
Collected for 0:50:08
Since Reset Current 24-Hour Interval Current 15-Minute Interval Time Since Last Event
ATM Cell Header Errors: 0 0 0 0:00:00
ATM Loss of Cell Delineation: 0 0 0 0:00:00
DSL Link Retrains: 0 0 0 0:00:00
DSL Training Errors: 0 0 0 0:00:00
DSL Training Timeouts: 0 0 0 0:00:00
DSL Loss of Framing Failures: 0 0 0 0:00:00
DSL Loss of Signal Failures: 0 0 0 0:00:00
DSL Loss of Power Failures: 0 0 0 0:00:00
DSL Loss of Margin Failures: 0 0 0 0:00:00
DSL Cumulative Errored Seconds: 1 1 0 0:27:57
DSL Severely Errored Seconds: 0 0 0 0:00:00
DSL Corrected Blocks: 0 0 0 0:00:00
DSL Uncorrected Blocks: 1 1 0 0:27:57
ISP Connection Establishment: 1 1 1 0:00:48
I don't think interleaving will help because I had it enabled before and I still had the same kind of lag just with higher pings.
I hope there is a fix for this 
cheers,
Matt

[#5]

Matt,
Mind running a traceroute before you go to work in the morning?
I'm not convinced it's an issue at this end?

[#6]

yeah poor 2nd hop pings for a fastpath connection. the OP has max preminum so that would protect them would it not to certain degree to exchange contention

[#7]

Heres a traceroute I just done now peak time is over i guess:
  1    <1 ms    <1 ms    1 ms  menu [192.168.1.254]
  2    43 ms    44 ms    44 ms  lo0-plusnet.pte-ag2.plus.net [195.166.128.72]
  3    42 ms    42 ms    42 ms  ge0-0-0-504.pte-gw1.plus.net [84.92.4.89]
  4    44 ms    44 ms    43 ms  vl22.thn-gw1.plus.net [212.159.4.3]
  5    41 ms    47 ms    46 ms  ae0-102.ptn-gw01.plus.net [212.159.1.53]
  6    40 ms    41 ms    39 ms  ptn-games01-if1.games.plus.net [212.159.6.211]
Trace complete.
Just loaded up Quake and the lag is gone all is smooth....but yea I am getting really bad pings. I don't know why, my mate lives 2 streets away on BT total broadband and he doesn't get any lag during peak times plus his pings are around 15ms lower than mine. Possibly rules out an issue with the exhange?
No work tomorrow so ill run another traceroute when I decide to get up. 

[#8]

Matt,
You're not on fastpath.
You will be tomorrow.

[#9]

Quote from: mad4rangers

Channel: Fast

Pardon my ignorance, but doesn't this indicate that the OP is indeed on Fastpath?

[#10]

From my perspective, interleaving was set to auto, rather than off.
I've placed an order to turn it off.
I don't just make this stuff up

[#11]

Strange.
I requested interleaving to be turned off a few weeks ago. A couple of days later my sync went from 7616 to 8128 and router reports fastpash rather than interleaved.
So I'm interested to know how interleaved is still enabled? 

[#12]

It's kinda off in an on sort of way.
There's three different types of interleaving.
OFF - This means that it is turned off.
ON - This means that it is turned on
AUTO - This can be either
Yours is currently set to auto.

[#13]

Oh ok.
Well we will see if it makes any difference tomorrow. Heres hoping I actually get some respectable ping times. 
Thanks for your help.

[#14]

but would the router saying fast and the sync rate point to AUTO picking fastpath.
guess we will find out tomoro if pings come back as fatspath pings but it would still be strange that the sync and mode both say fastpath but the OP's pings point towards interleved

[#15]

Nothing is an exact science in the world of broadband