Help with Xtra Broadband - Speed chokes every now and then

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Paulthagerous

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Topic # 97221 14-Feb-2012 11:10

Hi there,

So every now and then my broadband connection seems to just seize up. For a few minutes my upload speed in particular will plummet (can normally manage 100KB/s at best, but it drops to less than 10), download speed does too but not as drastically. The funny thing is that the Telecom website speedtest and Speedtest.net tests still show good speed.

As an example, this morning was doing testing so had open: Chrome, utorrent (legal files btw), dropbox and Warcraft III. During one seizure, the game got disconnected in Warcraft, between Dropbox and utorrent they were managing 7KB/s and general browsing on Chrome (Trademe) was terrible. However, the Telecom Speedtest and Speedtest.net were still showing really good uploads (though sometimes they suffer too).

So I have called Xtra and they are monitoring it because they had no idea what is happening. Hopefully you guys can help out :)

- Tried two modems (both Telecom supplied) no difference
- No Fax/Monitored alarm/Sky, filters on 3 jackpoints that have landline phones. Took out all phones, no difference
- Computer is wired, tests this morning had no other devices connected though usually there are
- PC wasn't stressed out or anything, is a pretty recent rig with good specs
- Modem stats:

Bandwidth (Up/Down) [kbps/kbps]:1.144 / 16.064
Output Power (Up/Down) [dBm]:12,6 / 0,0

Line Attenuation (Up/Down) [dB]:5,3 / 10,0

SN Margin (Up/Down) [dB]:12,6 / 11,3

System Vendor ID (Local/Remote):TMMB / ----

Chipset Vendor ID (Local/Remote):BDCM / IKNS

Loss of Framing (Local/Remote):0 / 0

Loss of Signal (Local/Remote):0 / 0

Loss of Power (Local/Remote):0 / 0

Loss of Link (Remote):-

Error Seconds (Local/Remote):51 / 0

FEC Errors (Up/Down):0 / 0

CRC Errors (Up/Down):1 / 8

HEC Errors (Up/Down):0 / 8

Thanks for your help guys!

myopinion

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Reply # 581251 14-Feb-2012 11:25

We are having issues here at work as well, using Telstra.

cyril7

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Reply # 581256 14-Feb-2012 11:34

Hi, not too sure what the issue exactly is, but Telecom provided Thompson modems are not the best and have a bit of a reputation for locking up, actually a reputation for just not being very good, maybe try a totally different brand, TP-Link comes to mind.

Cyril

Paulthagerous

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Reply # 581257 14-Feb-2012 11:35

cyril7: Hi, not too sure what the issue exactly is, but Telecom provided Thompson modems are not the best and have a bit of a reputation for locking up, actually a reputation for just not being very good, maybe try a totally different brand, TP-Link comes to mind.

Cyril

Any particular model that you would suggest as a good one for gaming?

cyril7

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Reply # 581258 14-Feb-2012 11:41

Hi, just a point, have you tried reducing the number of torrent threads, there are not many domestic grade routers that will happily serve up hundreds of parallel torrent threads, so firstly try bringing that number down, you will need to adjust that in the torrent setup.

Otherwise any of the TP-Link models depending on what wireless features (if any) you want. Although avoid the TD-8840T (TD-8840 is good but T model not so good).

Cyril

Paulthagerous

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Reply # 581259 14-Feb-2012 11:44

cyril7: Hi, just a point, have you tried reducing the number of torrent threads, there are not many domestic grade routers that will happily serve up hundreds of parallel torrent threads, so firstly try bringing that number down, you will need to adjust that in the torrent setup.

Otherwise any of the TP-Link models depending on what wireless features (if any) you want. Although avoid the TD-8840T (TD-8840 is good but T model not so good).

