Very bad packet loss

[snegoviK]

Hi all,

I am a student and I live in a house with 3 of my friends in Bristol BS8 area. We have Virgin Media Broadband XL package and about 2-3 months ago we started to get very bad latency spikes and packet loss. Some of us play online games from time to time and these became literally unplayable. We reported this to Virgin and apparently 2 faults have been found in our area that can cause this. Both were fixed but we are still having the same problems.

The problem persists even if its one person using the Internet which is extremely weird considering we are on the best package Virgin has to offer.

Our usual set up is a NETGEAR WGR614 router. Some of us use wireless but my PC, for example, is connected to the router by an ethernet cable and I also have the same issues as people using WiFi, so it's not like its a wireless problem.

Our modem's trade name is Ambit and I tried rebooting everything / leaving it to cool down for a bit but that doesn't seem to help.

I also tried bypassing the router by testing the connection by connecting my PC directly to the modem - still the same performance.

Tracing route to www.virginmedia.com [212.250.162.12]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

Traceroute to virginmedia.com
1 2 ms 1 ms 1 ms 192.168.1.1
2 11 ms 34 ms 29 ms 10.25.252.1
3 189 ms 217 ms 224 ms osr02azte-ge147.network.virginmedia.net [80.1.243.129]
4 15 ms 47 ms 23 ms osr01azte-v11.network.virginmedia.net [62.30.64.33]
5 32 ms 43 ms 12 ms aztw-t3core-1a-ge-010-0.network.virginmedia.net [80.1.240.69]
6 52 ms 36 ms 13 ms win-bb-a-as0-0.network.virginmedia.net [213.105.175.157]
7 38 ms 115 ms 52 ms gfd-bb-b-so-100-0.network.virginmedia.net [213.105.172.130]
8 20 ms 14 ms 13 ms win-bb-a-so-010-0.network.virginmedia.net [213.105.172.129]
9 55 ms 13 ms 48 ms win-dc-a-v900.network.virginmedia.net [62.253.188.162]
10 24 ms 80 ms 33 ms www.virginmedia.com [212.250.162.12]

Trace complete.

Here is a quick ping statistic using Colasoft Ping Tool. This is me running it at night, when no-one else is using the Internet. So you can imagine what's it like at 6pm on Sunday:

virginmedia.com
212.250.162.12
Location:United Kingdom
Packets Sent:134
Packets Received:125
Packets Lost:9(6% loss)
Response time Minimum:12ms
Response time Maximum:106ms
Response time Average:32ms

I tried checking latency to the router when we are getting bad latency to outside network and it seems fine (while we are getting 200-500ms to virginmedia.com, ping to router seems to be 1-2ms).

netstat -s -p tcp command:

Segments Sent = 250846
Segments Retransmitted = 2114

After downloading a 700MB file from Virgin Media server:

Segments Sent = 485279
Segments Retransmitted = No change

At this point I am running out of ideas of what to do. Could someone recommend further diagnostics?

P.S. Saying all this, the download speed is very high. The above 700MB was downloaded at 2-2.5 MB/s. The problem is noticeable only in games and sometimes when browsing (web-sites will load very slow or not load at all and then suddenly start loading very quickly).

[Peter_]

Post what modem you have and your power levels from your config pages of your modem. The should be a sticker on the bottom saying what model.

If using an Ambit modem please click here
http://root:root@192.168.100.1/CmOpConfig.asp

If using any other modem click here
http://192.168.100.1/

What I want you to post is the Downstream power levels including the SNR and the Upstream power levels for me thanks.

DO NOT POST YOUR MAC ADDRESS OR SERIAL NUMBER

[snegoviK]

Hi Moldova,

Here is the information you requested:

Trade Name: Ambit
Cable Modem : Euro-DOCSIS 1.0/1.1/2.0 Compliant
Software Version : 2.111.1000
Hardware Version : 1.9

Downstream Receive Power Level : -4.6 dBmV
Downstream SNR : 37.4 dB
Upstream transmit Power Level : 53.0 dBmV

Just in case, here is a short ping test session taken when I took those values down:
www.virginmedia.com
212.250.162.12
Location:United Kingdom
Packets Sent:492
Packets Received:460
Packets Lost:32(6% loss)
Response time Minimum:10ms
Response time Maximum:98ms
Response time Average:30ms

[Peter_]

Your power levels are fine so I would advise you to call in on 151 from a Virgin phone or 0845 454 1111 from any other phone.

