Need good reliable Modem/Router/Cables?

I'm not sure if it's my ISP or my old router & modem. Someday's everything runs great while the rest of the time it's cutting out constantly. I could browse the web just fine yet the moment I play an online game I lose signal...I'm not using the wireless, I'm wired in using some cables I owned since 2003(?).

Current Router: Linksys WRT (Year 2008)
Current Modem: Moterolla Surfboard (Year 2010)
ISP: Charter Communications
Current Speeds: 60Mbps download / 4.5Mbps upload

 

nothing eh?

 

Hi friend...
1.Make a search for TFTP
2.May be your SNMP is ON (trapped)
3.PPoE nowadays have unique identifiers

Do google my abbreviations ( PPoE, TFTP, SNMP,...) used so far...

Depending upon your Internet Connectivity,if its cable modem, ask your ISP to check any CORROSION (if any) where cables have been re-wired at your location surroundings.

 

I checked and SNMP is off. By the way, they replaced the fiber optic cable before and the issue still persisted. They've been over countless times and never resolved this...$70 USD a month for internet that hardly ever works.

I can't even play an online game, it cuts out no matter what. At most I've played an hour straight without issue. Most of the time It drops out right when I join a server or other times I'm lucky if I can play for 20 minutes...it's a ****ing joke! I see people from 3rd world countries with 200 ping that have less issues.

 

I just bought a Linksys AC1200 router, still losing connection after playing battlefront 3 for about 30 minutes.

 

Anyone know about OpenDNS? I googled my issue and some people said using OpenDNS fixed the problem with their internet cutting out randomly when gaming online....

 

If that is your problem OpenDNS is well known and safe.Did you try a different network card?pci or pcie either one.

 

Thought about flashing a custom firmware to your WRT router?

I have the WRT160NL, and run DD-WRT on it

FTP for firmwares here
ftp://ftp.dd-wrt.com/betas/

Forum here
http://www.dd-wrt.com/phpBB2/index.php

I've found the most stable for my router, as it is fairly old now, is a 2015 build r27506, newer firmwares with newer Kernels are causing problems

Big improvement over stock firmware, with a massive amount more features, including the ability to increase power output for wireless and basically change just about anything you want


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If you're still losing connection with a new router, it's likely the modem causing the problem

Check the connection lights on the modem when you lose connection, or if you have access to the UI, check if it has disconnected

See if there are any firmware updates for the modem too

 

I've always used the onboard LAN and this issue has happened on every computer I've had since 2006. Buying new routers & modems doesn't fix this either unless I'm buying the wrong modem/routers?

It doesn't matter which online game I attempt to play, the internet randomly becomes laggy and I lose connection than when I'm back on the desktop it's online again..

This happens when just browsing, but it seems to happen more frequently when I try to game.

 

If it has happened through multiple PCs, and multiple Routers and Modems, why are you making a thread?


Contact your ISP / Phone line provider and get them to work out what's wrong, there's nothing else it could be unless one of your machines on the network is causing the problem

IP conflict? Got static IPs on anything?

DHCP server enabled on more than 1 router/AP?

 

They've come over countless times without resolving this issue. I'm not that tech savy to be honest which is why I am asking the guru's.

 

Have you factory reset your router and modem?

Try setting a static IP on your machine, make it an IP no other machine is using on the same range as the router

ie: 192.168.1.x

Or whatever your router uses

Make sure if you have multiple routers/modems connected, that only one of them has DHCP server enabled

If you have two or more DHCP servers on the same network, they could both hand out the same IP to two different devices, cause an IP conflict, and disconnect one or both machines




If the modem has it enabled, disable it on the router, or vice versa

 

Did you replace those ancient cables you were using? Have you updated you LAN drivers? What OS are you using? There are lots of possibilities.

 

Try changing your DNS server settings first. Here's a link to Google's DNS server addresses and instructions on what to do.

https://developers.google.com/speed/public-dns/docs/using#windows

 

if the outage occurs during online play then it is never a DNS problem.

what you want to do is put down a continous ping (-t) on lets say google.com just right before you join a game.
make sure to set the cmd-window line buffer to a very big value. i.e. 5000 or more.
check the first pings for about half a minute before you enter the game so you are sure there is no problem by then already.

play the game until you experience the kind of connection loss that you mentioned. -> exit game

check ping history in cmd-window.
do you have icmp timeouts then as well?


another thing to consider is, as charter spectrum is a cable service you are depending on cable television headends which can be crowded depending on where you live (city vs single-family home, how many other customers share this single headend) and in contrast to DSLAMs where concurrent connections of independent households only have marginal influence on each others SYNC (and ONLY at time of when DSL-SYNC happens anyways) a cable connection is always prone to latency/bwdth reduction due to competing users on the same headend.


3rd: can you describe how the cabling goes from your pc up to the point where you plug in the modem? is there any additional switch/hub to attach more clients? or is your PC the only networking device which is connected to the router?
can you also verify that your ethernet cables are cat5/5e or higher? that should be lasered onto the PVC insulation.
does any of the cabling in your house between pc and modem/wall-port go through older fixed-mounted electrical conduit with unknown cable specification or is it all freely accessible cables in your rooms?

 

Would recommend that he use winMTR instead of regular traceroute or ping from CMD. winMTR will ping every hop in his connection and you can easly pin-point where the connection drops.

 

it's not about where the connection drops but when it drops or IF it drops at all.
maybe his problems are restricted to certain protocols only and ICMP, 80 are unaffected.
also who says he gets a full DOCSIS disconnect?
thats what we want to find out by simply sending continuous pings to any remote machine.

your approach would be appropriate to trouble-shoot isolated destination connection problems which he clearly does not suffer from.

so lets start simple by following OSI layers and going from general to the particular - not the other way round.

 

This how everything is laid out out.



Having the router & modem in the same room next to my computer doesn't make a difference, I still encounter dropouts. I replaced the modem with a spare one that's identical and it still happens.

 

thx for the illustration.

1) can you please remove the router from the equation and connect your pc directly with the rj45 port of the modem? and retest...

2) if this doesnt change the behaviour please try (as advised before) to set up a continous ping before you start gaming and check if there are inconsistencies in the ping the moment your connection drops or (especially) before it even drops
(cmd -> ping -t google.com)

report back

 

Results from being plugged directly into the modem. I lag just before the connection drops. The moment I start lagging I check the scoreboard in-game to view my ping and it doesn't appear to be fluctuating. Then when I look at the modem it appears to shut off and start back up...This continues to happen even with the new modem I got from charter the other day.