Terrible lag which no-one can explain ruining game for me

[Svartmetall]

In the last week or so, I have been having repeated occurrences of the middle part of my lag meter being yellow or (more often) red ALL the damn time in-game, making it totally unplayable.

My system is completely virus-free. The only application running is my ZoneAlarm firewall (which I've had running for like a year with no problems at all, so it's not that). I have checked CPU usage and processes etc, all optimal. I haven't changed one single setting on my system. NTL have check out my connection and say it's OK, yet I'm getting this fucking terrible lag so often half the time now when I try to play DAOC I have to log out really angry since this stupid, inexplicable lag is making it unplayable (just had to do it now).

Anyone got any ideas? Done a tracert multiple times to the Excal IP and that came out clean as well.

 

[sibanac]

you might want to run this while playing http://www.pingplotter.com/index.html
since a normal traceroute is just a snapshot of your connection.
if the problem is not constant chances are you are going to miss it just doing a traceroute

 

[Svartmetall]

Seems to happen when I group with people..? WTF is going on? This is making the game unplayable and there is NO reason for it

 

[Archeon]

I've been getting somthing similar over the past 2-3 days, but I checked and its just my ISP doing somthing screwy (again ) - Dunno if that might be the problem, but its worth checking.

 

[Svartmetall]

OK so I ran Pingplotter to the Excal IP and sometimes every step on the way is solid red sometimes they're all green, sometimes a mixture, seems to vary randomly. I don't really know how to interpret what it's telling me though.

I have NO applications running apart from my firewall.
I have NO processes running that shouldn't be there.
I have NOTHING in my start menu apart from my firewall.

I haven't changed ONE single setting on anything but ATM the game is almost completely unplayable once this damn lag kicks in. There seems to be NO reason for it yet it's ruining things for me.

 

[jnh]

thats telling you to ring your ISP and bitch at them about serious packet loss. let them no how you are routed and ask if you can be routed differently (some will do this for you). it may also be a temp thing, but most ISPs will not admit stuff like that unless you ask, then they will tell you about the "maintenance that actually went wrong and will be fixed on ____"

 

[Svartmetall]

First thing I thought of, actually. Went through this with the ISP on Saturday and after an hour they couldn't find anything wrong with my connection.

I'm still getting it right now. For no apparent reason the whole connection just gets painfully slow and laggy, I see it on websites too now I'm thinking to look for it.

I have GOT to get this sorted and fast, it's making DAOC totally unplayable and it's massively frustrating when there's NO apparent reason for it yet the effects are so overwhelming and so constant.

 

[Gahn]

Sasser?

First thing I thought of, actually. Went through this with the ISP on Saturday and after an hour they couldn't find anything wrong with my connection.

I'm still getting it right now. For no apparent reason the whole connection just gets painfully slow and laggy, I see it on websites too now I'm thinking to look for it.

I have GOT to get this sorted and fast, it's making DAOC totally unplayable and it's massively frustrating when there's NO apparent reason for it yet the effects are so overwhelming and so constant.

Check this :

Sasser

U never know

 

[jnh]

and this to remove it (symantec removal tool) if that comes up clean check with your isp again, tell them which IP addresses are causing the problems (according to ping plotter) and see if they can varify the problems, or just give you a new route...

 

[Svartmetall]

Check this :

Sasser

U never know

No it's not that either, checked for it plus I always keep XP Pro patched solidly.

 

[Svartmetall]

and this to remove it (symantec removal tool) if that comes up clean check with your isp again, tell them which IP addresses are causing the problems (according to ping plotter) and see if they can varify the problems, or just give you a new route...

It's weird, when I check the Excal IP with PP, sometimes ALL the hops including the first IP (which I assume is my own IP) are red, sometimes they're all green. Makes no sense.

 

[jnh]

if its including your own ip addres then it could be a problem with your modem.. are you on dial up or adsl? if adsl are you using a router/firewall or one of those usb modems? if you are using a router then try upgrading the firmware. otherwise try looking for new drivers, or simply delete the device and reinstall it from scratch. i had similar problems with my old dialup modem once or twice... for no reason it became really slow :\

 

[Sycho]

I had froze ups like you mentioned but it was the last bubble out of the 3, but i noticed it was my gfx card heating too much :E so i removed the case cover off and played without and it went Oo , now i got a new case to use, perhaps some parts of overheating like i had otherwise i am not sure :/

 

[Moriath]

you sure your pc isnt dl'ing something you dont know about .. you got steam running in the background for instance .. or some spyware thing .. or even the ms updater stealing your bandwidth ... seems like its something like that or a dying modem /router not handling packets properly.

