Advice Ping help

[old.user4556]

Something weird is going on with my broadband.

I get steady 30ms pings, but suddenly it will rocket to ridiculous numbers making games unplayable. Here's two traces detailing (one to the gaming server, one to the BBC):

(the x's are me removing IPs)

Microsoft Windows [Version 6.1.7601]
Copyright (c) 2009 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

C:\Users\x>tracert 78.129.244.229

Tracing route to 78.129.244.229 over a maximum of 30 hops

1 <1 ms <1 ms 1 ms 192.168.0.1
2 * * * Request timed out.
3 643 ms 662 ms 687 ms xxxxxxxx.bb.sky.com [x.x.x.x]
4 683 ms 719 ms 744 ms te3-4.core1.hex.as20860.net [195.66.236.207]
5 745 ms 774 ms 798 ms 610.net2.north.dc5.as20860.net [62.233.127.182]

6 837 ms 824 ms 857 ms 87.117.212.42
7 981 ms 1022 ms 983 ms 78.129.244.229

Trace complete.

C:\Users\x>tracert www.bbc.co.uk

Tracing route to www.bbc.net.uk [212.58.244.70]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 1 ms <1 ms <1 ms 192.168.0.1
2 * * * Request timed out.
3 1533 ms 1543 ms 1583 ms xxxxxxxx.bb.sky.com [x.x.x.x]
4 1593 ms 1593 ms * ntl-ge2-9.prt0.rbsov.bbc.co.uk [212.58.238.189]

5 * * * Request timed out.
6 * * * Request timed out.
7 814 ms 831 ms 839 ms ae0.er01.telhc.bbc.co.uk [132.185.254.109]
8 861 ms 919 ms 921 ms 132.185.255.149
9 1024 ms 1030 ms 1033 ms bbc-vip115.telhc.bbc.co.uk [212.58.244.70]

Trace complete.

It's massively laggy right at the start, so that suggests something's gone wanky pretty quickly on the third hop. I am wondering if wireless devices are hogging upload bandwidth (auto syncing / backing up etc.) that's causing the ping to rocket. When it calms down, this is what I usually get:

C:\Users\x>tracert 78.129.244.229

Tracing route to 78.129.244.229 over a maximum of 30 hops

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms 192.168.0.1
2 * * * Request timed out.
3 30 ms 31 ms 31 ms xxxxxxxx.bb.sky.com [x.x.x.x]
4 28 ms 28 ms 28 ms te3-4.core1.hex.as20860.net [195.66.236.207]
5 28 ms 28 ms 28 ms 610.net2.north.dc5.as20860.net [62.233.127.182]

6 28 ms 28 ms 29 ms 87.117.212.42
7 28 ms 29 ms 28 ms 78.129.244.229

Trace complete.

Any suggestions? Sky just simply being wanky?

 

[TdC]

well if that 0.1 is your inside IP and the sky.com is your outside, things seem to be going wanky from there. Tried restarting your router already? Also, you could check out if there's anything up with sky's DNS servers for their customers.

 

[old.user4556]

I've rebooted it just now, will report back.

 

[old.user4556]

Seemed fine for about 10 minutes, then it rocketed back up.

 

[GReaper]

Most likely it's something saturating your upstream bandwidth, causing bufferbloat. But you need to see your traffic usage to confirm this.

Either limit all uploads from the applications doing it, if they've got any preferences allowing you to do so. Alternatively get a decent router which can do some traffic shaping, limit the upstream bandwidth according to your connection speed.

 

[babs]

If you're on ethernet, turn wireless off on the router and try again. Our phones autobackup to box/google+ and I get caught out with that sometimes.

 

[old.user4556]

Tracing route to 78.129.244.229 over a maximum of 30 hops

1 1 ms <1 ms <1 ms 192.168.0.1
2 * * * Request timed out.
3 1483 ms 1471 ms 1485 ms xxxxxxxx.bb.sky.com [x.x.x.x]
4 1555 ms * 812 ms te3-4.core1.hex.as20860.net [195.66.236.207]
5 814 ms 836 ms 823 ms 610.net2.north.dc5.as20860.net [62.233.127.182]

6 846 ms 918 ms 888 ms 87.117.212.42
7 1049 ms 1110 ms 1129 ms 78.129.244.229

Trace complete.

Disabled the wireless so that only my PC was connected:

Tracing route to 78.129.244.229 over a maximum of 30 hops

1 1 ms <1 ms <1 ms 192.168.0.1
2 * * * Request timed out.
3 28 ms 31 ms 30 ms xxxxxxxx.bb.sky.com [x.x.x.x]
4 37 ms 47 ms 39 ms te3-4.core1.hex.as20860.net [195.66.236.207]
5 28 ms 28 ms 28 ms 610.net2.north.dc5.as20860.net [62.233.127.182]

6 29 ms 28 ms 31 ms 87.117.212.42
7 28 ms 28 ms 28 ms 78.129.244.229

Trace complete.

I think it's leaching / uploading phones, tablets etc.

The testing continues.

 

[old.user4556]

We have a result from testing!

Turned the wireless off on the router:

Tracing route to 78.129.244.229 over a maximum of 30 hops

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms 192.168.0.1
2 * * * Request timed out.
3 33 ms 31 ms 30 ms xxxxxxxx.bb.sky.com [x]
4 28 ms 51 ms 46 ms te3-4.core1.hex.as20860.net [195.66.236.207]
5 28 ms 29 ms 28 ms 610.net2.north.dc5.as20860.net [62.233.127.182]

6 34 ms 29 ms 29 ms 87.117.212.42
7 29 ms 28 ms 29 ms 78.129.244.229

Trace complete.

