Ok, here is my problem. I play online games alot and here a couple months ago I started to get intermittent lag while playing. While im playing counter-strike, about every 30 seconds to 2 minutes the screen and sound get choppy. When this happens I can hit my tab key which will show my ping time to the server as well as everyone elses. When doing this my ping will jump from a consistant ping (normally 40-90ms, depending on server) to 200-500ms. I should mention when I get these spikes and I check the ping time from in game its just my ping time that spikes, so its not lag to the server itself. I have tried many times pinging random servers on the internet, not just game servers. When doing the following from my command prompt (heres and example) "ping -n 30 sprint.com" I will get something like this "time=79, 76, 80, 77, 76, 76, 307, 399, 300, 199, 78, 75, 78". Everything will be stable/consistant and then whaaaaM it skyrockets..... I have also done many tracert's to random servers and I get the same kind of results and the spikes are not always at the same hop. Say I do 3 seperarte tracert's to sprint.com, sometimes I get spikes, sometimes I dont.... and when I do get the spikes there not always at the same hop.... My Isp is a small local cable company that just got into this bussiness. When I first signed up they only had one provider, at&t. Things started to get slow and when I asked them about the speed problems they told me they were overloaded and waiting on a T1 from sprint. The reason I mention this is because one time while on the phone with them they asked me If It was around the time they became multihomed(added a T1 from sprint)...... I think it was, but im not totaly sure it was when this started happening! Just thought I would add that bit of info.... My thought is its packet loss and im getting the spikes do to retransmissions.... I've done some packetloss testing from dslreports.com and on occasion get 2% loss but usually no loss at all until the last hop(this is me correct?) then I get 100% loss and the following message at the bottom of the page "Please verify the IP address you wish to test, can actually be pinged!" My setup is as follows, 2 winxp pro machines networked via linksys 4 port cable/dsl router which receives internet through a motorola sb5100 cable modem. Things I've done since the problem started, replaced the router with a wireless linksys router(for my sister who lives across the street to have access to our lan for filesharing, the 2 xp machines are still wired)
also replaced the network cables in this process of relocating the wireless unit.... and I have replaced my old sb4200 modem with the current sb5200 i mentioned above. I have also reformatted/reinstalled xp 2 times since the problem occured. I didn't replace the network card as I get the same results from the other xp machine.... I should also note that the cable they( the isp) ran when setting me up comes off the pole outside to a new 2way splitter they installed. Off that splitter a cable runs to my cable modem, the other side of the splitter is run to another 2way splitter that the tv's are on. Also on the end of the cable that screws onto my cable modem is a 6db antenuator, I've tried removing this with the same results, I've also tried unhooking everything outside so the only think hooked up to the line off the pole was the cable modem, same results! Here are some readings from the signal page off the cable modem. Downstream frequency 471000000 hz locked, signal to noise ratio 35dB, power level 7dB. Upstream frequency 29000000hz ranged, channel id 9, power level 51 dbmV. Here are the only 6 lines I have in the log section of my cable modem, I mentioned this to My Isp and she told me she had no idea what they ment.....
1970-01-01 00:00:48 3-Critical 0x0501BE90 SYNC Timing Synchronization failure - Failed to receive MAC SYNC frame within time-out period
1970-01-01 00:00:45 3-Critical 0x0501BD64 SYNC Timing Synchronization failure - Failed to acquire QAM/QPSK symbol timing
1970-01-01 00:00:54 3-Critical 0x04E33948 No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out
1970-01-01 00:00:00 3-Critical 0x040D9A2C DHCP WARNING - Non-critical field invalid in response.
1970-01-09 07:59:59 5-Warning 0x040DC13C DHCP RENEW WARNING - Field invalid in response
1970-01-03 19:07:21 3-Critical 0x04E33A74 Started Unicast Maintenance Ranging - No Response received - T3 time-out
I only have 125 points to give for this right now as Im new here.... If you can/will help me it is GREATLY APPRECIATED!!!!
by: Mrclean0325Posted on 2003-06-30 at 08:56:01ID: 8828535
This is a problem that you may not get a solution to. Your modem readings look fine. The errors are from an attempt to get an IP address from the cable system, since you are on and obviously have an IP address -- it is not an issue. Ping times on cable will vary with node traffic and traffic through the system to the "pipe" out of the system to the 'net. DSL has the advantage over cable in that your ping times will not vary since you are a node unto yourself. In cable, you share the bandwidth with everyone on your node. In DSL, you don't. Cable has a greater speed for the money, but, for gamers; DSL may be your solution. If DSL is not available in your area, you may be out of luck until your cable company improves its system. A T1 will not really get it if they have a lot of subscribers. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. :(