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Checking connection quality
blaze_zero
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Hey all, kind of a weird question here:
Is there a way I can check my connection quality with my router/modem? When I play online games, sometimes the connection quality will be really poor and then power cycling my modem and router seems to fix it.
Is there a way I can check if I need to do this before I start playing? And is there a way I can fix this problem without power cycling?
Is there a way I can check my connection quality with my router/modem? When I play online games, sometimes the connection quality will be really poor and then power cycling my modem and router seems to fix it.
Is there a way I can check if I need to do this before I start playing? And is there a way I can fix this problem without power cycling?
blaze_zero on
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Seems to be a problem with the connection itself. Ask your ISP to check it. What kind of connection do you have? adsl, satellital?
If you have your ISP's free router, it's likely to be the problem. Is there construction in your area? That messes stuff up too.
Also, I do have the ISP's modem, but the router is mine.
Are what I got.
There, I got packet loss to go.
Actually, the server is ~450 miles away, a 39ms ping doesn't sound too extreme for such a distance.
But I am a bit concerned that the problem can be "fixed" by cycling the cable modem.
It could still be an issue on your providers side, I've seen a case where regularly resetting the connection kept the connection "alive" so to speak. The problem there was that something weird happened after a DHCP lease expired. Does it consistently happen after a fixed time? (normally somewhere in the 2 days range)
Something to keep in mind though, is that Cable connections are shared with whomever is on your local hub. And I've seen cable networks degrade if suddenly half the neighborhood starts up their Bit-torrent clients.
(BTW, this could also be locally, I take it no-one in your house is stealing your precious Megahurts / Internets)
Use pingplotter to see what's going on.
And
Try this next time you reset your modem, it's the only fix when my cable screws up.
Unplug the power cord from the router and modem. Unplug the ethernet cable from the modem to the router. Disconnect the 'internet in' line on the modem. Wait a couple of minutes. Plug in power for modem and when all the lights have settled on the modem plug in the internet line. Give it a minute or so then plug back in the router. Reconnect the router to the modem.
winkey+r
enter 'cmd', click OK
in your command prompt, type
leave it running forever. It uses up almost no bandwidth, google doesn't care, and you know if your connection is screwing up as the latency will jump and/or you'll start to get dropped packets (it'll say 'request timed out'.) You can also scroll back to see how your connection was earlier on.
If you want to make a log to send to your ISP (to say 'guys, fix this shit') you can enter the following from a command prompt:
Stuff that just analyzes your connection once is useless for intermittent problems. Command prompt. Where it's at.
Long answer is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_to_live and still don't worry about it
Just watch your ping time (the one in milliseconds) and for multiple drops (which will show up as 'request timed out'.)
A single drop on it's own here and there generally don't drop you from a game, but it can lag you for a while. A nice thing about having a ping window running like this is that, in a game, when you lag you can alt-tab out and get a glimpse of the state of your connection. It won't make it less infuriating, though.
Something you also might want to check (just in case) is, since you've got cable, if you have any splitters on the line that's going into the modem. I don't connect cable modems to a cable line that's been split. Splitters build up capacitance and it fucks up cable modems causing intermittent packet loss. Most cable ISPs will sell you special splitters that they say don't cause the problem. But I generally just get the cable guys to run me a line straight into the room with my cable modem from the outside box (which, in my city, they'll do for free.) and use another line going direct to the house (which I split as much as I want) for TV. If you aren't willing to drill holes in your house, that might be less of an option.
http://www.measurementlab.net/