Program to constantly monitor cable internet uptime?

[deadseasquirrel]

My son plays an online game and claims that he continually gets logged out, especially at the most inopportune times. If he is in the middle of a battle and gets logged out, his character freezes up, and just takes damage until dead.

I work most of the day and can't say I notice any downtime when I use the network at night, but I admit that I don't do any online gaming, so it's tough to compare. I can say that I spend a lot of time on the internet, so if there is downtime, it must be a very quick loss of connection, which would be enough for him to get knocked out.

Is there a program that I can constantly run in the background to monitor uptime? If it just pings every 3 minutes or whatever, that probably won't help, since this is likely something that is a quick flapping or something.

I am using Time Warner Roadrunner (5meg down) with a Linksys WRT54G router, using firmware 2.02.7. Just did a quick ping from inside my Linksys:

PING www.yahoo-ht3.akadns.net (209.191.93.52): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 209.191.93.52: icmp_seq=1 ttl=247 time=15.3 ms
64 bytes from 209.191.93.52: icmp_seq=3 ttl=246 time=14.9 ms
64 bytes from 209.191.93.52: icmp_seq=4 ttl=246 time=14.1 ms
--- www.yahoo-ht3.akadns.net ping statistics ---
5 packets transmitted, 3 packets received, 40% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max = 14.1/14.7/15.3 ms

I don't like seeing any packet loss. Any ideas? I'll try any settings or firmware upgrades that may help. I'll be mostly relying on his gaming experience as to whether it is helping or not. He claims that others playing don't get knocked off, and that it happens no matter which of the 3 computers he uses. It could very well be the game servers, but, again, he claims his buddies don't have the same issues.

Thanks in advance!

 

[kevnich2]

A few things to try: First, try hooking your computer directly to your cable modem and test it. If everything goes ok and no packet loss, it's your router. If that is the case, what version is your WRT54G (look at the bottom), then look at possibly upgrading to to DDWRT firmware. IMO, linksys firmware is horrible. If that doesn't work, replace your router with either a Zyxel router or a buffalo router (my personal preference).

 

[p0lar]

Originally posted by: deadseasquirrel
My son plays an online game and claims that he continually gets logged out, especially at the most inopportune times. If he is in the middle of a battle and gets logged out, his character freezes up, and just takes damage until dead.

I work most of the day and can't say I notice any downtime when I use the network at night, but I admit that I don't do any online gaming, so it's tough to compare. I can say that I spend a lot of time on the internet, so if there is downtime, it must be a very quick loss of connection, which would be enough for him to get knocked out.

Is there a program that I can constantly run in the background to monitor uptime? If it just pings every 3 minutes or whatever, that probably won't help, since this is likely something that is a quick flapping or something.

I am using Time Warner Roadrunner (5meg down) with a Linksys WRT54G router, using firmware 2.02.7. Just did a quick ping from inside my Linksys:

PING www.yahoo-ht3.akadns.net (209.191.93.52): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 209.191.93.52: icmp_seq=1 ttl=247 time=15.3 ms
64 bytes from 209.191.93.52: icmp_seq=3 ttl=246 time=14.9 ms
64 bytes from 209.191.93.52: icmp_seq=4 ttl=246 time=14.1 ms
--- www.yahoo-ht3.akadns.net ping statistics ---
5 packets transmitted, 3 packets received, 40% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max = 14.1/14.7/15.3 ms

I don't like seeing any packet loss. Any ideas? I'll try any settings or firmware upgrades that may help. I'll be mostly relying on his gaming experience as to whether it is helping or not. He claims that others playing don't get knocked off, and that it happens no matter which of the 3 computers he uses. It could very well be the game servers, but, again, he claims his buddies don't have the same issues.

Thanks in advance!

Are there any splits in your line prior to your cable modem? Self-crimped connectors? Extraneous line amplifiers? Externally exposed connectors in high moisture environments? Have you called TW support and sat on the phone for a few hours (ouch) to make them initiate a signal integrity test to your cable modem? What about connecting the computer directly to the cable modem, does the problem persist?

 

[deadseasquirrel]

I plugged in directly to the cable modem and the problem persisted. Ping results continued to be sporadic, with 75%+ packet loss. To me, this narrowed down the problem to either my physical connection or the modem itself. So I called TWC and went through the process of the tier1 support, then they floated me to tier2 who did some testing to the box and saw a lot of packet loss. He told me to exchange my modem.

I just got back, swapped it out, and I *already* notice a difference. Further testing is needed, but Pings are already showing no packet loss where there was 75% just an hour ago with the old modem.