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Is PING Request Timed Out from ISP normal when doing video conference or cloud backup?

jsstanley
jsstanley asked
on
Internet becomes unusable for all other purposes when running cloud backup.  Cloud backups are very slow.


Before starting a backup to the cloud I start three pings in different command windows on my workstation.

//COMCAST DNS
PING 75.75.75.75 -n 1000  

//GOOGLE
PING 8.8.8.8 -n 1000


//My Gateway before Modem
PING 10.0.0.1 -n 1000


Internal pings come back in about 10ms with 0% loss.

Pings to the external IPs have 0% loss.

Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=28ms TTL=53
Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=24ms TTL=53
Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=20ms TTL=53
Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=27ms TTL=53
Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=22ms TTL=53

I launch the Cloud backup solution.  My internal pings remain constant.  All external pings begin to look like this.

Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=23ms TTL=53
Request timed out.
Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=223ms TTL=53
Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=208ms TTL=53
Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=224ms TTL=53
Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=188ms TTL=53
Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=213ms TTL=53
Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=248ms TTL=53
Request timed out.
Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=244ms TTL=53
Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=248ms TTL=53
Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=239ms TTL=53
Request timed out.
Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=150ms TTL=53
Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=247ms TTL=53
Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=241ms TTL=53
Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=224ms TTL=53
Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=240ms TTL=53
Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=208ms TTL=53
Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=262ms TTL=53
Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=256ms TTL=53
Request timed out.
Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=234ms TTL=53
Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=240ms TTL=53
Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=236ms TTL=53
Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=204ms TTL=53
Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=192ms TTL=53


Conducting the same test with a workstation connected outside our network into the cable modem creates similar Request Timed Out.

Are the "Request timed out" responses an indication of a Comcast network issue or is this normal?

Is the climbing ping response time normal?
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Principal Software Engineer
Commented:
Unlike TCP/IP, ping uses UDP datagrams which are not guaranteed to be delivered.  In a busy situation such as yours, where the system is shipping data across the network link as fast as it can go, ... no, I wouldn't find dropping pings at all unusual.

I'd expect response time to go into the dumpster under those conditions.  The system is busier than a cub bear with a handful of shelled corn shipping the backup across the network (with consequent high overhead) instead out to a local disk drive (with little overhead.)

One could enable QoS and mark the system doing backups as low priority.  This might improve the situation for other systems on the network, but it would degrade all the time it for the one doing the backup unless the QoS parameters were switched before and after the backup.
nociSoftware Engineer
Distinguished Expert 2019

Commented:

It's not unusual. It does mean the bandwidth is completely used (either network bandwidth, or CPU Bandwidth / Memory space bandwidth in the router).

skullnobrains

Commented:
it can mean the router is dying from splitting/recombining packets which would suggest mismatched MTUs in the above latter case
jsstanley

Author

Commented:
Thanks guys I really appreciate the clarity.