Troubleshooting highly variable ping

[Pootmunder]

My ping has been extremely inconsistent, both to my router and when pinging google.ca

Pinging my router can have ranges of:    min: 1-2ms    max: 19-505ms      Avg: 5-32ms    and no packet loss recorded

Pinging google.ca can have ranges of:    min: 20-34ms    max: 189-1239ms   Avg: 55-176ms and packet loss of: 0-33%. This was done on 2.4 GHz, 5 GHz, and wired internet, with only small variations between each of them

 

These were tested over 2 days using cmd prompt to ping my router (192.168.0.1) and google.ca

Power cycling the router and PC has not fixed the issue

While I haven't done this on other computers, using the app "Ping & Net" on my android phone I've replicated similar ping results as my PC

The router/modem combo is: Technicolor DPC3848VM. I have tried looking for firmware updates but I don't believe there are any

I am on Cogeco Cable internet, and I noticed this issue around a week and a half ago. I am in a small town with no real alternatives to switching providers (the town only has Bell lines as well). 

My neighbor who is also on the Cogeco line has not noticed any issues with his internet

Gaming between the hours of 11:00 a.m. and 11 p.m. are impossible to freezing, hitching, lagging and disconnects. Gaming outside of these hours is "tolerable"

Programs using video uploading like facetime, skype and discord result in the people on the other end saying we are freezing, or have low quality video

Using a wired network does not fix the issue. At all.

High traffic times through the day make the issue much worse, but it doesn't disappear during off hours either

I have included my spreadsheet of logs over the last 2 days if anyone cares

 

Hope someone can help me out with this, I'm at a loss of how to fix this and there hasn't been a whole lot of similar cases elsewhere from what I can see

Ping log.xlsx

[AngryBeaver]

3 minutes ago, Pootmunder said:

both to my router

How are you connecting to your router. If you are seeing big ping spikes from a machine to router then the issue is on your end. It could be a bad wifi signal, too much congestion on the band, or just too many connected devices.  If it is wired connection then it could be the cable, drivers, malware, etc.

[Pootmunder]

3 minutes ago, AngryBeaver said:

How are you connecting to your router. If you are seeing big ping spikes from a machine to router then the issue is on your end. It could be a bad wifi signal, too much congestion on the band, or just too many connected devices.  If it is wired connection then it could be the cable, drivers, malware, etc.

I tried connecting both wired and wireless; both 2.4 and 5ghz networks. The results were all similar to each other. Using a wifi analyzer shows there isnt interference from other wifi networks. There are <10 devices connected to ours right now, but no new devices added recently. It looks like its happening to both a wired and wireless connection right now

[Snowarch]

well, seams normal. My ping is strange on desktop. only tested twice, but once got 34-ish ping, almost 130 the next.

 

despite the strange pings, my speed of download is consistant. one thing that makes ping number worse my pings is having steam and or discord open while doing the test.if your download speed is consistant, try the test on fresh boots, you've got an app eating the wifi if it is consistant.

[Pootmunder]

3 hours ago, Snowarch said:

well, seams normal. My ping is strange on desktop. only tested twice, but once got 34-ish ping, almost 130 the next.

 

despite the strange pings, my speed of download is consistant. one thing that makes ping number worse my pings is having steam and or discord open while doing the test.if your download speed is consistant, try the test on fresh boots, you've got an app eating the wifi if it is consistant.

I get similar results on a different computer, and a phone. Could it still be an app from one device? and these tests were done with no background apps like discord or steam. Also the ping is an issue in game, I get pings up to 500+ as well as freezing and packet loss

[bendres97]

I think you've narrowed it down to either an issue with your router or with your ISP. I am suspecting the router in this case only because you seem to be getting poor ping times between your machine and the router. These should be 1 ms because it's only a single hop between your machine and the router. Try one of these commands:

 

ping -n 100 <ROUTER_IP> - Sends 100 pings

OR
ping -t <ROUTER_IP> - Continuously pings until you stop it

 

Look to see if there are spikes in ping times over time. If they stay low then try running them again and then start introducing other congestion from another device, maybe play a YouTube video on your phone or something. If either of these affect ping to your router then it may be time for an upgrade because it's having trouble handling that small amount of traffic that it is getting. 

 

If the router checks out then I would engage your ISP and report that you've done a bunch of testing and found that the latency is in the circuit. They will push back and ask you to reboot, etc. Just do what you need to do to get a ticket opened and work from there. I work in IT and I have to do this all the time, even with business class internet.

[Pootmunder]

9 hours ago, bendres97 said:

I think you've narrowed it down to either an issue with your router or with your ISP. I am suspecting the router in this case only because you seem to be getting poor ping times between your machine and the router. These should be 1 ms because it's only a single hop between your machine and the router. Try one of these commands:

 

ping -n 100 <ROUTER_IP> - Sends 100 pings

OR
ping -t <ROUTER_IP> - Continuously pings until you stop it

 

Look to see if there are spikes in ping times over time. If they stay low then try running them again and then start introducing other congestion from another device, maybe play a YouTube video on your phone or something. If either of these affect ping to your router then it may be time for an upgrade because it's having trouble handling that small amount of traffic that it is getting. 

 

If the router checks out then I would engage your ISP and report that you've done a bunch of testing and found that the latency is in the circuit. They will push back and ask you to reboot, etc. Just do what you need to do to get a ticket opened and work from there. I work in IT and I have to do this all the time, even with business class internet.

All my testing was done using:  ping -n 100, and the consistent pattern appears to be this: A spike to 11ms, 2 pings descending back to 3ms, and then a ping back up to 11ms

eg. (router ip) 12 10 8 4 2 9 6 6 3 9 6 3 12 9 5 4 4 8 6 12 9 11 7 3 10 7 4 11 9 5 3 10 7 4 11 9 5 3 10 6 5 10 6 3 15 10 6 12.

With congestion from my PC and a phone both playing youtube i get spikes in the same pattern, but the spikes are much higher

eg.( router ip) 9 76 45 11 58 5 71 11 111 6 4 10 7 6 3 30 6 24 11 8 6 12 88 7 4 11 8 5 2 10 7 4 11 8 5 3 5 6 511 8 5 91 9 14

I'll try a hard reset, and contacting my service provider, and if needed a new router as well

 

[Slayerking92]

Does running a traceroute show a slowdown at any point between you and google?  The problem might not be at your end.

 

open a command window and run:

 

tracert www.google.ca

[bendres97]

55 minutes ago, Slayerking92 said:

Does running a traceroute show a slowdown at any point between you and google?  The problem might not be at your end.

 

open a command window and run:

 

tracert www.google.ca

He's already shown that the latency is between him and the router by pinging the router directly. A traceroute will also show this but is less of a telltale since it's intermittent and it will only send three pings to each hop.