Cyril

There are only 12 people that are using this torrent (just family photos and videos, easiest way to distribute around the world) so that's not an issue. As I say, dropbox suffered too so even if torrents were an issue, surely dropbox would still be fine?

cyril7

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Reply # 581261 14-Feb-2012 11:47

Hi, every open connection (so each parallel thread of a torrent) is allocated a portion of memory for the router to manage, once the memory starts to get heavily loaded the whole lot falls over not just the torrents, as I say try reducing the thread number or maybe just halt the torrent for a few hours to see if it helps.

Cyril

Paulthagerous

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Reply # 581262 14-Feb-2012 11:48

Ok will try

Ragnor

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Reply # 581497 14-Feb-2012 18:50

This sounds like a client side issue imo, with torrents and other services like www and gaming competing it's likely you are saturating either your upload or download capacity intermittently causing delays and timeouts for real time traffic.

I would suggest you look into QoS to prioritise your real time traffic over large downloads, especially if this is a family or flat situation with multiple users.

This usually involves geeking it up a bit via bridging a basic modem (eg: TP Link TD 8840 non T version, or Draytek Vigor 120) into some commodity router hardware running third party open source software/firmware

Some options are:
- pfsense on spare PC or something like PC Engines/ALIX
- Gargoyle-router on a TP-Link TL-WR1043ND
- TomatoUSB on a Asus RT-N16
- Mikrotik on something eg: PC Engines/ALIX

Then setting up QoS rules to prioritise/limit certain traffic.

Paulthagerous

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Reply # 581525 14-Feb-2012 19:37

Have been testing this afternoon without the torrent, dropbox etc. Just a couple of webpages and 1 game at a time. Still getting issues.

Ragnor: This sounds like a client side issue imo, with torrents and other services like www and gaming competing it's likely you are saturating either your upload or download capacity intermittently causing delays and timeouts for real time traffic.

I would suggest you look into QoS to prioritise your real time traffic over large downloads, especially if this is a family or flat situation with multiple users.

This usually involves geeking it up a bit via bridging a basic modem (eg: TP Link TD 8840 non T version, or Draytek Vigor 120) into some commodity router hardware running third party open source software/firmware

Some options are:
- pfsense on spare PC or something like PC Engines/ALIX
- Gargoyle-router on a TP-Link TL-WR1043ND
- TomatoUSB on a Asus RT-N16
- Mikrotik on something eg: PC Engines/ALIX

Then setting up QoS rules to prioritise/limit certain traffic.

I think I have realised that I probably do need a new modem + router, though I will wait and see if the tracking Xtra are doing uncovers anything. If not then I will have to get some new hardware.

Would any old router do, or would a specific one be better? The TD 8840 is a lot cheaper than I was expecting, so that's a good sign already :)

cokemaster

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Reply # 582081 15-Feb-2012 21:46

cyril7: Hi, not too sure what the issue exactly is, but Telecom provided Thompson modems are not the best and have a bit of a reputation for locking up, actually a reputation for just not being very good, maybe try a totally different brand, TP-Link comes to mind.

Cyril

As someone who assists in the testing of many different modems and routers, I'm rather surprised at the quality comments.

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cyril7

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Reply # 582160 16-Feb-2012 08:10

Hi Cokemaster, you may well be right, however with respect to the Thompsons, I have lost count of the number of these I have been confronted with that start to to randomly reboot and loose DSL connection and add to that various wireless issues. Replace them with a humble 8840 and I dont think I can recall any customers calling back complaining about the 8840 I have supplied.

I think you will find a number of other guys around here that support users will say the same, maybe prefering a different modem to the 8840 but situation the same.

Cheers
Cyril

cyril7

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Reply # 582187 16-Feb-2012 09:32

Just to add a few more comments regarding the Thompson modems, I suspect the issue with them may be thermal/ageing related rather than anything else. Out of the box they seem to work just fine, albeit with some wireless issues which is more a compatibility issue with some Apple products but does not seem to effect other XP/W7 connections, but give them 2-3yrs in service and they start playing up. Purhaps something you should consider as part of your testing program.

