Hi all, I'm looking for a way to troubleshoot my cable connection, for the
most part cable has been great, with the very frustrating exception of
multiplayer games......cable has allowed very fast downloads, and uploads as
well compared to my old dialup, and generally excellent pings to servers,
but since the summer or so, I have been disco'ing out of races with
regularity, including my twice a week N4 league races........10 week series
x twice a week I probably completed 3 races without a disco, GPL thru vroc
is the same, just random incidents of packet loss where the quality meter
slowly raises to the dreaded disco......Thankfully, the racing in between
the discos is good, as I normally enjoy a fairly solid, warp free racing
environment otherwise. I also experience "interruptions" during web browsing
and mail stuff, but it's hard to distinguish that from normal web
traffic,and as it's for short periods of time I hardly mind.
The cable co. is Cablevision from Long Island, NY (Optimum Online) and
their tech folks had me bypass my router to be pingable and said they showed
excellent ping to me, and I agreed, (they did not hassle me about the
router, aside from mentioning that I'd need to connect direct for their
test) and explained the problem was random and probably would not happen
precisely when they ping me. Their suggestion's were to try reinstalling
nic, game, and generally acted like it was impossible that it could be their
network since I could browse/email/upload/download at will. So.......
Is there a program that will monitor your connection to a server,
similar to tracert or Neo Trace( I tried the trial version), and log the
hops/times/throughput that I could run alongside N4? I'd like some better
info than I've got, and since my 2 year cable contract is coming up soon,
I'd like to know if I should go ISP shopping, I do love the speed of cable
for all-around net usage, but the game performance is killin' me. If I were
to choose dsl or isdn would I be able to use the same network card? And yes
I realize that there is never any guarantee of a fault free 'net, but my
first year of cable was sooo good that I miss the way it was, and want it
back.And, new season's starting soon at the league......
Thanks for any ideas, Ed
--
Ed White [email hidden]
"Sideways, Slideways, and Every Other Ways" DW on Fox, 2001
Ed...
Sounds like you have a "bad router" in your "hops" route to your favorite
"racing" server. That's not necessarily your cable company's
problem....unless its one of their internal routers. If this turns out to
be the case, perhaps that router can be replaced (by the vendor)....or maybe
its even possible for you to be assigned to a different cable node....that
won't go that route to your league racing server (that's a remote chance).
But, you should check out your own system first....just to make sure. The
best way to do that is to go to DSL Reports (or some of the other similar
"quality" Internet check sites.....and run both the download/upload line
test and the system configuration test/check. DSL Reports link is:
http://www.dslreports.com/tools
You are also going to want to check your "MTU" and your "RWIN" settings on
your computer. There's a program at DSL Reports to help you do that (if you
don't know how). I had something of a similar problem back two years
ago....and it virtually disappeared when I reset my MTU to 1500 and the RWIN
to 65535.....but this may not be your problem and/or this may not fix the
problem you do have.
Regarding "line monitoring" you have a couple choices that I know about -
perhaps others will makes some posts with some alternatives? DSL Reports
has a 24x7 Line Monitoring service listed on the same web page the "tools"
are on (above). I have not used it....so you will need to check it out
(there may be a charge for this, I'm not sure). The other alternative is to
use a ping utility something like Ping Plotter. I have used Ping Plotter
for over five years (and have grown up through all the versions.....starting
way back when I had a 28.8k dialup modem to race with on TEN). The URL for
Ping Plotter is: http://www.nessoft.com/pingplotter/
There's shareware and freeware versions of Ping Plotter.....its not a lot of
money so I would buy the full version if I was concerned about online
gaming....which all of us are (besides, Pete Ness is a good guy and could
use the money....lol...). I think you'll find that a lot of sim racers use
Ping Plotter......but, there's other software around that probably can do
the trick too. Hopefully a few answers to your post will give you some
alternatives too.
There's a very good article (basic laymen terms) about using Ping Plotter
type software (or MS "trace route") to troubleshoot your ISP connections and
service at: http://www.speedcorp.net/guides/traceroute/
If nothing else, this will bone you up on the "lingo" and operations of the
Internet connections, the software and "how it works" stuff.....always good
to know if you get into a battle with your ISP (who usually tries to feed
you BS...until you demonstrate more knowledge than they have on the
topic....lol...).
You probably "hit the nail on the head" right off....its a bad router
somewhere in the path you normally take to your favorite race server(s).
Sometimes, these can go un-noticed for months and months....until someone
proves the router is dysfunctioning. Often, they become dysfunctional only
under load....and that can vary during the day with I-traffic capacity on
the route.....as I'm sure you know.
Good luck...it sounds like this is becoming enough of a problem for your
online racing that all this work to "trace the problem" is going to be worth
it.
