Hi All,

We've got a chapter member at NASRL (John Roussetos) having some connection issues in rFactor. He gets hooked up fine, the issue is his ping, which the server shows is 450-500. We tried rebooting his router, he says the firewall is off, no antivirus running.

John is going to get on the horn with his provider, but I was hoping some of you network gurus out there might be able to help him diagnose what's going on, or if necessary give him the ammo he needs with his provider to get it sorted out. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

It didn't occur to me at the time, but one thing i'd do is a "trace route" to see how many servers the signal was traveling thru and if one of them was a consistently identifiable culprit.

you'd need to know the specific domain, or better, the IP address of the R2P server, which i think Tim would be happy to help with.

the process is:

open a command window ( start > run > cmd > OK )
type in: "tracert" (without the quotes) then a space, then the IP address or domain

hit enter

you'll get a string of responses from each server in the chain from your computer to the one you're trying to connect to. what you're looking for is an anomaly or unusually high number. typically you'd get responses in the sub 110ms range. if you get a bunch of those and then some 400ms or something, from one or two servers, that could be your problem.

try a tracert on google.com and yahoo.com for comparison. this may even tell you what you need to know without the R2P info, if for instance, you're getting 400ms responses from a comcast server.

take note of the domain of the slow responder. same for all?

also, i can't remember if anyone asked about what connection speed John has set in-game. if i understand it correctly, it's better to have it set lower than higher?

Is he using a wireless by chance? Or is there a wireless modem that his comp is wired too?

Does his router use any kind of network packet prioritization? I have a D-Link that uses this type of network packet technology, which is supposed to offer lag-free use of VOIP during gaming or other heavy Internet use. It separeates the network packets to manipulate the individual data streams. I had to disable this feature to even stay connected to an R2P server. My ping was rediculous. Obviously, they havent perfected network packet prioritization yet.

Another thing to ask him is if he is on a GigaLan. If so, jumbo packets are known to cause extremely high pings. Ditch GigaLan if you're gaming. I also remember that when using an nVidia onboard NIC on my 680i mobo that I had to uninstall all the extra nVidia software that the driver installation recommend I use. It uses some kind of network stream processing as well that caused high pings and discos too. Once I uninstalled all of the nVidia networking software and then just reinstaalled the device driver only, things were perfect.

Once you eliminate your equipment as being the culprit, the tracerts and such are next to look at.

i had no chance yet but tonight i will call and try out the tracert.... i am hooked up to cable through a wireless router..but not wireless...i am wired in. I do have a wireless on my computer but it is disabled. cable from the provider goes to the router for the laptops etc. and my gaming rig is wired into that...not wireless.

And Bob...i may have some nvidia networking stuff...sounds familiar. never use it but i will check.

Thanks guys... John ran the trace and found high transit times out beyond his provider. Is there anything to be done about that or is he just stuck?

C:\Documents and Settings\fatboy>tracert 64.69.45.20

Tracing route to unassigned.calpop.com [64.69.45.20]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 * * * Request timed out.
2 7 ms 7 ms 6 ms gw01.bawk.phub.net.cable.rogers.com [66.185.90.1
93]
3 8 ms 5 ms 13 ms gw01.bawk.phub.net.cable.rogers.com [66.185.80.6
1]
4 7 ms 5 ms 7 ms pos-1-0.gw01.basp.phub.net.cable.rogers.com [66.
185.82.6]
5 10 ms 9 ms 9 ms so-4-2-1.gw02.mtnk.phub.net.cable.rogers.com [66
.185.81.209]
6 32 ms 35 ms 33 ms 24.153.5.238
7 32 ms 35 ms 35 ms xe4-2.cr01.lga01.mzima.net [206.223.131.62]
8 38 ms 35 ms 35 ms xe0-1.cr02.lga01.mzima.net [216.193.255.166]
9 43 ms 35 ms 35 ms eos0-18.cr01.iad01.mzima.net [216.193.255.133]
10 98 ms 93 ms 102 ms eos2-25.cr01.lax02.mzima.net [216.193.255.129]
11 119 ms 114 ms 88 ms ge0-calpop.cust.lax02.mzima.net [72.37.172.90]
12 89 ms 91 ms 88 ms unassigned.calpop.com [64.69.45.20]

Trace complete.

That doesn't look bad at all to me. Of course, traces may show quite different results one to the next. But I'd be more concerned if the first handful of "rogers.com" responses were quite high.

Wouldn't hurt to do another trace when the ping problem is manifest, but at this point, i'd look to Barry and Bob's suggestions and local network troubleshooting. Starting with the wireless router.

Hopefully someone with more wireless router experience than i can help with that optimization. Perhaps the wireless function is still operational in the router even if it's turned off on the computer. In a worse case scenario, on an unsecured local network, John may even be unwittingly sharing his connection with a neighbor, perhaps even without their knowledge.

I worked on a laptop once that had 4 local wireless networks available to it and the owner didn't know which one was actually hers!

Porn may be the culprit afterall!

Ah, I was assuming those times were cumulative, but they're a time to each node in the chain? Yeah, in that case it's not so bad.

Probably time to follow some of Bob's hints, John, let's look into what brand and model network adapter and router you're using.

k..:) maybe i change the password too eh !

Hmm,why is the 1st one timed out.I had a setup with a modem and a seperate router.WWhen i was getting slow internet response,i ran a tracert and my 2nd hop was timing out,turns out the router was stuffed.