Having new Cable line installed

PCgamer · Post by **PCgamer** » Fri Apr 29, 2022 12:22 am

I am getting a lot of packet loss at anytime day or night. Been testing with the speed test on my router and that's one of the sources saying I'm getting packet loss. Some PL readings from the router have shown up to 56%. The other source is while gaming looking at the in-game net graph. My Incoming PL is constantly 0% but all throughout a game-map my Outgoing PL literally fluctuates up to 90% at times. It's constantly like a roller-coaster. So I assume there's a high probability something is bad somewhere. My Pwr downstream db signals are within 5db across 32 channels and an OFDM PLC channel, and bounce around 0 +/- 2.5db, my upstream Pwr db has also been adjusted by attenuators to push between 44.5-49.0 db otherwise if I don't use any attenuators down is from 1-9db and up is 30 - 34.5. Honestly I get the same ISP performance whether I have attenuators on the line or not but I prefer to have them around optimal levels. I can go for days without any corrected errors and uncorrected errors on all my downstream but this crazy packet loss is still there all the time. Not going to mention the super bad packet jitter but I guess I did.

So I'm having a line from the pole to my house installed tomorrow. There's a break at the outside of the house and then another line that goes into the basement where there's options to run the cable to any of the bedrooms, or the living room, but it's going to go directly to just one office/bedroom. To that office bedroom from the basement there's 2 lines connected by a coupler. I'll find out of I need to replace those lines and reduce them to just one line.

This has been going on for years but I finally figured it might be a bad line to the house. I've recently been running the router test at a family members house who had their entire line from the pole replaced (straight to the modem) Over the past 24hrs every test returns zero packet loss.

Any suggestions? Should I have one complete line going to the basement or let them use the break point outside the house? I did buy some Temflex type of Water Sealing Weather proofing tape and Super 88 Electrical tape incase it's not possible to run the line straight to the inside of the house..

Hope this works

PCgamer · Post by **PCgamer** » Fri Apr 29, 2022 12:38 am

Forgot to ask. If it's not the cable line causing PL what else could it be? Maybe bad cable modem?

Post by **Philip** » Fri Apr 29, 2022 8:35 am

It is fine to have a break point outside the house, just try to have a strait run from there to the modem, without using splitters if possible (taps are ok).

Upstream attenuators help the modem "speak louder", they help if there is noise on the line that gets pretty close to the upstream power. They usually help better if they are at the tap, further away from your modem actually.

The new line is likely to solve the issues, most likely some water intrusion, or some other type of noise ingress causing this. It is possible, but unlikely for the modem to be the culprit. Good luck with it, let us know how it works out.

Related faqs...
Signal levels: https://www.speedguide.net/faq/what-cab ... ed-good-78
Attenuators effects: https://www.speedguide.net/faq/what-is- ... nuator-488

PCgamer · Post by **PCgamer** » Fri Apr 29, 2022 9:46 am

Philip wrote:It is fine to have a break point outside the house, just try to have a strait run from there to the modem, without using splitters if possible (taps are ok).

Upstream attenuators help the modem "speak louder", they help if there is noise on the line that gets pretty close to the upstream power. They usually help better if they are at the tap, further away from your modem actually.

The new line is likely to solve the issues, most likely some water intrusion, or some other type of noise ingress causing this. It is possible, but unlikely for the modem to be the culprit. Good luck with it, let us know how it works out.

Related faqs...
Signal levels: https://www.speedguide.net/faq/what-cab ... ed-good-78
Attenuators effects: https://www.speedguide.net/faq/what-is- ... nuator-488

Thanks for the reply. I hope it fixes it.

And I've been using those links you posted like a bible for the past few years, hah, thanks!

Post by **Philip** » Fri Apr 29, 2022 11:33 am

Good, glad faqs are helpful

And yeah, that cable run is the most likely culprit.

PCgamer · Post by **PCgamer** » Fri Apr 29, 2022 8:52 pm

Yup! Tech said the cable line drop was close to 10yrs. He said he's been doing his job so long that he can tell how old the cable is by seeing how much of the black insulation rubs off. Replaced the line to the house, and I helped run the line from the basement to the outside, just to make sure all the outside cables were replaced.

No packet loss, yay!

