Troubleshooting high ping fluctuations

Hello members of the community,

I'm writing this little post because, for a while now, my internet has been an absolute nightmare. Everything used to be fine, within the real of possible, I'd get about 10Mbps download and 1Mbps upload on a regular ADSL copper line.
Since a few months what has happened is that the internet just goes wild, the ping jumps up to 200-300, from its regular value of about 10 (measured on http://www.speedtest.net/) and download goes to about 1Mbps while the upload also drops to half the "normal" value, during random periods of time.
Initially I thought this might've been because too many people were using the network at home, but even during the afternoon, when no one's around, it still goes crazy. I've already called up my ISP and they replaced my router (it was an old router, and they thought it was the reason for the random spikes), but the situation hasn't improved.
I'm confident the culprit isn't my home network, but I'm at a loss for what it can be, and even worse, what to do about it. Are there any obvious tests I may run? Is there any thing I can do?

Thanks for the attention.
 
Pick a website that you use all the time that has inconsistent ping results -- eg foo.com

get a command prompt and run these two tests

  1. ping -t foo .com
  2. pathping foo.com >pinging.txt 2>&1
On (1) look at the time=xxMS; *if* there's an issue, then the times will be > +- 4 and that's worth using (2).
To halt (1), hold CTL and hit 'C'

(2) will take ~ 3minutes to complete. When it does open pinging.txt, copy the contents and reply with that info
 
Pick a website that you use all the time that has inconsistent ping results -- eg foo.com

get a command prompt and run these two tests

  1. ping -t foo .com
  2. pathping foo.com >pinging.txt 2>&1
On (1) look at the time=xxMS; *if* there's an issue, then the times will be > +- 4 and that's worth using (2).
To halt (1), hold CTL and hit 'C'

(2) will take ~ 3minutes to complete. When it does open pinging.txt, copy the contents and reply with that info

Regarding the first topic what happened was the connection was somewhat stable at around 15ms, but would jump to 35 or 45 ever so often. It gave out 2 "Request timed out." followed by 2 packets that took ~750ms to travel.

About the second topic, this was the info present in the .txt:

Tracing route to google.pt [2a00:1450:4003:808::2003 said:
over a maximum of 30 hops:
0 H97-PRO.lan [2001:8a0:5759:c601:d3e:1203:cae9:694f]
1 dsldevice.lan [2001:8a0:5759:c601:a76:ffff:fe89:a57f]
2 2001:8a0:c0:0:10:158:5:22
3 2001:8a0:40:3104:213:13:77:2
4 2001:8a0:40:3104:213:13:77:1
5 2001:15d8:2:400f::1
6 * * *
Computing statistics for 125 seconds...
Source to Here This Node/Link
Hop RTT Lost/Sent = Pct Lost/Sent = Pct Address
0 H97-PRO.lan [2001:8a0:5759:c601:d3e:1203:cae9:694f]
0/ 100 = 0% |
1 1ms 0/ 100 = 0% 0/ 100 = 0% dsldevice.lan [2001:8a0:5759:c601:a76:ffff:fe89:a57f]
0/ 100 = 0% |
2 9ms 0/ 100 = 0% 0/ 100 = 0% 2001:8a0:c0:0:10:158:5:22
0/ 100 = 0% |
3 --- 100/ 100 =100% 100/ 100 =100% 2001:8a0:40:3104:213:13:77:2
0/ 100 = 0% |
4 --- 100/ 100 =100% 100/ 100 =100% 2001:8a0:40:3104:213:13:77:1
0/ 100 = 0% |
5 10ms 0/ 100 = 0% 0/ 100 = 0% 2001:15d8:2:400f::1

Trace complete.


Sorry for the messed up reply, not very proficient at posting in these forums :confused:.

P.S.
Ping.png
 
From (1)
  • 5 2001:15d8:2:400f::1
  • 6 * * *
the last one is a timeout and you never got to the foo.com (n)

these
  • 3 --- 100/ 100 =100% 100/ 100 =100% 2001:8a0:40:3104:213:13:77:2
  • 0/ 100 = 0% |
  • 4 --- 100/ 100 =100% 100/ 100 =100% 2001:8a0:40:3104:213:13:77:1
are more likely just black hole routers configured to NOT respond to ping

With TRACERT or PATHPING the first IP address shown should also reappear as the last:
Tracing route to google.com [216.58.217.206]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms localrouter [192.168.0.1]
2 11 ms 11 ms 9 ms aa.bb.cc.dd
3 9 ms 11 ms 8 ms agg60.wlvgcabn02h.socal.rr.com [24.30.172.109]
4 12 ms 15 ms 15 ms agg22.vnnycajz02r.socal.rr.com [72.129.14.168]
5 17 ms 14 ms 16 ms agg29.tustcaft01r.socal.rr.com [72.129.13.2]
6 19 ms 16 ms 15 ms bu-ether26.tustca4200w-bcr00.tbone.rr.com [66.109.3.232]
7 11 ms 12 ms 13 ms 0.ae3.pr1.lax10.tbone.rr.com [107.14.19.56]
8 15 ms 15 ms 15 ms 216.156.65.225.ptr.us.xo.net [216.156.65.225]
9 15 ms 13 ms 16 ms 207.88.14.212.ptr.us.xo.net [207.88.14.212]
10 14 ms 12 ms 13 ms 207.88.13.25.ptr.us.xo.net [207.88.13.25]
11 13 ms 15 ms 16 ms 216.0.6.42
12 13 ms 14 ms 12 ms 108.170.247.193
13 14 ms 12 ms 12 ms 209.85.242.33
14 12 ms 12 ms 12 ms lax17s05-in-f206.1e100.net [216.58.217.206]
and IF NOT, you're accessing a site on a very unreliable network path and there's nothing you can do either :sigh:
 
Sorry I got a bit lost, are you implying that it is indeed my networks fault? Should I call my ISP or is it one of those situations where it's just "tough luck"?
 
It's not you & not your ISP - - its the path to the site that is unreliable. You're just out of luck
 
It's not you & not your ISP - - its the path to the site that is unreliable. You're just out of luck

Huh, a bit unfortunate. I'm just not sure how it could be a problem that happens for a while, then everything's fine again and so on. Shouldn't it be constant?
 
Huh, a bit unfortunate. I'm just not sure how it could be a problem that happens for a while, then everything's fine again and so on. Shouldn't it be constant?
Not at all - - those are the EASIEST to fix. It all depends on many factors, including the media (DSL, Satellite, Cable), weather, and equipment reliability.
 
Not at all - - those are the EASIEST to fix. It all depends on many factors, including the media (DSL, Satellite, Cable), weather, and equipment reliability.

Okay, thanks a lot for taking the time to help me out, even though there wasn't much to do. Good old days when everything was fine. It just kinda shocked me that all of the sudden this started happening and, worse than that, there's seemingly no fix. :(
 
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