Choppy cable gaming

[ReadyMan]

So I dumped my dsl last week and had cable installed.
I get 56mb DL and 5mb UL
The modem is a Motorola SB6141

However, when I'm playing SC2, I see the units stopping and jumping...like choppy bursts.
My friends online at the same time dont see any problems.
Their games are smooth, so it's not ingame lag.

I tried plugging into the modem, bypassing the router, but same problem.
Tried turning off all other programs/machines, but same problem.
Tried rebooting everything, but same problem.

I called Oceanic Time Warner Cable (my new ISP), and they asked me to do all of the above, but same problem.
They tried pinging, sending a signal, but same problem.

Interestingly, the problem stops and everything is running fine....till the next day.
I've only been home in the evenings, and I've seen this both evenings I've tested, and the problem stops late evening about 10pm (without me doing anything to my pc).

I'm in a basement apt., so I'm wondering if the upstairs neighbors are using something that causes this...
dunno if they have cable internet, but I'm sure they do (since no one has dsl anymore).
However, I can have things working great, and my wife can access the net on her tablet with no problems.....so dunno if someone jumping online is the problem.

Any ideas?

[AceCombat]

i have 105 MBit Comcast in ATL GA, and im having the same issue with BF4 and any other FPS. ive done extensive digging around the interwebs, and have come across some interesting info ( lost the link now ).


recently i had a issue with rerouting at the regional tier level causing a 40-120 ms increase in latency and that would spike 800+ms frequently.


Comcast gave me and my house nothing but canned BS answers. i had to escalate it to Corporate offices, and even they gave me nothing but BS.

[Spidey]

Probably because cable is shared, and you are seeing the load bursts. Your location is probably exacerbating the problem.

[ReadyMan]

Were you able to fix the issue Ace?

I'm thinking of going back to DSL. I only had 7mb up and 1.5 dl, but pings were good and steady.
56mb up and 5mb down is no where near as good.
unreal.

[Krom]

Check your connection through some voip line quality tests, most likely the thing that you are describing is jitter.

[BUBBALOU]

Also check the cable splits at your location, you want to be on the first split with your cable modem, and also with a decent 2way splitter that's rated for internet (5Mhz -2.xGhz) not just tv (old cheap splitter)

If they installed it with a home run then disregard

[ReadyMan]

Tried again with tech support and they reset my modem from their end, and we tried having my neighbors use the net at the same time as me.
Turns out that if I plug into the modem and bypass my router, that the problem doesnt happen (at least not so far).
I've tried going from using the router to not and so far, it's all a problem when the router is in use.

I'm sure I tried this yesterday, but I cant argue with the fact that the problem disappears when the router is bypassed.

So, while I try to use the router and not over the next couple of days to be sure it's the router,
I thought I'd ask if anyone has any ideas of what setting of the router might be causing this problem.
Again, it isnt all the time, but seems to only occur in the early evening (I've checked in the morning, at noon, and after 10pm and had no issues)


I'm using an RT-N66U router.
2 computers and a printer are hard wired to the router, with 2 tablets (I have the wi-fi off on them, though, so they shouldnt be part of the issue)


--EDIT--a few minutes ago the stutter/choppiness started, this time with me directly plugged into the modem. Tried it with the modem, and the router and still have the same issue.
Very wierd. Dont know why it worked straight with the modem, but not with the router, but now neither works.

Any ideas?

[Heretic]

have you tried netstat with all programs shut down to see if there is any traffic that shouldn't be going on

In a Command prompt type netstat and hit enter and see what connections are establish if any. Do it with and with out router. report back here

[AceCombat]

my issue got fixed a few days ago. for some reason i was being bounced around the country. for instance, when the issue first started.. my signal no matter where its destination was, would always route down to Miami fl, then back through Atlanta, then to Kentucky then on to its destination.


i know about the modem has to be on the first output of a 2.5 GHz rated splitter and it is.

[Capm]

That stuttering and chopping could be noise on the return path, however...


When testing high bandwidth speed packages when I was first testing our Docsis 3.0 CMTS here, I saw some issues that sound like what whats happening.

