Help! High Ping Times

[FaZe]

I have comcast high speed. 8mb down and 800k upload. I recently moved and used to have Adelphia with like 4mb down and 384k up. The thing is that old adelphia service was far superior to this comcast service because my ping times were solid. My ping times randomly seem to be going from decent, to just plain horrible...same with download speed. Though typically its the peak hours that are horrible.

Here is an example of speeds I got using speedtest.net when things were fine around 11 am yesterday.

7500 kbs down, 650 kbs up, 30 ping to washington under 50 miles.

Now tonight at 10:24 pm on a Friday night.

3184 kbs down , 555 kbs up ping 104


Sometimes i'll get pings much higher than that. Here is a tracert to comcast.net


C:\Documents and Settings\Agent Zero>tracert comcast.net

Tracing route to comcast.net [204.127.205.8]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 * * * Request timed out.
2 82 ms 76 ms 93 ms ge-1-2-ur01.manassas.va.bad.comcast.net [68.87.1
35.213]
3 125 ms 118 ms 122 ms te-9-2-ur01.reston.va.bad.comcast.net [68.87.129
.114]
4 133 ms 122 ms 125 ms te-9-3-ur02.arlington.va.bad.comcast.net [68.87.
128.161]
5 149 ms 157 ms 189 ms te-9-1-ur01.arlington.va.bad.comcast.net [68.87.
128.157]
6 158 ms 195 ms 152 ms te-9-3-ur02.alexandria.va.bad.comcast.net [68.87
.128.141]
7 192 ms 198 ms 201 ms te-9-1-ur01.alexandria.va.bad.comcast.net [68.87
.128.133]
8 256 ms 262 ms 239 ms te-8-1-ur01.capitolhghts.md.bad.comcast.net [68.
87.128.138]
9 186 ms 190 ms 165 ms te-8-1-ur02.capitolhghts.md.bad.comcast.net [68.
87.129.150]
10 143 ms 151 ms 175 ms te-9-2-ar01.capitolhghts.md.bad.comcast.net [68.
87.129.145]
11 206 ms 182 ms 160 ms 12.86.111.5
12 199 ms 190 ms 174 ms 12.122.113.82
13 138 ms 135 ms 128 ms tbr2.n54ny.ip.att.net [12.122.10.53]
14 180 ms 161 ms 165 ms gar13.n54ny.ip.att.net [12.123.0.53]
15 187 ms 169 ms 146 ms mdf1-gsr12-2-pos-6-0.nyc3.attens.net [12.122.255
.130]
16 132 ms 130 ms 126 ms sccsbix12-1-4.attbi.com [63.240.64.46]
17 * * * Request timed out.
18 * * * Request timed out.
19 191 ms 202 ms 183 ms www.comcast.net [204.127.205.8]

Trace complete.


Help!!! Its making it hard for me to play online games which is what I really care about. Comcast is probably the most used provider in my area, and i'm sure that the majority of people who use highspeed in this city do so with comcast. The download speeds are fine, but the ping is just atrocious. If I switched to another highspeed cable provider would that help pings? Or is there anything wrong wtih my connection that can be fixed? Thanks!!!

[trogers]

2 82 ms 76 ms 93 ms ge-1-2-ur01.manassas.va.bad.comcast.net [68.87.xxx.xxx]

High and irregular ping times at hop 2. This is that part of your connection line between your modem and the ISP's switch.

You will need to call your ISP's tech to locate the fault and make correction.

[FaZe]

Are you sure there is a problem with the line? Sure its not just extreme congestion? Here is another tracert from this morning. Of course speedtest.net showed good speeds again. 6:45 am I might add.

Maybe it is just congestion =(. Kind of sucks because there aren't many other providers out here. Its 6:45 am and I went to speedtest.net and of course all speeds were up again. Here is a tracert from this time.

Microsoft Windows XP [Version 5.1.2600]
(C) Copyright 1985-2001 Microsoft Corp.

C:\Documents and Settings\Agent Zero>tracert comcast.net

Tracing route to comcast.net [204.127.228.15]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 * * * Request timed out.
2 32 ms 7 ms 33 ms ge-1-2-ur01.manassas.va.bad.comcast.net [68.87.1
35.213]
3 8 ms 35 ms 10 ms te-9-2-ur01.reston.va.bad.comcast.net [68.87.129
.114]
4 9 ms 26 ms 10 ms te-9-3-ur02.arlington.va.bad.comcast.net [68.87.
128.161]
5 9 ms 13 ms 11 ms te-9-1-ur01.arlington.va.bad.comcast.net [68.87.
128.157]
6 11 ms 10 ms 13 ms te-9-3-ur02.alexandria.va.bad.comcast.net [68.87
.128.141]
7 9 ms 9 ms 9 ms te-9-1-ur01.alexandria.va.bad.comcast.net [68.87
.128.133]
8 12 ms 13 ms 9 ms te-8-1-ur01.capitolhghts.md.bad.comcast.net [68.
87.128.138]
9 45 ms 11 ms 10 ms te-8-1-ur02.capitolhghts.md.bad.comcast.net [68.
87.129.150]
10 11 ms 11 ms 11 ms te-9-2-ar01.capitolhghts.md.bad.comcast.net [68.
87.129.145]
11 14 ms 12 ms 13 ms 12.86.111.5
12 48 ms 50 ms 47 ms 12.122.113.22
13 47 ms 49 ms 43 ms tbr1.sl9mo.ip.att.net [12.122.10.30]
14 87 ms 49 ms 53 ms tbr2.dlstx.ip.att.net [12.122.10.90]
15 47 ms 50 ms 47 ms br2.dlstx.ip.att.net [12.123.16.213]
16 47 ms 48 ms 47 ms mdf1-gsr12-1-pos-6-0.dal1.attens.net [12.122.255
.78]
17 49 ms 52 ms 47 ms 63.241.206.214
18 * * * Request timed out.
19 49 ms 48 ms 52 ms www.comcast.net [204.127.228.15]

