Latency Spikes for the past 2 weeks.

jbizzlemayne
jbizzlemayne Posts: 18 Participant
edited December 4 in Suggestions & Feedback

Hi. I've been having trouble with my internet for the past 2 weeks. I've been getting intermittent lag spikes, and it's becoming super frustrating to pinpoint and troubleshoot. Here is a visual representation of what is happening:

This is inconsistent. It can happen every 3 seconds or it can not happen for a few minutes. This can happen on New York, Miami or Texas servers (possibly more idk). Regular browsing is not really an issue, but when it comes to data streaming (gaming)- it's near impossible to even play. Multiple different games are "hanging" and I end up rubber-banding constantly among other wacky stuff.

Techs were called out to my house yesterday and they replaced "everything". All cables running to the house from the pole and even across the street. The tech mentioned something about "people having issues out this way".. whatever that means. Besides that, this is happening on Valve servers in Virginia, Luxembourg, Washington and Los Angeles. As well on a game called Path of Exile on their Washington DC and Texas servers. Also happens with testing on latency websites (see visualization).

All hardware has been replaced (including modem/router) and all settings reset on computer, driver updates etc. etc.

I can't use the internet service at all besides some random reddit scrolling and it's driving me nuts. Any help with this would be greatly appreciated.

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Comments

  • jbizzlemayne
    jbizzlemayne Posts: 18 Participant
    edited November 15

    Here's a WinMTR test to a server that I usually connect to:


    Tracert to the same server:

    https://pastebin.com/pBLbKJKx

  • William_M
    William_M Posts: 882 ✅ Verified Employee Moderator

    Hi @jbizzlemayne, welcome to our community.

    The traceroute looks fine but it can be hard to catch an intermittent issue with such a short test. The WinMTR runs it 30 times over and does look like it may have caught 7-8% packet loss starting just a few hops down.

    Are you seeing the ping spikes or dropped packets if you run a continuous ping? On a Windows Computer you can use "Ping -t 8.8.8.8" in your command prompt. The -t will make it run continuously until you Ctrl+C to end it for final results. Will you open two command prompts and ping 8.8.8.8 and another IP to see if they drop at the same time? Do you have another device you can test to see if it drops/spikes at the same time?

  • jbizzlemayne
    jbizzlemayne Posts: 18 Participant

    Hi. Thanks for the reply. I only have a laptop to try it out on besides my desktop. It may not provide solid comparison, but show some kind of pattern.

    Here is desktop 8.8.8.8: https://pastebin.com/m1HKYNju

    Desktop Game Server: https://pastebin.com/7tGAJENZ

    Laptop 8.8.8.8: https://pastebin.com/wGKLQCEF

    Laptop Game Server: https://pastebin.com/NhBAQjem

    Also, here is a 30 min Pingplotter test i did a few hours ago:


  • jbizzlemayne
    jbizzlemayne Posts: 18 Participant

    Unable to use the internet. Someone please help. Going crazy here. :)

  • James_M
    James_M Posts: 4,386 ✅ Verified Employee Moderator

    Your modem is online and signals are good. Are you having trouble with one website or all?

  • jbizzlemayne
    jbizzlemayne Posts: 18 Participant

    I'm having trouble with all websites. It's barely noticeable unless I'm consistently pulling data (videos, gaming, etc.). It's causing massive latency spikes specifically in games, regardless of server, as well as youtube and twitch. Random spikes every 3 seconds or so.

  • jbizzlemayne
    jbizzlemayne Posts: 18 Participant
    edited November 16

    These random jumps to 300-500 ping that you can see in my ping test, are happening a lot more underload and are rendering me unable to do the only thing I have this service for. It's super frustrating.

  • James_M
    James_M Posts: 4,386 ✅ Verified Employee Moderator
    edited November 16

    Looks like you called in and scheduled a service call. If the issue continues after the tech visit, please let us know.

  • jbizzlemayne
    jbizzlemayne Posts: 18 Participant

    Still having issues.

  • James_M
    James_M Posts: 4,386 ✅ Verified Employee Moderator

    From the tracerts you provided, I am only seeing a potential issue on hop 12 at IP 169.55.118.207, which is occurring on an address based in Amsterdam and is off the Spectrum / Charter network. We are only able to investigate or troubleshoot issues occurring on our network. Are you able to demonstrate an issue occurring on the Spectrum / Charter network?


