Connection 'Hiccups'

Jotaru

Jotaru

shinobi-no-mono
FC/Active Member
Hey all;

Been having a rather confounding issue lately that at first I simply attributed to the FFXIV lag craze that's been going on, but I'm starting to think its something router/isp/computer related. Hopefully someone with some networking know-how can give me a bit of advice?

Background: Have Cox Communications cable in Vegas, bought 25mbps speed... really nice most of the time, I can get 20-30mbps down reliably and even up to 30-40mpbs up (wtf?)... however lately, what I've noticed is (while playing) everything locks up for a second or two, then resumes animation and plays catch up. I.e. on Titan... I'll be fighting away, then all of a sudden everyone stops attacking (except my animations still go off), like I'm R0'ing... then a few seconds later (3-5) everything fastforwards to where I should be, and sometimes I'm dead from AOE that's gone off in that time period.

Long story short, I'm tired of explaining to people and hearing 'piss poor excuse suck less l2play' etc...

I've ran SpeedTest.net a bunch of times and what I've found is that while my wife continues to stream netflix to the Xbox (something she's been doing a long time, so I don't consider it a factor) my connection speed drops to as low as 0.5 mbps, with latency showing as much as 700-1000ms and 700-1000ms jitter.

I replaced our router about a month ago, NetGear n600, and its located about 10 feet from my computer, where I have a relatively new wireless network card. I haven't wired up yet as I don't have a cable..

Any thoughts? Optimization stuff? Where to start? HALP
 
When did this start happening? or has it always been a problem?
Does it occur all the time or during certain hours of the day or night?

>> There were a bunch of users being affected by packet-shaping rules that ISP's have been putting in place to control P2P traffic. In the UK, there were or still are a large group of FFXIV players affected by the same symptoms you describe. This is being caused by the P2P traffic management system that ID's FFXIV traffic as P2P, thus the lag chunks and sudden connection changes at certain times of the day.

The solution? I don't know... ISP's are clueless about this, as evidenced by the mind-numbing responses given by ISP's in the UK. SE did create a thread to collect the problem reports to try and help.

I don't get the same effects that you describe, even being in Japan and connecting to the servers in Canada. When there is a connection problem, it just simply kicks me off. (rare, but it happens)

In summary:
- If it happens at specific times of the day, could be your ISP.
- If it happens at random, still could be your ISP.
- Suggestion: Connect your PC to the router with a LAN cable. If you're running WiFi on the 2.4GHz band (802.11 b/g/n), there could be some interference happening. For me in particular, whenever my wife runs the microwave... my connection on a WiFi device, goes to crap. Just keep in mind that the WiFi bandwidth is still quite limited compared to wired LAN.

Hope this helps somewhat, let us know if there is anything else you notice or can tell us to help you resolve the issue.

Good Luck!
 
It seems random, sometimes worse than others, but as of yet I haven't found a rhyme or reason. I didnt think it happened til recently, then again, levelling up I didn't do too much latency-critical events.. that being said, I never noticed it in any dungeons and I would surely think I'd notice the entire party stop attacking for a few seconds, even if there wasn't an AOE to step out of. That being said, I'd venture a guess of 1-2 weeks since it started noticeably.

I'll try a cable soon as I can track one down.. part of me is nervous its this new wireless card (replaced it about a month or two prior to these issues)... we'll see.
 
Wired to router shows speeds back up to 30+mbps and ping in the 10-15 range... so seems to be wireless related. Another bad wireless card so fast? <_<
 
Jotaru said:
Wired to router shows speeds back up to 30+mbps and ping in the 10-15 range... so seems to be wireless related. Another bad wireless card so fast? <_<
Click to expand...

It's not necessarily that your wireless card is bad, you could just have interference from other devices around you. Maybe not your own, but neighbors around you. Microwaves, Cordless Phones, etc. If you buy a new wireless card and get the same result, then you can safely assume you've got too much RF noise around you. Wired is always best anyway, even if not so convenient.

In any case, I'm glad that you could regain a stable connection. :D
 
I have noticed the effect too Jot. I was farming and killing stuff fast when suddenly nothing would move then .. all 3 mobs would fly to me. it reminds me of rubber-banding.. but is a bit different. It just started in the last week or so. Last week I was doing fates and never had this happen no matter how much was going on. Even fought Odin and actually saw him. I connect with a wired LAN.
 
Just to throw a wrench in every theory I had on what was causing the issue... It turns out that it happens at different times on my computer and my wife's computer. We were out doing quests and I would start to lag out, look at her monitor and everything is fine... only for it to reverse. Some times her's has no issues and I am rubber banding, others it is reversed. Both PCs connected to the same modem, same router, and same connection type.
 
Wireless is the first thing you should get rid of. If you can't get rid fo it, you might try changing to a different wireless band (If you're on 2.4GHz, change to 5GHz, and vice versa).

If changing to wired doesn't fix the problem, check all the obvious stuff like making sure no Antivirus software is running (but first do a full scan to rule out malware), that can really screw you up. It's also possible your ISP is throttling you, log into your account and check your data usage (if it allows that), and see if you can correlate the hiccups to your peak data usage times.

If you have multiple monitors, keep Windows Task Manager open on the second manager and when you see one of these spikes, glance over and see if it correlates to a spike in CPU usage or anything. That could be a clue.
 
i was having similar problems. all sorts of fixes are out there. im no tech wiz, but i corrected the problem by placing my ps3 into my routers DMZ.

as for PCs, ive heard port forwarding or using a VPN service seems to help.
 
Yeah, after switching back to wired (And tentatively back to my wireless which seems to be working full speed again) the problem went away entirely. Ping went wayyyy down to like, 10ms, and I haven't had a single instance of gettin cheap gibbed on Titan or anything... so there's that. Thanks everyone~!
 
Jotaru said:
Yeah, after switching back to wired (And tentatively back to my wireless which seems to be working full speed again) the problem went away entirely. Ping went wayyyy down to like, 10ms, and I haven't had a single instance of gettin cheap gibbed on Titan or anything... so there's that. Thanks everyone~!
Click to expand...

Good news. Great that it's become stable. :)
 
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