 

[Svartmetall]

you sure your pc isnt dl'ing something you dont know about .. you got steam running in the background for instance .. or some spyware thing .. or even the ms updater stealing your bandwidth ... seems like its something like that or a dying modem /router not handling packets properly.

Pretty sure it's not malware. Fire up task Manager and there's nothing except ZoneAlarm showing in Applications and nothing dodgy showing in Processes. Did an online virus scan a couple of days ago and nothing was found. I run Adaware every two days and nothing there. Only thing in my start menu is ZoneAlarm itself.

 

[Svartmetall]

if its including your own ip addres then it could be a problem with your modem.. are you on dial up or adsl? if adsl are you using a router/firewall or one of those usb modems? if you are using a router then try upgrading the firmware. otherwise try looking for new drivers, or simply delete the device and reinstall it from scratch. i had similar problems with my old dialup modem once or twice... for no reason it became really slow :\

Just rang NTL (it's NTL 600K cable) and we checked stuff; pings were really high when I called, we switched of everything except the modem and pings went right down. They said if the modem was faulty pings would have stayed high with just that switched on...the woman I spoke to there though it was likely something software-y on my PC, although I can't find any signs of stuff that shouldn't be there on my PC itself.

 

[Moriath]

try running spybot as well as adaware as adaware tends to miss things

 

[Fana]

You could also try to search for any .exe .ini and such that were exectuted/accessed/used around the time when the problem started. Ive found dodgy stuff that way. Also make sure you set windows to display *all* maps and files (including those it considers critical to the system which doesnt otherwise show) and then go through maps one by one to looks for odd stuff. Have also helped me in the past (discovered i ran a ftp-server on my comp this way ).
Look in printer maps and look for false RECYCLER maps as they are favourite places to hide stuff on a compromised computer.

 

[Balbor]

was this after patch Day?

 

[Svartmetall]

was this after patch Day?

Yes, but not immediately, almost a week by my count.

 

[Adari]

Restart, close your firewall and see if it works xD mine was limiting bandwidth and I had the same problem

 

[Svartmetall]

Nah it wasn't the firewall.

Thing is, it seems to have stopped now, I haven't had it for a week now. Nothing changed.

I'm still stumped...but at least I can enjoy playing again.

 

[Glumur]

Format your computer imo . best thing to do when teh comp is fucked up

 

[Chilly]

vould have been that worm, it was propogating itself through open ports on its own so could in theory use a fuck load of the bandwidth of an ISP (even they have bandwidth caps ) depending on wot time you play etc...good thing it ficed itself

 

[behatch]

I have GOT to get this sorted and fast, it's making DAOC totally unplayable and it's massively frustrating when there's NO apparent reason for it yet the effects are so overwhelming and so constant.

Lol..another case off DAOC owns my life.. sad tbh

 

[Daedalus]

Lol..another case off DAOC owns my life.. sad tbh

Lol..another case off FH-owns-my-life-lets-tell-others-how-DAoC-owns-their-life.. sad thb

(ps. we'd better be careful or we'll end up in an infinite loop)

 

[behatch]

Lol..another case off FH-owns-my-life-lets-tell-others-how-DAoC-owns-their-life.. sad thb

(ps. we'd better be careful or we'll end up in an infinite loop)

Yeah,because if FH wasnt here i would have nothing to do and getting really anoyed.

 

[Shu_ayala]

Well I've just read this thread and the first thing that comes to mind for me is you said it was NTL!!

NTHell.co.uk Forum

Try this website that has loads... and LOADS of stuff about NTL.

The biggest problem you will find is the fact that if you DO have a problem with your NTL connection NTL wont say you have and are very unlikely to fix it.

Most of the time its cuased by the UBR's that you connect to being over subscribed.

If you are certain that it isnt your computer that is at fault then resgiter on the forum and start wading into what it could be NTL-wise.... especially check for poeple who are also in your area as certain areas have terrible problems with ubr's...

PS on a side not which NTL connection are you on? 150k, 600k or 1024k? As I'm on the 1024k which has 256k upstream and havent had any issues with upto 6 poeple over that connection.