Screwy Internet Woes

[daanji]

For the past week, my Internet has been complete shit. I have checked all of my equipment and everything is fine. I also called the cable company and they sent a technician to my house. He checked my equipment and the cable box outside. He said everything was fine.

I can still connect to the Internet and my download seems to be ok, but my latency in WoW (which is normally 200 ms) has shot up to 10 seconds. (yes, ten seconds). It is so bad even doing daily quests are a challenge. I've tried to do 40-man BGs, but I get disconnected within a minute or so.

I tried optimizing my TpcAckFrequency and TpcNoDelay settings. That did make it better, but it is still horrible.

What is weird is that I'll log on and my latency is being reported as 100-200 ms. It will randomly shoot up from 200ms to 2s - 10 s, or I'll just get disconnected. Also, each client is different. I played x5 and one client will be green (and stay green) while another one will yellow (around 600 ms) and the other will be red (with 5 s of latency).

I've checked for viruses and updated everything (including router / modem). I also tried this on a different computer and it gives me the same results.

I am very convinced it is something on the ISPs end that they won't admit to. I'm thinking it must be some sort of throttling that is going on, which is what happened in this case .

If it is throttling, how can I prove it? Or rule it out?

If this shit doesn't get resolved this week, I'm changing providers (my current one is a local company called Orbitel, my only other option is Qwest).

[MiRai]

Running a trace route will tell you where an outside latency problem lies if one does happen to exist -- A simple Google
search will show you how to do one. It is also listed as one of the ways to troubleshoot latency on Blizzard's site.

[coglistings]

I've checked for viruses and updated everything (including router / modem). I also tried this on a different computer and it gives me the same results.

I am very convinced it is something on the ISPs end that they won't admit to. I'm thinking it must be some sort of throttling that is going on, which is what happened in this case .

If it is throttling, how can I prove it? Or rule it out?

If this shit doesn't get resolved this week, I'm changing providers (my current one is a local company called Orbitel, my only other option is Qwest).

three thoughts for you
1. your cable company has alot of traffic on the switch you are on, (switches on cable networks is not the same as ehternet networks, please no non-coax comments) basically, you can have too many people in your designated switch area. unless you see a truck going down the alley with new equiptment, don't believe them saying " we are about to upgrade the area you are on"

2. But they said everything was fine! Yes, it is fine if you can get a eventual internet page response and you pull an ip address. That is the test they look at besides signal strength and see if you have aftermarket splitters on your signal. Your tech wouldn't have information regarding if your ip / or if your switch area is being throttled on certain traffic or ports. I have a friend on db that told me you can call the tech people, (not the physically people, but like the online tech support people) and see if there is something on your account, though don't beleive the first answer that is given and push for the second tier support.

to sound better when you describe your problem to them, say that you use a VOIP system and the person listening in can't hear your complete sentenses. then elude to the fact that you can't make an emergency phone call and be understood. while this won't scare a battle hardened tier 2 or an integrety engineer, it will scare you up the tier support ladder.

3. OMG what nowZZZZZ!
Just an FYI, qwest can blow as well. they tend to have dropped connections in the older area I am in and they blame the age of the phone lines as the reason. your area may be entirely different and I encourage you to still try them out. just be warned, a tech phone call usually always leads to a scheduled appointment the next day and the threat that if its your wiring, you will pay a $80 service call fee. oh, don't sign a year contract either, its a rip off.

BTW comcast tends to lie about latencies. in my area, the DSL company latencies "feel" more accurate than the Cable companies latencies. Meaning, 300ms feel like a slow connection on the DSL., but a comcast 200ms can be worse than the DSL's connection info. You can also try bumping up your service level to a higher tier / or business class

There is packet analysis software out there that you can look at if you want though you may need to pull alot of data to get an idea of what is going on without attuned skillzs I don't begin to think I possess

[Aragent]

Just like everyone else here has said so far. do a complete wow rout trace (there use to be a good Utility called wow Ping trace) that would let you pick what server you played on and would then showed a graphic display of your route and the ping (Latancey) of each stop along the path.

Wow wikii has the server Ip listed for your realm if you have to do it manualy