Turned the wireless back on:

Tracing route to 78.129.244.229 over a maximum of 30 hops

1 1 ms <1 ms <1 ms 192.168.0.1
2 * * * Request timed out.
3 969 ms 974 ms 982 ms xxxxxxxx.bb.sky.com [x]
4 1018 ms 868 ms 750 ms te3-4.core1.hex.as20860.net [195.66.236.207]
5 958 ms 981 ms 979 ms 610.net2.north.dc5.as20860.net [62.233.127.182]

6 1003 ms 1007 ms 1022 ms 87.117.212.42
7 1076 ms 1089 ms 1093 ms 78.129.244.229

Trace complete.

Turned the wireless back off:

Tracing route to 78.129.244.229 over a maximum of 30 hops

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms 192.168.0.1
2 * * * Request timed out.
3 34 ms 31 ms 30 ms xxxxxxxx.bb.sky.com [x]
4 28 ms 27 ms 29 ms te3-4.core1.hex.as20860.net [195.66.236.207]
5 28 ms 28 ms 28 ms 610.net2.north.dc5.as20860.net [62.233.127.182]

6 28 ms 28 ms 29 ms 87.117.212.42
7 28 ms 29 ms 29 ms 78.129.244.229

Trace complete.

So it's either the wireless, or a device connecting to the wireless!

 

[old.user4556]

@TdC @GReaper It's my missus' iPhone 5S.

Whenever it's connected to the wireless, it seems to either kill the ping or kill the router which then kills the ping. I got her to turn the wireless on and off and I could replicate the huge ping whenever her phone was connected - as soon as she turned off the wireless on her phone, the ping went back to normal.

 

[old.user4556]

FUCKING APPLE CUNT NUGGETS

http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r28698171-iPhone-devices-causing-high-ping-on-connection

https://discussions.apple.com/message/24960117#24960117

 

[soze]

If she leaves her phone on charge try looking at iCloud. Mine does it over night as that's when I charge it.

 

[old.user4556]

Aye, she had it on the charger in the living room - I'll try that next.

 

[BloodOmen]

Lol

how I envision @Big G right now

 

[Raven]

Lesson leant. don't buy apple.

 

[old.user4556]

Lesson leant. don't buy apple.

I fucking told her, but she had to have the "shiny white one".

 

[soze]

That sounds so fucking ignorant. I have a Apple and it has never caused me a problem. The exact same thing can happen with any number of apps on an Android.

I love my iPhone and every time someone says anything negative you get the same shit it is rage enducing, pick a real reason that is not fan boy bullshit to hate the device. And not having cunty widgets is not a reason to hate a device.

 

[old.user4556]

u mad bro?

 

[soze]

Sometimes I am. I get stick for it at work even from fucker with a BlackBerry. And it is never ever a good reason. Just "Never buy Apple because they are shit" tell me why they are shit you cunt nugget.

 

[Raven]

I was joking. I couldn't give a crap either way.

My wife has an apple, yeah its fucking awful but at least apple allow her play candy crush on it so it suits her.

 

[old.user4556]

I'm amazed at how this thread has deteriorated into something that Aada would be proud of.

 

[soze]

It has not deteriorated I have had a rant while we wait for feedback. Was it iCloud in the end?

 

[Ch3tan]

Soze is to Apple what bodhi is to Sony.

 

[soze]

Soze is to Apple what bodhi is to Sony.

I am not that bad you cheeky fucker. I don't ever show up and tell you that you should be buying Apple and I don't defend them when they do something shit. But I do get pissed off with the "that's what you get for buying Apple" bs even if it was a joke in this case.

 

[GReaper]

What router(s) are you using?

Sadly this has been an ongoing problem for the past 10 years or so - bad advice and dumb routers with excessive buffers cause huge problems if you saturate their upload bandwidth. Instead of dropping packets they decide to buffer them for hundreds of milliseconds - absolutely deadly when you want responsiveness from your broadband connection.

TCP connections need packet loss so they know when to scale back and slow down their transfer speed. Without this they'll just keep on uploading at the same speed, saturating your connection.

Personally I use my old BE box (TG585v7) for my ADSL connection, bridged to a Netgear WNDR3700 running OpenWRT which can do the traffic shaping. Set upload/download speeds to 80% of the connection speed, and everything remains responsive even when uploading at full speed.

 

[old.user4556]

It's the standard Sky router which is probably a PoS.

I think i'll need to invest in something more sophisticated because she's be moaning about my 300GB Google Drive upload (which is an ongoing task) killing the internet. I can only do it at night.

 

[soze]

I dropped the Sky one which was garbage and I use a Draytek 2830 now which has some great features and controls. It has QoS and lets me change the NAT on incoming routes (beats exposing 3389 to the outside world)

 

[old.user4556]

Will that allow me to do the necessary with upload traffic to prevent ping meltdowns?

 

[soze]

I am not sure as I have never had the problem. But I think my old 2820 is still under my bed. If you want to pay the postage I can send it to you on a sale return basis for you to try it out. Take a look on their website but they are very feature rich.

 

[soze]

OK so I have it but it only has two of the 3 antennas and I cant find the power supply (£9) on eBay but the offer is there.

 

[TdC]

At workies we once conviced someone Apple's TCP implementation had an extra bit to tell upstream devices it was an Apple to get priority, and the reason his internets were slow was because we only had regular Cisco networks and the 33rd bit was being dropped. he wrote an email to the networking manager demanding Apple-Friendly networks to be implemented. Much fun was had that day. I think I actually got the idea off of here tbh.