  • jbizzlemayne
    jbizzlemayne Posts: 18 Participant

    I traced my own IP:

    https://pastebin.com/UD7qyPN8

    If you have an IP that would be better, let me know.

  • jbizzlemayne
    jbizzlemayne Posts: 18 Participant

    WinMTR my IP:

    I'll do a longer one in the morning.

  • William_M
    William_M Posts: 882 ✅ Verified Employee Moderator

    Thanks for the tests @jbizzlemayne.

    I'm not so sure there is an issue on hop 12, I see it back down to 26ms on hop 13 and traceroutes can provide unreliable data for intermittent issues like this. Let's stick with pinging 8.8.8.8 and the game server. Since it is happening to both IPs and desktop/laptop we can rule out server or device issues. Can you bypass your router by connecting just the desktop or laptop directly to the modem, reboot the modem to restore internet, and then run another ping test? This can rule out any issue with the router or other devices on the network causing problems. Please also run a few speed tests to make sure you getting your full speed consistently.

  • jbizzlemayne
    jbizzlemayne Posts: 18 Participant

    Hi. Thanks for the response. My router is a 2 in 1 combo. Performed reset. Yes I'm getting consistently good speeds.

    8.8.8.8 & 169.55.97.187

    https://pastebin.com/38diV75C

  • jbizzlemayne
    jbizzlemayne Posts: 18 Participant

    So the technician came by earlier and while checking some stuff we saw maintenance out working on a node. Some issues with signals in my area apparently. He's gone now and my packet is roughly the same with latency spikes being twice as high.

    https://pastebin.com/ncbZHT8m

  • jbizzlemayne
    jbizzlemayne Posts: 18 Participant

    About 45 min or so of just pinging:

    https://pastebin.com/AVGfBhna

    It's showing the more frequent in-between spikes a bit better (100-300ms). Pinging is still not showing the severity underload. Variance is tremendously higher when uploading gets involved (online gaming).

  • jbizzlemayne
    jbizzlemayne Posts: 18 Participant

    Just finished a clean install of Windows. No change to issue:

    https://pastebin.com/Myun52SZ

  • jbizzlemayne
    jbizzlemayne Posts: 18 Participant

    Nah I live in North Carolina. That's interesting because when my issues started (2 weeks ago), I believe the power company, or maybe it was Spectrum idk, was out running additional lines on the whole street. What kind of maintenance happened near you?

  • jbizzlemayne
    jbizzlemayne Posts: 18 Participant

    My up and down is within the range of my plan. I can use the internet. I can't play games. Latency and packet loss is my issue. Doesn't matter what server.

  • jbizzlemayne
    jbizzlemayne Posts: 18 Participant

    ??????

    Problem is getting worse.

  • jbizzlemayne
    jbizzlemayne Posts: 18 Participant

    @Itzp1nky what kind of router do you have?

  • jbizzlemayne
    jbizzlemayne Posts: 18 Participant

    A distinctive lack of an upstream channel:



    Issues with upload connecting to any server:


    1. |------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
    2.  
    3. | WinMTR statistics |
    4.  
    5. | Host - % | Sent | Recv | Best | Avrg | Wrst | Last |
    6.  
    7. |------------------------------------------------|------|------|------|------|------|------|
    8.  
    9. | 192.168.0.1 - 0 | 1218 | 1218 | 0 | 0 | 6 | 0 |
    10.  
    11. | cpe-69-132-48-1.carolina.res.rr.com - 5 | 1047 | 1002 | 7 | 21 | 533 | 11 |
    12.  
    13. |________________________________________________|______|______|______|______|______|______|
    14.  
    15. WinMTR v0.92 GPL V2 by Appnor MSP - Fully Managed Hosting & Cloud Provider


    Coinciding with the time Spectrum deploys high split coax/fiber on your mainline.


    Looks like Spectrum nuked everyone on docsis 3.0 and providing faulty Intel chips with their provided routers exacerbates the issue. No one knowing what the hell they are talking about, issues with troubleshooting due to faulty chipsets, and technicians equipment unable to diagnose an issue in tandem with older tech. There's a lot to learn here but it's probably going to fall on deaf ears seeing as how the chain of command works with these things.

    Good news is I got a new router and a whole brand new computer worth of parts between today and tomorrow. If this issue persists after that - I am not going to be a composed, understanding or patient individual.