50mb - random high ping and slow speeds?

[f1ddy]

We got 50 meg on Friday and something is causing random high ping and slow speeds some of the time.

I have no idea what it is... so a bit of help on how to see "investigate" this would be helpful (so I can determine if its my connection or the router etc within the 7 days I'm allowed).

Now - I've used numerous speed testing sites (speedtest.net, bbmax.co.uk) and they all produce different results.

I've also done a manual speedtest downloading from gamefiles. Connected to the modem, I got around 4-5mb a second download in total - so that's good.

Sometimes over wireless (using an N connection) I'll get about 3.5mb to 4mb download from a good site such as Apple. But the speed will randomly go up and down! The speed at 3.5+ is good though, as others will be using the network (for WoW etc).

I'm noticing a pattern of, when I'm told there is high ping (around 200ms) the connection is slower, yet when there is low ping (around 50ms) the connection on my wireless will reach 30-40mbps.

As I've managed to download files around 4-5mb a sec from gamefiles.virginmedia.com - I'm assuming my connection is not at fault, but possibly the router/wireless?

With high ping, the internet slows down to about 4-5mbps. Surely congestion in the area would not cause it to go from 30-40 to 4-5mbps randomly, literally within minutes.

This is what I mean:

13th September 2010 00:23:18 1184 Kbps 6333 Kbps
13th September 2010 00:22:47 988 Kbps 23884 Kbps
13th September 2010 00:22:20 1053 Kbps 28101 Kbps
13th September 2010 00:21:56 1148 Kbps 34712 Kbps

Less than a minute later, it had gone down to 6333?

We have several G devices connected to the N network - could this be causing the network to slow down and then speed back up again? (These speed tests are from my own computer with wireless N, usually faster when the router directly/modem).

Or could the router be faulty?

Thinking of having a seperate router for G devices and making this one N only.

But any ideas what could be causing the high ping?

Cheers guys, and gold star if you understood this slightly garbled message! :P

---------- Post added at 12:10 ---------- Previous post was at 12:07 ----------

A tracert:

Tracing route to bbc.co.uk [212.58.224.138]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 133 ms 95 ms 171 ms cpc4-hatf7-2-0-gw.9-3.cable.virginmedia.com [86.
16.88.1]
2 121 ms 153 ms 102 ms lutn-core-1a-ge-300-2313.network.virginmedia.net
[80.4.221.101]
3 135 ms 178 ms 156 ms popl-bb-1a-as5-0.network.virginmedia.net [213.10
5.175.149]
4 80 ms 20 ms 73 ms nrth-bb-1b-as3-0.network.virginmedia.net [213.10
5.172.13]
5 58 ms 74 ms 78 ms tele-ic-1-as0-0.network.virginmedia.net [62.253.
184.2]
6 88 ms 91 ms 35 ms pos6-1.rt0.thdo.bbc.co.uk [212.58.239.237]
7 61 ms 55 ms 68 ms 212.58.238.153
8 96 ms 82 ms 68 ms virtual-vip.thdo.bbc.co.uk [212.58.224.138]

Trace complete.

---------- Post added at 12:12 ---------- Previous post was at 12:10 ----------

And ping...

Pinging google.co.uk [173.194.37.104] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 173.194.37.104: bytes=32 time=173ms TTL=56
Reply from 173.194.37.104: bytes=32 time=41ms TTL=56
Reply from 173.194.37.104: bytes=32 time=24ms TTL=55
Reply from 173.194.37.104: bytes=32 time=75ms TTL=56

Ping statistics for 173.194.37.104:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 24ms, Maximum = 173ms, Average = 78ms

See how it is 173ms down to 41/24?

[arcimedes]

I am not sure if you are mixing your units i.e. sometimes using mbps as megabits per sec and sometimes megabytes per sec.

I would say that doing speed tests if you have other traffic on your network would make life difficult for you to interpret the results.

Someone with better knowledge can confirm or deny the following; having G and N mixed will slow the network the down and dont forget interference from other devices such as digital phones etc

[f1ddy]

Sorry - the first message was a bit hard to understand.

When I did the manual speed tests, such as from the modem, I was downloading files at the speed of 4 megabytes per second. I also downloaded a file from Apple.com connected to the wireless router, and that was going at about 3.5 megabytes per second.

So I think that basically rules out it is a slow connection if we get that?

I'm just puzzled as to why the connection speed will drop down to 6333kbps less than a minute after it has tested and given a speed of 34712kbps.

The router is the D-Link 614 router - is that any good?

---------- Post added at 13:05 ---------- Previous post was at 13:03 ----------

And by slowing down the network - would it slow it enough to produce these slower speeds/high ping?

Basically, I am just wanting to know whether those people in the house on their g devices, are slowing it down for the rest of us on n devices.

Also - what could be the cause of the high ping (probably the most important thing as we play online games) - half the time im getting ping of a low 43ms and the rest its up to 200ms? It's totally random too not time dependant, such as now, I just did one test and it was 53ms, yet the next test was 233ms? :S

[Chrysalis]

if its upstream congestion stopping ack packets then download speed will vary widly.