Trace complete.

So if it is this isp, would another cable internet service provide better ping times due to less congestion? Man this sucks...I love the speeds with comcast but the ping times =(.

[trogers]

Turn off the firewall in your comp or the modem so that ping times at hop 1 do not get timed out. Only with ping times at hop 1 can we check if the problem originates at your modem.

[FaZe]

Strange, i'm directly connected to the net and don't have a firewall on and yet still nothing from hop 1.

[trogers]

Strange, i'm directly connected to the net and don't have a firewall on and yet still nothing from hop 1.

What brand and model is your modem?

[FaZe]

Scientific Atlanta DPC2100R2 Cable Modem

I actually just got this modem a week ago and it hasn't done a lot to change ping times. I used to have a motorola and I remember even then when I used tracert it would skip hop 1.

[trogers]

Post your TCP Analyzer report.

Make sure your modem is placed a few feet away from any other electrical devices to avoid eletromagnetic interference.

Turn the power of your modem off for 5 mins and then reconnect it.

[FaZe]

« SpeedGuide.net TCP Analyzer Results »
Tested on: 05.05.2007 11:56
IP address: 24.126.xx.xx

TCP options string: 020405b401010402
MSS: 1460
MTU: 1500
TCP Window: 64240 (multiple of MSS)
RWIN Scaling: 0
Unscaled RWIN : 64240
Reccomended RWINs: 64240, 128480, 256960, 513920
BDP limit (200ms): 2570kbps (321KBytes/s)
BDP limit (500ms): 1028kbps (128KBytes/s)
MTU Discovery: ON
TTL: 32
Timestamps: OFF
SACKs: ON
IP ToS: 00100000 (32)
Precedence: 001 (priority)
Delay: 0 (normal delay)
Throughput: 0 (normal throughput)
Reliability: 0 (normal reliability)
Cost: 0 (normal cost)
Check bit: 0 (correct)
DiffServ: CS1 001000 (8) - class 1 (RFC 2474). Similar forwarding behavior to the ToS Precedence field.

[trogers]

You will need to increase your RWIN for 8 mbps bandwidth.

Try the following with TCP Optimizer:

General Settings tab:
Custom settings - check
Modify All Network Adapters - check
network adapter selection - your NIC
MTU 1500
TTL - 64
TCP Receive Window - 128480
MTU Discovery - Yes
Black Hole Detect - No
Selective Acks - Yes
Max Duplicate ACKs - 2
TCP 1323 Options:
Windows Scaling - checked
Timestamps - uncheck

Advanced Settings tab:
Max Connections per Server - 10
Max Connections per 1.0 Server - 20
LocalPriority - 1
Host Priority - 1
DNSPriority - 1
NetbtPriority - 1
Lan Browsing speedup - optimized
QoS: NonBestEffortLimit - 0
ToS: DisableUserTOSSetting - 0
ToS: DefaultTOSValue - 80
MaxNegativeCacheTtl - 0
NetFailureCacheTime - 0
NegativeSOACache Time - 0
LAN Request Buffer Size - 32768
Then select "Apply Changes" and reboot to take effect

[FaZe]

Thanks for the help. Used the optimizer and while my ping times haven't really improved, I gained a full mb on my download and a full 100k on my upload. Now if I could just do something about these ping times. I might try to get help from a tech. He probably won't help much, but its worth a try.

[trogers]

Since you do not use a router and may sometimes run with firewall off, it would be prudent to go into Windows 'Safe Mode' and scan your comp for possible spyware and malware.

Search Google, download and update SpyBot and Lavasoft Ad-Aware and see what these two programs can find.

[Sava700]

welcome to the Comcast family of problems.. Only suggestion is to call a tech and keep on calling them till your problem is resolved.. I'm having good speed and good pings but a "up and down" connection issue myself with them...as in in the middle of BF2 and I just freeze up with "problem with my connection" and then if I'm lucky it comes back in a few seconds if not I get disconnected and I have to reconnect. Good thing about my visit today from a tech was the modem decided to reset itself for some odd reason right in front of us while we were talking so I printed out modem logs and he took them back to check them out.