Curse

madcat · Apr 09, 2008, 10:33 PM // 22:33

I have already emailed Demon about this, but wondering if there are any other people on Demon having simillar issues.

Basically, during peak Euro play time I get massive lagspikes - my ping varies from 145ms to 2000+

It tends to be fine early in the morning, and I had no issues at all over the weekend.

All other internet activity is fine, including other MMOs (City of Heroes US primarily).

Big John Thomas · Apr 10, 2008, 11:39 AM // 11:39

Yep i am.Been like it for around 5 weeks now.Ok at the weeekend and it was ok all last week but came back monday morning.I've emailed them and got a reply telling me a few things to do but nothing worked.I'm beginning to wonder if they are throttling it thinking its P2P traffic.I'm gonna email them again in a bit and make it clear what happening.

madcat · Apr 10, 2008, 12:12 PM // 12:12

Five weeks is about my timescale too.

It specifically seems to be on the hop between their border router and the first step out (possibly the UK side of the transatlantic link going by its name).

Was fine for me after midnight - okay at a quarter past eight in the morning, started to get bad just before nine.

Did a bunch of tracerts, and they're at 33ms within the demon network, then when it gets bad, have a large hit in latency just after they leave.

I don't think it's due to throttling it, firstly because IIRC demon don't packet shape (could be wrong there though) and secondly because even when it's bad, some hops out of demon are still good when running repeated tracerts.

madcat · Apr 10, 2008, 12:37 PM // 12:37

Was just reading the 'bad lag' thread and someone said that they had the same problem (lag at peak times that looked like a network issue) but a reinstall worked. Will try that tonight and see what happens.

Though it does sound very unlikely, unless both our installations went bad at the same time.

Big John Thomas · Apr 10, 2008, 03:49 PM // 15:49

Tried a reinstall and didnt work.It does it on my sons pc and my laptop too so it definitely network issue.

madcat · Apr 14, 2008, 11:59 AM // 11:59

Reply from Demon - It's not on our network, guv, nothing we can do.

Sadly, they are probably right.

If it's not better by the end of the month I shall be putting up with the early cancellation fee and swopping to Zen who seem to get good reviews.

Stark Dynasty · Apr 14, 2008, 12:44 PM // 12:44

I've been having exactly the same issues as you two. Ping usually at 120-170ms then shoots up anywhere between 2000-6000ms, usually getting so severe I lose connection. These lag spikes occur for me all through the week except very early in the morning and at weekends. And just like Big John has said I noticed these connection problems start about 5 weeks ago.

Been with Demon since June 2007 without problems until 5 weeks ago. It is JUST Guild Wars that's having issues as I can browse the internet and use TS while GW D/Cs.

madcat · Apr 14, 2008, 01:06 PM // 13:06

Between me and my parents we've been with Demon for over 20 years. Disapointed if I have to swop.

(The reason I'm good for being hit with their early cancellation fee is I only upgraded my account to BB a couple of months back.)

The very strange thing is that my other MMO traffic also goes through the problem router and doesn't have a problem. It's like whomever owns that has flagged GW traffic as bad. I'd say it's throttled from about 09:00 to 00:00 during the weekdays.

Lyndka · Apr 14, 2008, 03:58 PM // 15:58

I've been having problems too over the last 3-5 weeks - lag spikes or even drop offs of my connection.

The usual Demon line (from the nice man in India) is - plug it all in the master socket and unplug everything else, and run the BT line check. Done all the fault-finding at home - re-installed and had BT out to a noisy line and (fingers crossed) seems to have cured it.

But yeah, Demon's attitude has got me looking round too, one of my guildies in Scotland is also with Demon and doesnt have the problem which may point to a DSL concentrator or router problem.

madcat · Apr 14, 2008, 04:34 PM // 16:34

I bypassed the nice man in India and just emailed the service desk ([email protected]) when I noticed that they wanted to charge me 10p a minute to speak to him.

I think if you blag your way through their business lines you can get through to their 2nd and 3rd line support guys, but not sure I can be bothered.

This seems to be the problem spot on my route: pos1-1.br01.lax05.pccwbtn.net is it the same for you guys?

Big John Thomas · Apr 14, 2008, 05:15 PM // 17:15

Well after a nice lag free weekend monday morning and its back.It's just as if someone is turning something on/off friday night and back on/off monday morning.Last thursday i bought my son BF2 and couldn't play it.Punkbuster kept kicking us off the server with something about packet loss.Saturday morning and it was fine.If there was a fault somewhere along the line then it would still do it on saturday and sunday so i think something is being switched over.I sent another email saying i'm getting a little.......annoyed now.Anyway managed to do a Deep and Urgoz run in under 3 hours with my monk last night so that cheered me up lol.

tamalien · Apr 14, 2008, 05:22 PM // 17:22

Quote:

Originally Posted by madcat

This seems to be the problem spot on my route: pos1-1.br01.lax05.pccwbtn.net is it the same for you guys?

I have problems with this node also.

madcat · Apr 15, 2008, 01:23 PM // 13:23

And IIRC in the other thread you said that you're with BT rather than Demon?

Stark Dynasty · Apr 15, 2008, 01:35 PM // 13:35

I ran the GW diagnostic utility (with the -diag command) and found many lost packets and a good number of 100% loss connections in the pathping logs, none of which were that particular node (I assume because I'm in a different part of the UK from you two so have a different route). Most of the 100% loss nodes were xxx.xxx.router.demon.net addresses.

Big John Thomas · Apr 18, 2008, 03:21 PM // 15:21

Ok been in touch with NCSoft support and they've confirmed that they have heavy traffic issues with Demon so i suggest complaining to customer services as they may not even realised they've done it.

madcat · Apr 22, 2008, 08:22 AM // 08:22

Anything from Demon?

madcat · May 06, 2008, 08:26 PM // 20:26

Bump-de-bump....

Anything?

I've decided to log a ticked to GW support, and have two bad log files that are going over different routes.

I'm mainly hoping that their response will be good to help prove to Demon that it's their fault.

And when my Open University Course is done and I can do two weeks without real net access I will be cancelling, because there is sweet FA to recommend Demon over any of their competition anymore. (I'm looking at Zen as a replacment)

Big John Thomas · May 07, 2008, 11:22 PM // 23:22

Well i had an email a few days ago and they did a line test and basically they say it's ok but dl speed is not really the issue here.

Take a look at these speedtests

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedt...372814117.html

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedt...931217846.html

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedt...415909559.html

Look at the dl speeds!!!
But the strange thing is after doing these tests I dl a file from microsoft and it came down at around 2mb.

I really am beginning to wonder if they are traffic shaping or even accidently throttling certain ports.To be honest i don't think anything can be done because neither NcSoft or Demon are going to be bothered about a handful of people with a problem.

Kittani · May 07, 2008, 11:37 PM // 23:37

I had similar problems with my ISP a few months back - same issues as those stated above, my pings in GW were god awful during the night, but all other internet usage was fine.

My ISP said it wasn't their problem, NCsoft said the same thing. Anyway... turned out that my ISP's upstream provider, Singtel, was throttling traffic, presumably after P2P, but Guild Wars got caught up in it.

Even though the GW population was minor on the ISP's related to my problem, it did eventually got sorted. Keep up the badgering of your ISP, if they dont want to lose business, they'll eventually get something sorted. Good luck!

madcat · May 07, 2008, 11:55 PM // 23:55

I'm starting to suspect packet shaping happening somewhere - been running tests at the request of NCsoft and the results seem to be the same when its good and when its bad.