On my test profile, which was wide open (320mbs/120mbs), I saw horrendous stuttering in games. Star Trek Online would lose contact with the server for 10 seconds every 30 seconds or so. And it was mostly problems with the cable modems config file, and how the bursting was set up in them. (this is an exaggerated simplification of everything that went into it, but thats the gist of it, anyway)

If you can't get them to resolve it, try downgrading to a 25mbs package or so for a while, and see if the problem goes away... if it doesn't, it could be noise in the building causing problems on your return.

Sometimes you can see some stats on your modems landing page (192.168.100.1)

[ReadyMan]

Just tried visualwares voip test.
It said my connection's jitter was measured as 31.3 ms...too unpreditable to sustain a constant flow of data.
Packet loss was 0.0%
MOS score is estimated to be 3.4

this was done tonight, hooked up thru my router, and with no issues while gaming.

[Krom]

Just for reference, I ran the test just now on my cable line and jitter was 0.3 MS. So that would be the most likely cause of your problems.

[ReadyMan]

Is there anything that can be done to fix jitter?

All I'm getting after all my calls to TWC is that they can send a technician out to check to make sure I have connection to the net, but that is all.
They guys I'm talking to dont even know what Jitter is....
Any tips on what to point the tech to (besides the connections and the splitter)?

thanks for all the input!

[Krom]

Sure there are things that can be done to fix jitter, but that depends entirely on finding out what is actually causing it in the first place and that is the really hard part.

When we were having frequent disconnects on our cable modem, one of the first things I did just so I wouldn't have to bother arguing with the cable support about the quality of the house wiring was taking the modem down to the basement and connecting it directly to the drop (and we are internet only, so there is no splitter). When you do that, it pretty much totally eliminates any potential causes from inside your house and can save a lot of time when talking with support for both you and them, so I highly recommend doing that. (Although not everyone has a couple 100 foot cat6 cables running through the walls to make that possible. )

You have pretty much already eliminated the router as a potential cause, but there are a couple things I would do just to be safe. Mainly disable any quality of service (QoS) implementations on it, you don't want the router trying to run any prioritization or anything like that since a buggy implementation can cause more problems than it is worth, also if the router has any web filters (cookies, javascript, etc) or spi firewalls you should turn those off.

When you are experiencing the jitter, does it have any significant impact on your bandwidth compared to when there is little/no jitter? You should run a whole bunch of speed tests and compare the results at different times.

For the record; what finally got our frequent disconnects problem reduced to only infrequent disconnects was when it finally crashed two whole nodes and cut service to half the downtown area for almost 8 hours.

[ReadyMan]

Let's hear it for the squeeky wheel!

4 cable guys showed up yesterday out of the blue and replaced the cable from the street to the house.
they wouldnt tell me why they were there, but just showed up and did the work and left.

Now when plugged into my modem, I have no problem. VOIP tests show .4ms jitter.
All seems to work well.


However, when I use my router, I get the same issues that I was having: jerky/stutter/choppiness when playing online.
VOIP test shows only .7ms jitter, but it's choppy.

Apparently the problem was partly the line, which appears to be fixed, and partly the router.
Is there a setting in the router that sets priority for games, or that might fix the choppiness?

[Krom]

Are you using the wifi, or the wired connection from the router?

Also have you updated the firmware on the router to the latest stable version?

[ReadyMan]

I'm using the wired connection.
I have a laptop, printer, desktop plugged into the router via cables.
Nothing else is running/accessing the net except the desktop.

BTW, the game I've been having issues with is SC2

[Krom]

You might also want to try the asuswrt-merlin firmware: http://www.lostrealm.ca/tower/node/79

[ReadyMan]

I updated the firmware on the router to the latest that Asus had, but no change.
There's got to be a setting somewhere that will keep the stutter from happening, or smooth out the packet flow....but I cant find one.


--EDIT--
I just plugged in my old linksys router (not wireless) and there's no issues with gaming.
So this confirms that it's something to do with the Asus router....

--EDIT 2--
I tried disabling the radio in the wireless settings section of the router, but this had no effect. Still have same problem.

[ReadyMan]

Ugh. Home from work today and wanted to talk to Asus support while they are open, however, things are running great thru my router.
This is interesting since it was horrible last night, and when I was testing before, I noticed that afternoon and early evening were super bad
with the stutter/chugging/sporadic movement problem.

So I guess add this to the equation:
sporadic issue....


