[SOLVED] Lag spike to ~500ms about once an hour on average

Technical Support
1

I can’t ever recall lagging in game since I started playing back in February. This problem started a little over a week ago where my ping will go from about 50 (or 95 if west coast game) to over 500 for about 5 seconds and then goes back to normal. I finally was able to catch it happening 3 times tonight and run WinMTR to my current game IP (sorry to my teammates for having to hastily alt tab mid game to run the trace!). In any case here are the 3 MTR reports (I deleted the last few letters of the hostnames that were formatted as links so the forums wouldn’t reject my post):

Report1:
|------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| WinMTR statistics |

| Host - % | Sent | Recv | Best | Avrg | Wrst | Last |

|------------------------------------------------|------|------|------|------|------|------|

| Gateway - 0 | 9 | 9 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 |

| 142.254.211.137 - 0 | 9 | 9 | 49 | 448 | 539 | 49 |

| agg63.glvlny0902h.northeast.rr.c - 0 | 9 | 9 | 235 | 475 | 540 | 235 |

| 24.58.33.254 - 0 | 9 | 9 | 48 | 446 | 527 | 48 |

| be26.rochnyei01r.northeast.rr.c - 0 | 9 | 9 | 57 | 455 | 550 | 57 |

|bu-ether15.chcgildt87w-bcr00.tbone.rr.c - 0 | 9 | 9 | 73 | 467 | 551 | 73 |

| 66.109.5.225 - 0 | 9 | 9 | 72 | 468 | 555 | 72 |

| 66.109.9.149 - 0 | 9 | 9 | 66 | 467 | 552 | 66 |

| ae1-br02-eqch2.as57976.n - 0 | 9 | 9 | 68 | 469 | 552 | 68 |

| No response from host - 100 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |

Report2:
|------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| WinMTR statistics |

| Host - % | Sent | Recv | Best | Avrg | Wrst | Last |

|------------------------------------------------|------|------|------|------|------|------|

| Gateway - 0 | 16 | 16 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 1 |

| 142.254.211.137 - 0 | 16 | 16 | 11 | 183 | 560 | 19 |

| agg63.glvlny0902h.northeast.rr.c - 0 | 16 | 16 | 30 | 205 | 569 | 67 |

| 24.58.33.254 - 0 | 16 | 16 | 12 | 183 | 550 | 23 |

| be26.rochnyei01r.northeast.rr.c - 0 | 16 | 16 | 20 | 193 | 557 | 36 |

|bu-ether15.chcgildt87w-bcr00.tbone.rr.c - 0 | 16 | 16 | 36 | 204 | 577 | 47 |

| 66.109.5.225 - 0 | 16 | 16 | 34 | 203 | 569 | 43 |

| 66.109.9.149 - 0 | 16 | 16 | 34 | 201 | 570 | 40 |

| ae1-br01-eqch2.as57976.n - 0 | 16 | 16 | 84 | 250 | 618 | 90 |

| 137.221.65.132 - 0 | 16 | 16 | 83 | 253 | 622 | 92 |

| et-0-0-2-br01-eqla1.as57976.n - 0 | 16 | 16 | 84 | 253 | 620 | 93 |

| No response from host - 100 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |

Report3:
|------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| WinMTR statistics |

| Host - % | Sent | Recv | Best | Avrg | Wrst | Last |

|------------------------------------------------|------|------|------|------|------|------|

| Gateway - 0 | 6 | 6 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |

| 142.254.211.137 - 0 | 6 | 6 | 12 | 84 | 189 | 16 |

| agg63.glvlny0902h.northeast.rr.c - 0 | 6 | 6 | 27 | 142 | 490 | 29 |

| 24.58.33.254 - 0 | 6 | 6 | 13 | 86 | 193 | 14 |

| be26.rochnyei01r.northeast.rr.c - 0 | 6 | 6 | 22 | 92 | 198 | 28 |

|bu-ether15.chcgildt87w-bcr00.tbone.rr.c - 0 | 6 | 6 | 35 | 105 | 222 | 35 |

| 66.109.5.225 - 0 | 6 | 6 | 33 | 106 | 218 | 34 |

| 66.109.9.149 - 0 | 6 | 6 | 33 | 104 | 217 | 38 |

| ae1-br01-eqch2.as57976.n - 0 | 6 | 6 | 35 | 138 | 222 | 95 |

| No response from host - 100 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |

So I don’t appear to be dropping any packets, but the ping seems to spike at the first hop after my router. Could this be an issue on my end or at 142.254.211.137…or something inbetween us? Thanks for any help in advance!

2

The first hop showing a lag spike or loss is generally where the problem is originating. I think you can probably ignore the 490ms ping, because it goes back down on the hops after it. So yeah, I think your ISP line is showing a serious delay of 189ms.

3

In report 1 & 2 the high ping is propagated to every other hop.

4

I would agree that the problem appears to start at the 2nd hop (142.254.211.137) which is showing up as a Spectrum IP. Most likely something is going wrong between your router/modem and the ISP’s network, so I would recommend contacting them to see if they can investigate further for a fix.

5

Actually I believe I have solved the issue. It appears that a recent firmware update to my router enabled it to do a speed test every 20 minutes. I created a custom game and manually had the router start its speed test and my ping behaved exactly as I had been noting (up to 500ms for about 5 seconds and then back to normal). I ran winMTR during the speed test and the log is identical to the one’s I posted previously. I think it’s safe to assume that this has been the culprit as the firmware update occurred around when I first started noticing the issue. I’m guessing the reason it seemed sporatic is I was probably in Queue (or sometimes I take small breaks between games too) the other times the speedtests occurred and the game doesn’t display a ping while in the menu so I wouldn’t have noticed those. I called my ISP today and they ran all kinds of tests and they said from what they could see everything looks excellent from my modem to them.

6

NOT SOLVED, still getting lag spikes, my end everything is working…

7

I think you may have posted in the wrong thread.