Thanks!

Post by **Philip** » Sat Apr 30, 2022 8:58 am

Great to hear! Thanks for following up.

PCgamer · Post by **PCgamer** » Wed May 04, 2022 8:53 pm

So since the line was replaced things have been fine. Had a day or two of rain, no issues. It rained all day today, packet loss is back. It's only been a week. I can't believe this.

I have some rubber splicing waterproofing tape and some Super 88 Electrical tape and I'm going to put my fiberglass 20 foot ladder up to the line and try n water proof it in a few days when it dries out. smh, this is unbelievable.

Post by **Philip** » Thu May 05, 2022 9:23 am

Sorry to hear.. :/ Sounds like this is the culprit though.
See if packet loss subsides when it all dries up well?

I would also put some dielectric grease on connectors to deter water intrusion. Keep in mind that there may be water-related issues somewhere further up the line.

PCgamer · Post by **PCgamer** » Thu May 05, 2022 9:50 am

Philip wrote:Sorry to hear.. :/ Sounds like this is the culprit though.
See if packet loss subsides when it all dries up well?

I would also put some dielectric grease on connectors to deter water intrusion. Keep in mind that there may be water-related issues somewhere further up the line.

It rained all day up until around 5-6pm and the packet loss continued till very late in the evening then stopped around midnight. I taped up the break point at the back of my house even though it appeared to be dry and had to re-attach the grounding connector. I might jump up to the connection up by the pole and wrap some of that tape around the connectors.

PCgamer · Post by **PCgamer** » Fri May 06, 2022 6:19 pm

Still having super bad packet loss. I'm a novice with Ping plotter but all my hops to a game server have packet loss. All of them. I taped up the connection points outside the house and on the pole. I took out all my attenuators and let the line run freely to the modem and checked the Pwr db levels on the downstream. This statement came to mind from your page 'What Cable modem signal levels are considered good' "If there is a 5dB+ tilt on the DOCIS channels (difference in power levels), this could point to water in the line/tap, chewed up insulation, radial crack in the hardline cable, or a failing amplifier near you. That's too much loss in a short spectrum of channels." Instead of posting the screen shot I took the min and max dB = 1.9 - 8.4

Cable company keeps telling me I have no packet loss.

PCgamer · Post by **PCgamer** » Fri May 06, 2022 7:14 pm

Here's something interesting. Since about a half hour after taking the attenuators off ping plot runs have been clean with no packet loss. I did replace the old couplings with gold plated ones but still had the attenuators on. Now that the attenuators are off and the gold plated couplings remain on the packet loss is gone. And it's been raining all day.

PCgamer · Post by **PCgamer** » Fri May 06, 2022 8:57 pm

that had nothing to do with fixing the packet loss cause it's back.. what happened was the modem reset and connection to servers was good for about a half hour then that's it.. that's the pattern I'm seeing here

Post by **Philip** » Sun May 08, 2022 7:15 pm

How are you measuring packet loss?
In general, ICMP pings get low priority, and overcrowded routers/backbones will start dropping those packets if deemed excessive, especially at peak times.
Also, in-game packet loss can be dependent on how overloaded the current game environment/server is, not always on your end of the connection.

Ultimately, there is little you can do about the 5+dB power levels tilt..

PCgamer · Post by **PCgamer** » Sun May 15, 2022 11:02 am

I've used several different methods of testing. I've used the in-router speed test which also tracks packet loss which is pretty much local tests meaning testing servers which are at most a 30m drive from my location. There's an in-game net-graph that also includes in/out packet loss and that normally shows outgoing packet loss, RARELY incoming. Then I've used Ping Plotter to the specific game servers I've played on. It can get super bad at times. Every hop having errors and losing packets. This is to a server 3 states away, 12 hops, avg 23ms ping.

When running Ping Plotter at .5 second intervals packets can start to drop at peak busy times. Intervals at 1 seconds are OK, so I keep it at 2.5 second intervals.

The tilt is still there on incoming channels, but I rarely see corrected and uncorrected errors on downstream. If I put a downstream attenuator on the tilt goes away.

Ping Plotter has helped me see where the loss is coming from and normally it's when there's inclement weather. It's been sunny and dry the past 2 weeks and there's rarely been packet loss.