Help with troubleshooting high pings

[Cexitime]

Hi

I require some help with troubleshooting high pings I receive at night.

I have sent Exetel a help ticket and they said they have done all they can and don't guaratnee any sort of throughput or uptime.

I tried a backup modem I keep handy (a billion 7300G) and all I got was disconnects on IRC and reduiced speed (3mbps on speed tests)
my current modem is a Linksys WAG200G, speed tests are around 5mbps up to 7mbps.

I dont get high pings in off peak, its always onpeak at night (between 7pm to 11pm) making playing any sort of games unbearable, speed also drops to around 1mpbs to 1.6mbps during this time, Usualy it wasn't every night this was happening, but it seems to be every night now.

I have performed the isolation test and nothing changed.

And yes I have done the usual disconnect every other pc incase someone has something running (untangle doesn't report any internet usage other than my games running, I have also disabled untangle until this is sorted to rule this out) I also do not run AnyP2P programs on the network

Here are some examples of ping times I have recorded.

Pinging http://www.exetel.com.au [220.233.0.9] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 220.233.0.9: bytes=32 time=247ms TTL=60
Reply from 220.233.0.9: bytes=32 time=470ms TTL=60
Reply from 220.233.0.9: bytes=32 time=333ms TTL=60
Reply from 220.233.0.9: bytes=32 time=340ms TTL=60
Reply from 220.233.0.9: bytes=32 time=390ms TTL=60
Reply from 220.233.0.9: bytes=32 time=336ms TTL=60
Reply from 220.233.0.9: bytes=32 time=400ms TTL=60
Reply from 220.233.0.9: bytes=32 time=392ms TTL=60
Reply from 220.233.0.9: bytes=32 time=313ms TTL=60
Reply from 220.233.0.9: bytes=32 time=192ms TTL=60
Reply from 220.233.0.9: bytes=32 time=319ms TTL=60
Reply from 220.233.0.9: bytes=32 time=281ms TTL=60

Tracing route to http://www.exetel.com.au [220.233.0.9]
over a maximum of 30 hops:
1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms 192.168.1.1
2 * * * Request timed out.
3 629 ms 647 ms 571 ms 57.2.233.220.static.exetel.com.au [220.233.2.57]
4 655 ms 663 ms 646 ms 182.31.96.58.static.exetel.com.au [58.96.31.182]
5 406 ms 343 ms 371 ms candlenut-web.exetel.com.au [220.233.0.9]

The server I play on for TF2
(Game arena, everyone else was sub 50ms)

203.46.105.16

Tracing route to ga0106.gamearena.com.au [203.46.105.16]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms 192.168.1.1
2 * * * Request timed out.
3 440 ms 479 ms 575 ms 61.2.233.220.static.exetel.com.au [220.233.2.61]

4 * 558 ms * 46.2.233.220.static.exetel.com.au [220.233.2.46]

5 585 ms 622 ms 503 ms 119.225.5.245
6 407 ms 406 ms 567 ms 10.248.24.2
7 685 ms 673 ms 644 ms GigabitEthernet1-4.ken12.Sydney.telstra.net [139
.130.65.145]
8 604 ms 519 ms 534 ms TenGigabitEthernet7-1.ult2.Sydney.telstra.net [2
03.50.20.51]
9 476 ms 547 ms 502 ms telstr518.lnk.telstra.net [165.228.157.38]
10 643 ms 472 ms 362 ms ga0106.gamearena.com.au [203.46.105.16]

Your current bandwidth reading is:

919.10kbps

which means you can download at 114.89 KB/sec. from our servers.

speedtest.net result to sydney (Optus)
http://www.speedtest.net/result/788288536.png

I have this figures reported by my modem, I dont know if they are good or not, if someone can clarify that would be good

DSL Status: Connected
DSL Modulation Mode: G.dmt
DSL Path Mode: Interleaved
Downstream Rate: 8160 kbps
Upstream Rate: 384 kbps
Downstream Margin: 9 db
Upstream Margin: 6 db
Downstream Line Attenuation: 18 db
Upstream Line Attenuation: 5.5 db
Downstream Transmit Power: 6 db
Upstream Transmit Power: 5 db

Is there anything else I can try to solve this abnormal ping?

[Tarou]

You could try a new modem. Failing that i cant really see it being a problem with you. Your modem stats seem fine. Might either be exetels bandwidth or exchange congestion.

[Cexitime]

Hi

Thanks for the reply, I have tried it with a Linksys WAG200G and a Billion 7300G, I'm going to pick up a 2wire modem from my cousin at some stage to test it out as well.
If anyone else has any other ideas, please post.

[Cexitime]

Tried the loan 2Wire modem and not a difference either

[Cexitime]

Well this problem still exists and its been 8 days since Exetel said they were going to perform a test that left me with the firewall off and I haven't had a status update since, Is there a rep here who can look into the ticket and chase it up?

[CoreyPlover]

Post your ticket number

[Cexitime]

I think this is it?
CERB2-2159329

[Tim K]

Good afternoon,

I've just checked with our wholesale supplier, there don't appear to be any congestion issues at this exchange - so far all is looking good.

I've noticed one time period mentioned in the ticket, do you know of any other time periods that are particularly problematic?

[Cexitime]

Hi Tim

Thanks for checking that out.

Generally from 12pm onwards I experience random packet loss, however it is very spread out and doesn't affect anything Ping always stays a sub 23ms, but from that time period mentioned in the ticket its absolutely nuts. (I dont know if the ping test Exetel was going to perform was done at that time period for you to see?) I had a cousin of mine ping me from his bigpond connection and the minimum was 200ms with nearly 25% packet loss over an hour.

Offpeak is perfectly fine.

If there are any tests you'd like me to perform please let me know, You can check the ticket to see what I have already performed.

[Tim K]

If there are any tests you'd like me to perform please let me know, You can check the ticket to see what I have already performed.

Unfortunately with this going on so long, the speed tests seem to be getting somewhat old. Are you able to provide a few from when you have recently experienced the problem?

[Cexitime]

Will provide some new ones when problem happens again.

which is most likely tonight.

[Cexitime]

Hi Tim,

Last two days have been an improvement, speed is up however packetloss is still present

http://bit.ly/ccxUYy

I started that at 2pm so you can see how it starts out then goes badly, today was actually a good day, its usually quite worse.

[MickRip]

I have precisely the same issue as Cexitime. My lag begins earlier in the afternoon .. >300ms pings from 4:30pm through til midnight. Ping Plotter image here

After doing all the standard things; creating a ticket, jumping through hoops, etc .. it was determined that crappy pings still fall within the threshold of "good enough". (read: sorry Mick you're screwed, and here's your invoice).

[Cexitime]

Well mick its been 12 days since ticket has been responded to by Exetel, so I'm hoping Tim or something is watching this topic!

[Tim K]

CExitime - can you please IM me your service number?