Suddenly getting extremely bad pings.

[Simulat]

Have been using @Home cable service for about 6 months. Always got pretty good pings while playing UT, was 100-150 (sometimes less) on most of the servers I played on. Built a new computer about two months ago and everything was going ok until about two weeks ago. All of a sudden I was getting pings of around 350-400 (sometimes as high a 1000) on the same servers I had been playing on. Can rarely find a server that has people on it with a ping of less than 300. Not uncommon to get pings in excess of 300 just pinging my gateway.

I assumed at first that the problem must be on their end. I talked to tech support and they were not even slightly helpful. However, I have a couple of friends who live in the same neighborhood using @Home who are suffering no ping problems. Beginning to wonder if something is wrong on my end but I have no idea what it would be.

Im using a Linksys USB network adapter. I was experiencing USB problems with my KT7A Raid. I switched my USB devices to that extra USB adapter that comes with the board and those seem to have been solved. Could I still have a USB problem causing the ping problems? My downloads arent any slower than they used to be and I did use the board with the same USB adapter fine for a month and a half.

Any guesses or theories? anything I can try? Already have had the various cable speed patches installed since I got the service 6 months ago. What could have caused the sudden drop?

Here are two sample traces to Grand Rapids, MI (Im in Madison, WI):

traceroute to 24.183.4.209 (24.183.4.209), 30 hops max, 40 byte packets
1 iserv-gw1.iserv.net (204.177.184.1) 0.532 ms 0.415 ms 0.395 ms
2 apr1-serial6-1-0-0.Chicagochd.cw.net (208.172.7.41) 13.478 ms 13.404 ms 13.403 ms
3 acr1-loopback.Chicagochd.cw.net (208.172.2.61) 13.95 ms 14.451 ms 14.985 ms
4 c2-pos6-0.chcgil1.home.net (24.7.70.153) 13.731 ms 13.955 ms 13.632 ms
5 c1-pos5-0.chcgil1.home.net (24.7.77.169) 18.098 ms 18.04 ms 68.733 ms
6 bb1-se4-0.mdsn1.wi.home.net (24.7.73.130) 101.05 ms 444.937 ms 227.732 ms
7 ubr1.mdsn1.wi.home.net (24.6.204.25) 127.326 ms 302.712 ms 191.793 ms
8 cb464492-a.mdsn1.wi.home.com (24.183.4.209) 596.023 ms 1253.27 ms *

1 iserv-gw1.iserv.net (204.177.184.1) 0.503 ms 0.391 ms 0.366 ms
2 apr1-serial6-1-0-0.Chicagochd.cw.net (208.172.7.41) 13.546 ms 13.333 ms 13.313 ms
3 acr1-loopback.Chicagochd.cw.net (208.172.2.61) 13.979 ms 14.907 ms 13.867 ms
4 c2-pos6-0.chcgil1.home.net (24.7.70.153) 13.741 ms 14.003 ms 13.729 ms
5 c1-pos5-0.chcgil1.home.net (24.7.77.169) 18.257 ms 18.468 ms 20.891 ms
6 bb1-se4-0.mdsn1.wi.home.net (24.7.73.130) 159.727 ms 289.862 ms 126.892 ms
7 ubr1.mdsn1.wi.home.net (24.6.204.25) 132.926 ms 132.756 ms 160.239 ms
8 cb464492-a.mdsn1.wi.home.com (24.183.4.209) 447.736 ms 269.175 ms 257.961 ms

Anyone help me interpret this? Looks like it hits the problem at 6.

 

[Methusela]

Well, I can't help you with your ping problem, but I can certainly give you some pointers on how to get @home off their a$$e$ if you wish. I haven't paid for their service to 3 computers here at home for the last 4 months because of problems incurred for about 3 months straight (jerkoffs).

PM me (these are pretty nasty tactics, but they'll get @home to notice you, so I don't really want to publish them :] )

 

[OCNewbie]

I'm here in the Orlando, FL area, and I'm having the same problem. I just recently got Time Warner RoadRunner, and I have severly high pings to my gateway, and first few hops within the RoadRunner network. I've seen pings as high as 2000ms to my first hop, but very often are in the 250-450 range. Though often late at night I get a fairly clean connection, still not up to what I would call "acceptable" though. I had this same service/ISP where I used to live like 5 miles away for almost a year, and never experienced these problems. I've been badgering them constantly for like 4 weeks now, and they've sent numerous "techs" out here, and they all say "everything's fine" but they do acknowledge my high ping problem. They have determined it's a problem with my node, and supposedly are fixing that now. So maybe that is your problem I dunno, is it like that 24/7? Have you tried pinging/tracerouting late at night? If it's ok at night, then it's very highly likely it's a network/node problem, which if so they should definitely promptly fix. Anyway, good luck, hope you get your problem resolved, as I'm still experiencing a very similar headache.

 

[Simulat]

It does improve very late at night (can basically only play UT after 2am or so), another indication its probably their problem.

Keep doing traces and am getting results like this:


1 iserv-gw1.iserv.net (204.177.184.1) 0.518 ms 0.394 ms 0.522 ms
2 apr1-serial6-1-0-0.Chicagochd.cw.net (208.172.7.41) 13.485 ms 130.494 ms 311.91 ms
3 acr1-loopback.Chicagochd.cw.net (208.172.2.61) 13.962 ms 13.959 ms 52.37 ms
4 c2-pos6-0.chcgil1.home.net (24.7.70.153) 14.853 ms 14.595 ms 62.771 ms
5 c1-pos5-0.chcgil1.home.net (24.7.77.169) 17.975 ms 18.128 ms 17.97 ms
6 bb1-se4-0.mdsn1.wi.home.net (24.7.73.130) 22.846 ms 22.584 ms 28.285 ms
7 ubr1.mdsn1.wi.home.net (24.6.204.25) 23.816 ms 22.6 ms 22.928 ms
8 cb464492-a.mdsn1.wi.home.com (24.183.4.209) 117.739 ms 77.342 ms 33.878 ms


Looks like from 7 to 8 (my computer) gets bad also. Would that mean it was a possible problem on my side?

 

[Methusela]

I'm going to bed so I'll reply to the PM tomorrow, Simulat.

But, I think that's just a crappy IP to ping, personally. Here's part of my trace:

4 20 ms 20 ms 20 ms c1-pos4-0.omahne1.home.net [24.7.64.145]
5 20 ms 20 ms 30 ms c1-pos1-0.desmia1.home.net [24.7.64.138]
6 20 ms 30 ms 30 ms c1-pos2-0.chcgil1.home.net [24.7.64.166]
7 20 ms 30 ms 31 ms c1-pos5-0.chcgil1.home.net [24.7.77.169]
8 30 ms 40 ms 40 ms bb1-se4-2.mdsn1.wi.home.net [24.7.74.226]
9 40 ms 30 ms 50 ms ubr1.mdsn1.wi.home.net [24.6.204.25]
10 270 ms 341 ms 290 ms cb464492-a.mdsn1.wi.home.com [24.183.4.209]