So it's not the modem.
It's not the lines/connections.
It's not my system, since if I plug directly into the modem, there is no issue.
I'm running the same programs, so as far as I know, nothing is accessing the net when I have the problem, that isnt active when I dont have the problem.
It's something to do with the router, or something accessing/affecting the router.

Ideas?

[Krom]

Try a full reset of the router settings and then re-enter them manually (do not save/restore the settings).

[ReadyMan]

reset to factory defaults but still have same problem.
I didnt change anything except to disable WPS in the wireless settings.
Do I need to disable this? It's added security, right?


Any other ideas?

I thought it might be a faulty cable, so I replaced the modem to router cable with the new one provided by Asus.
Still have the same problem.

Things were great this morning, but about 2 hours ago it started getting all choppy again....now it's horrible.

--EDIT--The router was running hot, so I put a fan by it and cooled it down...no impact though....things are still choppy

[BUBBALOU]

Disable check for automatic updates?

Setup QOS for your LAN port, set static ip

Better yet, get a NETGEAR

[ReadyMan]

automatic updates is turned off.
The QoS is automatically set to have gaming and net surfing as priorities.

I tried Asus tech support, but all they did was point me to the FAQ. No help.

I guess the only option is to return the router to Amazon and get another.

So odd that the problem only happens in the afternoon and early evening. Something is interfering with the routers signal/packets, that doesnt affect the modem.

[ReadyMan]

I have 2 weeks to return the router...so today I'll go to Best Buy and get a netgear wifi router with a built in switch (N750 maybe?).
At least then I can verify that it's THIS router, not another, or that it's all wifi router/switches.

Any other ideas, or perhaps a recommended netgear router model?

[ReadyMan]

I bought a netgear n900. Best Buy didnt have much of a selection.
I'll try this new router out once the connection to the router goes bad this afternoon.

[ReadyMan]

Hrm.
First tests show that things are choppy with the ASUS (.5 to 2 second pauses) while gaming, however the Netgear has no such issue.
I notice a slight hiccup in the sound now and then, but no visual choppiness.
I'll do some more testing.

I wonder if it's just a bad Asus router, or if it's something else....
The netgear router doesnt have near the range (back side of the house only gets one bar with the netgear).

[ReadyMan]

Seems the netgear is running fine.
I think the Asus was/is faster.

Still completely unsure about why the Asus didnt work. Wish I could figure it out so that I could keep using the Asus....

[Krom]

RMA it for a replacement, could be some weird glitch in that particular unit.

[Capm]

I hate netgears, they have some funky intermittant DNS problems, however - that can be solved by loading dd-wrt on them, then they're actually a decent router.

I don't have any experience with the Asus routers.

[ReadyMan]

I have to return this Asus to Amazon.
So I'm kind of stuck with the Netgear....tho I could return it to BB if I could get another online.
I hate the chance of getting another Asus and having it not work. I spent so much time trouble shooting the last one....

[Sirius]

I remember back in the old days, when someone just couldn't get their router to work with Kali no matter what, the reason was because it was a Netgear.
DD-WRT would probably have fixed that though (don't think it was around back in those days). I'm pretty sure it was a firmware issue.

[Krom]

The Asus router stock firmware is actually based off DD-WRT and is open source, so it is unlikely flashing vanilla DD-WRT would solve this issue.

One other place that would probably know a lot more about potential causes and problems with the Asus router would be the small network builders site, they even have a forum dedicated to Asus wireless N routers: http://forums.smallnetbuilder.com/forumdisplay.php?f=46

One more thing to check, what kind of LAN cables are you using? If your old router only had 100 megabit ports, it is possible poor quality vanilla cat5 cables could cause problems since the Asus router has gigabit ports all around and a DOCSIS3 modem from the cable co will also attempt to connect to the router at gigabit speed. You could also try forcing the link speeds on the WAN and LAN ports down to 100 megs and see what happens.

[Sirius]

Ah. That would probably explain why my RT-N66U hasn't needed flashing so far...

[ReadyMan]

I spent so much time on that router. It's either malfunctioning, or there's another issue at work that I cant discover.

The NetGear is working adequately.
If I had a Frys or something close by (and didnt have to ship everything), I'd try again with another Asus.
But for now, I think I'm calling it done.

Thank you all for the input! I sure learned a lot!