Horrific lag spikes/packet loss

[juaneth]

Hi all,

I play a ton of online games and started encountering horrific lag spikes (packet loss, oddly consistently at 250, 500 and 1000ms intervals) about 6 months ago on my 500mbps plan.

It happens on every device on the network (through wifi and ethernet)

I have tried nearly every troubleshooting step such as but not limited to:

Turning the router off and on again
Using ethernet
Restarting the FTTP box
Reseating all cables
Reinstalling Windows (OS)
Trying linux (maybe a network driver issue, did not fix)
Trying my laptop (brand new, newest wifi spec: did not fix, faced the same issues)

I called in and apparently they cannot help me, all the engineer could do was change the wifi channels since he didnt see the same issue as me (happens intermittently, ofc didnt happen when he was here)

If anyone has any hints or anything to help me it would be really appreciated

[Kimberlin]

@juaneth 

Assuming you are using a BT supplied router, I’m not sure what settings you can actually alter that might alleviate the issues.

Have you considered a third party router? Personally, I won’t use ISP equipment because I have far more control over the settings with my own equipment. Of course buying your own router involves cost and there’s the risk you’re stuck with the same issues.

[ob123]

Hi 

this can become a rabbit hold… your clearly doing the right stuff to try and resolve yourself. In my experience latency on fttp should be in the region of sub 10ms. However that measurement is done via most speed testers on the internet and will normally via one to serval hops to the closest server. So you could try this.. go back to basics and connect the bt hub to the ont, change the cables to known good ones! Reboot everything… and connect a device to the hub and use a site called whats my ip address, it has a good trace route function. Identify the gaming server and run the trace route. If you can share the results less any ip address.. the key information is the ms at each hop… if they are at the 1st  it suggests local lan, hops 2-3 the head connection after that… it’s looking like the internet and the game server. Run the test none peek and peek time. 

hmm packet loss.. that honestly suggests to me lan problems , cabling or device.  Also by the nature of the way some internet traffic works it’s designed to handle lost packets. The challage is UDP, and gaming is built on that protocol. World of pain…

[Kodikid]

Got £30  to spare?

Go on Ebay and pick up a EE wifi 6 router or spend a bit more and get the wifi 7 router. Both plug and play.

Nothing to lose and everything to gain