Don't hesitate to send me an email if you have any other questions. But to
tell you the truth, I'm not all that knowledgeable on the subject.......and
what I've told you here is pretty much 100% of my knowledge base on the
topic.....pretty much surface stuff as it is. Perhaps some of the
"wiz-kids" on Internet connections that read r.a.s. can fill in some of the
missing pieces for you?
Regards,
Tom Pabst
"Ed White" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:bM9X7.229723$[email hidden]...
> Hi all, I'm looking for a way to troubleshoot my cable connection, for the
> most part cable has been great, with the very frustrating exception of
> multiplayer games......cable has allowed very fast downloads, and uploadsas
> well compared to my old dialup, and generally excellent pings to servers,
> but since the summer or so, I have been disco'ing out of races with
> regularity, including my twice a week N4 league races........10 weekseries
> x twice a week I probably completed 3 races without a disco, GPL thru vroc
> is the same, just random incidents of packet loss where the quality meter
> slowly raises to the dreaded disco......Thankfully, the racing in between
> the discos is good, as I normally enjoy a fairly solid, warp free racing
> environment otherwise. I also experience "interruptions" during webbrowsing
> and mail stuff, but it's hard to distinguish that from normal web
> traffic,and as it's for short periods of time I hardly mind.
> The cable co. is Cablevision from Long Island, NY (Optimum Online) and
> their tech folks had me bypass my router to be pingable and said theyshowed
> excellent ping to me, and I agreed, (they did not hassle me about the
> router, aside from mentioning that I'd need to connect direct for their
> test) and explained the problem was random and probably would not happen
> precisely when they ping me. Their suggestion's were to try reinstalling
> nic, game, and generally acted like it was impossible that it could betheir
were
> to choose dsl or isdn would I be able to use the same network card? Andyes
Quoted text (7 lines)
> network since I could browse/email/upload/download at will. So....... > Is there a program that will monitor your connection to a server, > similar to tracert or Neo Trace( I tried the trial version), and log the > hops/times/throughput that I could run alongside N4? I'd like some better > info than I've got, and since my 2 year cable contract is coming up soon, > I'd like to know if I should go ISP shopping, I do love the speed of cable > for all-around net usage, but the game performance is killin' me. If IQuoted text (11 lines)
> I realize that there is never any guarantee of a fault free 'net, but my > first year of cable was sooo good that I miss the way it was, and want it > back.And, new season's starting soon at the league...... > Thanks for any ideas, Ed > > > -- > Ed White [email hidden] > "Sideways, Slideways, and Every Other Ways" DW on Fox, 2001 > >"Ed White" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:bM9X7.229723$[email hidden]...
> Hi all, I'm looking for a way to troubleshoot my cable connection, for the
> most part cable has been great, with the very frustrating exception of
> multiplayer games......cable has allowed very fast downloads, and uploadsas
> well compared to my old dialup, and generally excellent pings to servers,
> but since the summer or so, I have been disco'ing out of races with
> regularity, including my twice a week N4 league races........10 weekseries
> x twice a week I probably completed 3 races without a disco, GPL thru vroc
> is the same, just random incidents of packet loss where the quality meter
> slowly raises to the dreaded disco......Thankfully, the racing in between
> the discos is good, as I normally enjoy a fairly solid, warp free racing
> environment otherwise. I also experience "interruptions" during webbrowsing
> and mail stuff, but it's hard to distinguish that from normal web
> traffic,and as it's for short periods of time I hardly mind.
> .........
I had exactly the same problem, only it was from the first day. What I did
to diagnose was first see what was the first ip address in routes to the
internet using tracert in dos, then run pingplotter to plot the times to
that node. This will measure the pings across the cable and nothing else. In
my case it showed execellent pings overall, in the order of 4ms, but at
times excesses of 1-3 seconds. Those are enough to disco from a race server,
but normal internet use would only experience a small pause. A bit later I
found out that at the time of the high pings, my modem's sync led went off;
and it came back on by itself. The cable co sent out a technician to try and
repair it, but that did not help. So I used cable for normal internet and
used to dialin for online races. I have adsl now for 6 months and that works
great.
The cause for the loss of sync was either in cable quality (outside my
house) or in signals from other devices on the same cable segment, like old
tv's, in combination with the particular modulation technique. At the time I
discovered that many other Lancity cable modem users had similar problems.
But changing to a different modem brand was not an option for the cable co.
You use tracert in a dos box like this:
C:\WINDOWS>tracert www.xs4all.nl
Tracing route to www.xs4all.nl [194.109.6.92]
over a maximum of 30 hops:
1 1 ms <10 ms <10 ms 192.168.1.1
2 12 ms 12 ms 16 ms 195.190.241.23
3 18 ms 18 ms 18 ms 32.ge-1-1-0.xr1.pbw.xs4all.net
[194.109.5.65]
4 19 ms 19 ms 20 ms www.xs4all.nl [194.109.6.92]
Trace complete.