[snegoviK]

Alright, thanks. I think I am calling them for the eighth time since the problem was spotted... It seems like I need to invite an engineer to have a look at what is happening from our end.

[Walford]

Some others have been having trouble with ubr08, I gues that's what your on?

[snegoviK]

Nope. I am on ubr22.

[Ashes2049]

Before you get an Engineer out try changing the wireless channel on your router. It could be you are getting interference from a neighbour's signal or something like that.

I had a similar problem (even on the pc with wired connection) and changing the wireless channel seemed to do the trick.

[Joxer]

Could you try ping -n 100 10.25.252.1 ?

And also when connected direct to the modem try running a traceroute from http://tools.virginmedia.com
to you own IP address (or that of the router if it is connected - the external one not the 192 one). Ideally you want to use the modems ip but you can't find it out on those pesky Ambits and if you are on the NTL network it won't respond anyway.

[snegoviK]

I can't ping 10.25.252.1. Request timeout. Will try doing traceroute later, people are using Internet at the moment.

Before you get an Engineer out try changing the wireless channel on your router. It could be you are getting interference from a neighbour's signal or something like that.

I had a similar problem (even on the pc with wired connection) and changing the wireless channel seemed to do the trick.

Thanks for your advice but I already checked this. It's a good piece of advice nevertheless. :)

[snegoviK]

A technician came round today. Said there is nothing he can do apart from replacing the modem (which was fine) and discreetly recommended upgrading to 50 meg package. :) Anyway, I wasn't in, so there was no-one to deal with him, he mentioned something about IT department giving us a call between 4-7pm...

Just in case, could someone confirm working times for Virgin Media staff? Also, what is this IT department? Is there a way to call them to speed up the resolution of this issue? Are they likely to be working on Saturday?

[Joxer]

Depends what you mean by Virgin staff - tech support is open 24/7 but some UK offices are only open 0800-2200. Customer services may be different.

[snegoviK]

That's what I am curious about. He said, I quote: "IT staff". I hope its someone who has a clue but I suspect he meant technical support... 0800-2200, is that sat/sun aswell?

It's really frustrating because this problem seems to be out of scope of both technical support and technicians they send out. I.e. we are getting bad latency but they can't really see a problem from their end. We desparately need an engineer with access to UBR, so he can see what we mean by bad latency and trace the problem back to their equipment.

We cancelled out every possible local symptom. I mean, connecting PC directly to the modem doesn't have an effect, and according to the technician, modem is working fine. Technical support can't identify the problem either. It must be some minor issue in the neighbourhood.

[Joxer]

the IT department wouldn''t contact you at all and wouldn't deal with this kind of issue either - he probably meant either a network engineer - though they would generally come round rather than phone (he could have meant this) or it could be 2nd line tech support.

---------- Post added at 16:45 ---------- Previous post was at 16:34 ----------

Incidentally, rereading this thread you say you can't ping 10.25.252.1 ? it shows up in the traceroute - so it responded there...

Try the trace again and the try ping -n 100 10.x.x.x i.e whatever the hop that has an ip beginning 10 is - it will be either the first or second depending on whether your router is attached or not.

What OS are you using?

[davedarave01uk]

Is one of you gaming while the other is browsing/downloading vids..youtube ect...?

[snegoviK]

Hi Dave. No, we tried playing games in complete isolation.

<wall of text deleted>

Apparently a new fault was found in our area. I will wait for any status updates. Hopefully it's the real one now. I don't think there is any point in any further discussion - this is obviously out of my control.

Thanks a lot to everybody who tried to help. :)