By way of example, about 2-2.5yrs ago I installed a number of these for a retail chain across the lower north island. From past experience with these modems and a suspicion of heat issues I decided on roughly 1/3 of these (where physically appropriate) to remove the top case cover. 2-3yrs on and pretty much all the fully cased ones have been replaced due to erratic operation, none of the uncased ones have been replaced, maybe coincidence, maybe not.

Cheers
Cyril

Cymro

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Reply # 582374 16-Feb-2012 14:03

cyril7: Just to add a few more comments regarding the Thompson modems, I suspect the issue with them may be thermal/ageing related rather than anything else. Out of the box they seem to work just fine, albeit with some wireless issues which is more a compatibility issue with some Apple products but does not seem to effect other XP/W7 connections, but give them 2-3yrs in service and they start playing up. Purhaps something you should consider as part of your testing program.

By way of example, about 2-2.5yrs ago I installed a number of these for a retail chain across the lower north island. From past experience with these modems and a suspicion of heat issues I decided on roughly 1/3 of these (where physically appropriate) to remove the top case cover. 2-3yrs on and pretty much all the fully cased ones have been replaced due to erratic operation, none of the uncased ones have been replaced, maybe coincidence, maybe not.

Cheers
Cyril

Maybe thats why the new ones seem to be perforated :)

TG582n Front

PhilP

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Reply # 583809 20-Feb-2012 12:01

I've just started having the same problems over the last few days.

speedtest.net shows normal speed and ping tests. However when playing World Of Warcraft or even just general browsing I get really bad latency/lag spikes.

Prior to the last few days everything was fine.

A partial TRACERT to a WOW server shows the following information:
Tracing route to 12.129.254.212 over a maximum of 30 hops

1     1 ms     1 ms     1 ms 192.168.1.1
2    51 ms    48 ms    54 ms 219-89-49-1.dialup.xtra.co.nz [219.89.49.1]
3 1961 ms  2015 ms 1525 ms mdr-fid-int.akbr5.global-gateway.net.nz [202.37. 244.222]
4    47 ms    45 ms    43 ms ae4-10.akbr5.global-gateway.net.nz [202.37.244.2 21]
5    45 ms    43 ms    45 ms ae1-2.akbr4.global-gateway.net.nz [202.50.232.77 ]
6    53 ms    49 ms    47 ms ae1-10.tkbr9.global-gateway.net.nz [202.50.232.3 7]

Issues on the mdr-fid-int.akbr5.global-gateway.net.nz router?

Ragnor

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Reply # 584076 20-Feb-2012 18:13

PhilP: I've just started having the same problems over the last few days.

speedtest.net shows normal speed and ping tests. However when playing World Of Warcraft or even just general browsing I get really bad latency/lag spikes.

Prior to the last few days everything was fine.

A partial TRACERT to a WOW server shows the following information:
Tracing route to 12.129.254.212 over a maximum of 30 hops

1     1 ms     1 ms     1 ms 192.168.1.1
2    51 ms    48 ms    54 ms 219-89-49-1.dialup.xtra.co.nz [219.89.49.1]
3 1961 ms  2015 ms 1525 ms mdr-fid-int.akbr5.global-gateway.net.nz [202.37. 244.222]
4    47 ms    45 ms    43 ms ae4-10.akbr5.global-gateway.net.nz [202.37.244.2 21]
5    45 ms    43 ms    45 ms ae1-2.akbr4.global-gateway.net.nz [202.50.232.77 ]
6    53 ms    49 ms    47 ms ae1-10.tkbr9.global-gateway.net.nz [202.50.232.3 7]

Issues on the mdr-fid-int.akbr5.global-gateway.net.nz router?

I've noticed that router always de-prioritises ICMP and may even drop it / no reply to it when busy.

Unfortunately ICMP traffic like ping/tracert is not indicative of UDP or TCP performance. WOW uses TCP if I remember rightly.

You'll need to do a tcp tracert, on windows you can do this with nmap/zenmap.

http://serverfault.com/questions/49235/tracert-tcp-equivalent-for-windows