In this example the first hop is my router (192.168.1.1), so you would want
to run pingplotter on the 2nd hop.
You find pingplotter at www.pingplotter.com. You can also use a dos command,
but the output won't be as nice:
C:\WINDOWS>ping -t www.xs4all.nl
Pinging www.xs4all.nl [194.109.6.92] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 194.109.6.92: bytes=32 time=17ms TTL=252
Reply from 194.109.6.92: bytes=32 time=16ms TTL=252
Reply from 194.109.6.92: bytes=32 time=17ms TTL=252
Reply from 194.109.6.92: bytes=32 time=17ms TTL=252
Reply from 194.109.6.92: bytes=32 time=16ms TTL=252
Reply from 194.109.6.92: bytes=32 time=16ms TTL=252
Reply from 194.109.6.92: bytes=32 time=16ms TTL=252
Reply from 194.109.6.92: bytes=32 time=16ms TTL=252
Ping statistics for 194.109.6.92:
Packets: Sent = 8, Received = 8, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 16ms, Maximum = 17ms, Average = 16ms
Control-C
I had to ping the 4th hop here as they seem to have disabled ping on the 2nd
hop. If you can watch your modem lights at the same time, it will be easy to
spot if you also have the sync problem. There is no need to do this while
running N4 or such, just let the ping run for an hour or so and check the
output for excssive ping times. By using a hop as nearby as possible you
rule out irregularities outside the cable network.
Bart Westra
Thanks to both Tom and Bart for the info, if I can find a solution I'll post
it here, in the most helpful newsgroup in the world. Ed
I've had bad experiences MP gaming/simming with Lan City cable modems and
very good experiences having them replaced with Surfboards. My provider was
happy to replace mine when I found out they were providing Surfboards to new
customers. Maybe they havent updated their modem stock yet. BTW I had no
problems DL'ing, chating etc. but MP gaming was bad.
Good Luck!
Charlie
"Ed White" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:nQkX7.234634$[email hidden]...
> Thanks to both Tom and Bart for the info, if I can find a solution I'llpost
> it here, in the most helpful newsgroup in the world. Ed
>
>
I pretty much gave up "renting" cable modems from the cable company long
ago. They don't care about "quality"...only quantity and you'll find
there's no way of even knowing if the modem you got was new (or used/abused
by previous customers). My cable ISP (ATT) discounts the service by $5 a
month if I provide my own modem. There's no problem with tech support, if I
buy one off their "approved" list. I've been using the RCA's for about a
year now....with absolutely no problems or issues. I know several people
using the "shark fins" also provided by ATT who have had nothing but
problems....gobs of them! To me, your cable modem is as important to sim
racing as any internal part in your computer. Would you rent one of those?
I doubt it.....but sometimes we don't think of it this way when it comes to
our cable/dsl modems.....you know?
Tom
"Charlie Buscher" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:awpX7.6107$[email hidden]...
> I've had bad experiences MP gaming/simming with Lan City cable modems and
> very good experiences having them replaced with Surfboards. My providerwas
> happy to replace mine when I found out they were providing Surfboards tonew
Quoted text (15 lines)
> customers. Maybe they havent updated their modem stock yet. BTW I had no > problems DL'ing, chating etc. but MP gaming was bad. > > Good Luck! > Charlie > > "Ed White" <[email hidden]> wrote in message > news:nQkX7.234634$[email hidden]... > > Thanks to both Tom and Bart for the info, if I can find a solution I'll > post > > it here, in the most helpful newsgroup in the world. Ed > > > > > > I would add to Tom's message that getting one that is 'docsis' compatible
will allow for more trouble free operation. I have an older 3com cable
modem that came out before the docsis format was agree'd to. My local cable
tech said they can tweek the newer modem's more and they are easier to
trouble shoot. I don't know if that translates to a better online
experience or not.
dave henrie
"Tom Pabst" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:1lvX7.24371$uM.219846@rwcrnsc54...
> I pretty much gave up "renting" cable modems from the cable company long
> ago. They don't care about "quality"...only quantity and you'll find
> there's no way of even knowing if the modem you got was new (orused/abused
> by previous customers). My cable ISP (ATT) discounts the service by $5 a
> month if I provide my own modem. There's no problem with tech support, ifI
> buy one off their "approved" list. I've been using the RCA's for about a
> year now....with absolutely no problems or issues. I know several people
> using the "shark fins" also provided by ATT who have had nothing but
> problems....gobs of them! To me, your cable modem is as important to sim
> racing as any internal part in your computer. Would you rent one ofthose?
> I doubt it.....but sometimes we don't think of it this way when it comesto
and
I'll
