Performance Issues (Lag)

Support Technical Support
1

I have been experiencing some performance issues. The game loads fine and I can play, but during game play every 30 seconds or so I will lag for about 1 to 3 seconds and then normal game play resumes. Usually when this happens I will reboot my router or wait a week or so and it seems to clear up. However, this time it appears to be lasting longer than usual.

Does anyone know what causes this type of issue?
Is there anything I can do to temporally fix it? Perhaps change my DNS server for a short time.
I think it might have something to do with the connection between my computer and Blizzard servers, not really Blizzard’s fault nor my ISPs fault, but something wrong with the connection between the two. But I don’t really know.

Here is a tracert from me to Blizzard and you can see some hops are bad:

C:>tracert 137,221,105,2

Tracing route to 137,221,105,2 over a maximum of 30 hops

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms 192,168,0,27
2 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms modem,Home [192,168,0,1]
3 20 ms 20 ms 20 ms slcy-dsl-gw21,slcy,qwest,net [207,108,176,21]
4 20 ms 20 ms 23 ms slcy-agw1,inet,qwest,net [207,108,177,161]
5 21 ms 21 ms 48 ms 4,68,38,161
6 * * * Request timed out.
7 33 ms 32 ms 32 ms 4,7,26,166
8 38 ms 37 ms 42 ms ae1-br01-csla1,as57976,net [137,221,89,33]
9 * * * Request timed out.
10 * * * Request timed out.
11 38 ms 45 ms 38 ms et-0-0-0-pe01-swlv10,as57976,net [137,221,83,81]
12 38 ms 38 ms 37 ms 137,221,105,2

Trace complete.
(I had to replace to “.” with “,” it thought I was posting links and didn’t like it.)

Are there other better test that can diagnose the problem? I know just enough about computers to be dangerous.

Thank you for any help/insight.

2

Hi Tined

The Tracert looks normal. It it is more of a moment in time test. Let’s try the WinMTR tool.

The instructions are on this Blizzard Support page:

Once you have the tool open enter the IP number for the server group you play on in the WinMTR box then hit start.

137.221.105.2 (West Coast)
24.105.62.129 (Central - Chicago)

(only the number - include periods)

Leave it run for until you see one of these latency spikes. Then use the button that copies Text to your clipboard. Paste that on your thread here.

*You may need to alter or remove any URL addresses to paste on forum. You could also place the test results in a code block:

Open chat box - paste test then right click - “select all”. Should highlight everything. Then press the preformatted text button along top of chat box. Looks like this </>.

It looks like you are on the Blades Edge realm - you would want to run the WinMTR to the Central (Chicago) Servers.

24.105.62.129

3

I noticed your DHCP IP ends in 27, do you have a lot of devices connected to your gateway?

Also are you using wireless connectivity at all?

4

Hey Roomys - educate this old troubleshooter. What do you mean here.

Thanks

I see what you mean - just don’t understand the significance

5

Most routers will start at 1, or 100, or 200 for their DHCP listing.

6

I’ve looked at thousands of WinMTR/Tracerts over the past dozen years and never paid attention to that.

7

Okay, I went to Dalaran and insta-cast until I got a lag spike:

|------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| WinMTR statistics |

Host - % Sent Recv Best Avrg Wrst Last
192,168,0,27 - 0 68 68 0 37 2524 0
modem,Home - 0 68 68 0 56 2546 1
slcy-dsl-gw21,slcy,qwest,net - 0 68 68 19 75 2549 20
slcy-agw1,inet,qwest,net - 0 68 68 19 75 2547 19
4,68,38,161 - 6 58 55 0 27 172 21
No response from host - 100 14 0 0 0 0 0
4,7,26,166 - 0 68 68 32 90 2593 39
ae1-br02-csla1,as57976,net - 0 67 67 67 139 3501 68
xe-0-0-1-3-br02-eqla1,as57976,net - 2 65 64 67 93 1021 68
No response from host - 100 14 0 0 0 0 0
et-0-0-1-pe01-eqch2,as57976,net - 0 67 67 66 138 3505 68
24,105,62,129 - 0 67 67 67 137 3503 69
________________________________________________ ______ ______ ______ ______ ______ ______
WinMTR v0,92 GPL V2 by Appnor MSP - Fully Managed Hosting & Cloud Provider
  • I replaced all “.” with “,” so I could post this.

The good news is that it appears it might be on my end. Because everything was going well, then BAM, it looks like I the connection to my own gateway shoots up to 2524 milliseconds. Then it normalizes. I am directly wired into my router. My computer doesn’t use the wireless. Other devices on the network do. Perhaps I will turn off the wireless and run it again to see if it still happens. I could start taking devices off the network one by one to see if I can isolate it. I also I wonder if it could be some setting in my anti-virus.

8

Glad to hear you isolated it at least!

Yeah your router might be getting booped by something causing a spike in processing, I know your fancier routers these days even includes multi-core CPUs for this very reason!

9

Yes - as you have seen. 2.5 second latency spike on the home network. Looks like it is very intermittent as your overall average isn’t taking much of a hit.

10

I’m not saying it matters, just what it is.

11

Just an update. I disabled the wireless network and it fixed it. I have now enabled the wireless network and have began allowing MAC addresses one by one and it appears to have solved the problem.

I guess the days of letting all of the kids friends connect to the wifi are over. Thank you for all your help, just being able to isolate the problem to my home network using WinMTR put me on the right path.

12

Good to see Tined

13

i have been experiencing similar connection issues as tined has i was wondering if you could help me look at my winmtr and traceroute i ran to try to figure out the problem because i am not nearly as knowledgeable as everyone in this thread is on this subject.

14

Sure thing Druidclass

Can you paste your results - you may need to use the preformatted text function as outlined here. Forum doesn’t like actual links.

Open chat box - paste test then right click - “select all”. Should highlight everything. Then press the preformatted text button along top of chat box. Looks like this </> .

You can also paste things on Pastebin.com - provide the very end code of the link. I can get it from there.

15

Z4YSQKEV

mxYtTLqQ

the first code is my winmtr and the second is my traceroute, my ms starts at around 20-30 which is where is usually was before pre patch but then starts to rise to most of the time over 100

16

Seems to be an issue with the second and third switch in Rochester, NY. Packet loss showing up there on the Tracert and latency of 660ms - 3/4 of a second on both WinMTR and Tracert.

You could take that Tracert to the ISP. Gives you something to show them. You may have to escalate beyond the first tier support.

A good test here would be a cell phone hotspot connect or a VPN. I would bet a VPN would fix all your issues.

17

so should i try a hotspot tracer and winmtr first and let you look at those and then try the vpn or just go straight to the vpn?

18

Whatever you like. A good VPN connect might be faster than your old ISP connect. I don’t know what is popular in your area - Nord VPN is one a lot of folk like to use.

19

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TziyPMgs

i ran them on the hotspot just to see if you were able to see any difference before i buy the vpn.

20

The hotspot is still running through those problem switches. Something is wrong there. It is likely to be fixed. When would be anyone’s guess.