Really bad Pings.

Hi All,
I am new to the forums and By no means a technical expert.

I have, in the last month or so, started to get an issue with my broadband. I have a good connection (For my area), of about 3mb in the evening and 4.8mb during the day.

For some strange reason in the evening when I play games I get silly Pings, ranging between 800 - 1200 and making the game unplayable, during the day it is OK at about 120mb... But about a month ago I was getting a solid 40 - 60 ping rate. Is anyone familiar with this? Its like someone has switched a switch atthe exchange to annoy me. I spoke to Orange (My ISP) who told me it wasn't their problem. The internet and everything seems ok (in the evenings).

Below is a ping test result:
http://www.pingtest.net/result/11572468.png

And below this is a tracert that I did to bbc.co.uk

Tracing route to bbc.co.uk [212.58.224.138]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 1 ms <1 ms <1 ms Livebox-7970 [192.168.1.1]
2 * * * Request timed out.
3 * * * Request timed out.
4 * * * Request timed out.
5 * * * Request timed out.
6 * * * Request timed out.
7 * * * Request timed out.
8 * * * Request timed out.
9 * * * Request timed out.
10 * * * Request timed out.
11 * * * Request timed out.
12 40 ms 40 ms 47 ms virtual-vip.thdo.bbc.co.uk [212.58.224.138]

What does this mean? I will try and do a tracert during the day and post tomorrow.

Thanks

Buckers

Unfortunately ping is a very low priority packet in the world of routing. It could be a few things causing the high pings, the most common being if a router is under load it will not respond to every ping request it gets.

Your trace route looks like the routers on the hops to the end destination are not configured to answer pings or are busy doing other stuff.

In reply to a post by Buckers24:

For some strange reason in the evening when I play games I get silly Pings, ranging between 800 - 1200 and making the game unplayable, during the day it is OK at about 120mb... But about a month ago I was getting a solid 40 - 60 ping rate.

The thing which has the biggest effect on ping is the distance from you to the server. Are you choosing servers in the same continent as yourself?

I am about 1km from the exchange, however during the day my ping in games is fine. I would expect a slight drop in performance in the evening but not a complete bottom out. Its like the exchange is run on solar power.

over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 1 ms <1 ms <1 ms Livebox-7970 [192.168.1.1]
2 * * * Request timed out.
3 * * * Request timed out.
4 * * * Request timed out.
5 * * * Request timed out.
6 * * * Request timed out.
7 * * * Request timed out.
8 * * * Request timed out.
9 * * * Request timed out.
10 * * * Request timed out.
11 * * * Request timed out.
12 41 ms 40 ms 40 ms virtual-vip.thdo.bbc.co.uk [212.58.224.138]

Not much different on this test, which I have done today 10am. So do you think it is my Orange Livebox? I will try another modem see if that helps.

http://www.pingtest.net/result/11610440.png

Could you post the router stats connection speed, attenuation and noise margin?
That would give us a bit more to go on.

Thanks

Edited by deleted (Tue 02-Mar-10 11:22:15)

Type : Interleave
Noise margin (dB) : 9.1
Attenuation (dB) : 44.0
Attainable download rate (kbps) : 5728
ADSL status : Connected [0]

Downstream Upstream
Rate (kbps) 5184 448

Is this the stats that you need? If not where do I get them from?

In reply to a post by Buckers24:

Type : Interleave
Noise margin (dB) : 9.1
Attenuation (dB) : 44.0
Attainable download rate (kbps) : 5728
ADSL status : Connected [0]

Downstream Upstream
Rate (kbps) 5184 448

Is this the stats that you need? If not where do I get them from?

Lovely just need the upstream figures as well Thanks

Thanks Hatari,

I can't seem to find any information about the upload, should it be on the same screen as i got the download information?

In reply to a post by Buckers24:

I am about 1km from the exchange, however during the day my ping in games is fine.

Are you playing on the same server during the day and night.

Before we start looking at other causes, we need to know it's not just a case of you playing on Australian servers at night and European ones during the day.

No Its not, far away servers, it is a London based server, and I play with people from UK and they have good pings.

Thanks so far.