Problems with very brief packet loss / connection drops. Recent problem despite no changes to set-up

[#1]

Over the last few days I have been experiencing internet issues which I assume are packet loss related - these are most noticeable when playing online games, in which they are experienced as what i can only describe as a micro-freeze or a stutter. Everything will be going smoothly, no ping issues, and suddenly the whole game seems to briefly freeze for probably around half a second - not a huge problem, but enough for it to become incredibly irritating and detrimental to the experience when it is happening once a minute or so.

Initially thought it may be a PC / graphics card issue, but i noticed when in voice calls with friends in Discord the drop would affect that also - they would suddenly and abruptly cut-off mid-sentence when the freeze occurred and then once the game unfroze would continue as normal. If i had something like a video playing on a 2nd monitor when this happened it would play as normal - it was not a whole PC freeze, just a brief connection drop.

I tried running pings to Google through cmd prompt and among seemingly normal low latency responses i was getting a fair few "Request timed out"s interspersed in there, and when checking the Resource Monitor in Task Manager these drops coincided with an unexplained spike in net usage.

I have not made any recent installs on my PC, and nothing about my set-up or our internet usage has changed at all in a long time, and this issue has only arisen within the last few days so i'm doubtful its something my end. Only other thing I can think is that I was recently prompted to renew my Plusnet contract to prevent being moved onto a higher monthly tariff which i did - not sure if that could be related but thought it may be worth mentioning.

Any help / advice?

[#2]

Hiya @8arr3tt, thanks for getting in touch. I am really sorry for the issues being seen with your service and inconvenience this is causing, I can appreciate the frustration this must cause when gaming!

I have tested your line today and it's not detected any faults in the network, we are seeing a good sync speed of 60.5mb and the connection has been stable with no drops in the last 12 days.

Have you seen any issues across any other devices, or just when using the PC? Just to confirm, is the PC connected via Ethernet or via WiFi?

I would also advise to have a run through our troubleshooting here: https://www.plus.net/help/broadband/connection-troubleshooting/

Let us know how you get on.

 

[#3]

Hi Lauren,

Thanks for running the line test - not sure whether that's good or bad news as although there is no detected fault it does leave me in the dark regarding the cause. Could the router possibly be the issue?

I haven't noticed any issues on other devices, but even on the main PC the issue has only been noticeable when performing tasks that demand constant updates (games/voice calls), and other devices in the house only really use the internet for general browsing or for video streaming services which pre-buffer, so such small connection drops wouldn't cause an issue.

I did run a ping test on my partner's PC simultaneously to my own today, and it experienced the same frequency of time-outs as mine.  Included a section of this below to demonstrate:

Reply from 142.250.180.14: bytes=32 time=16ms TTL=117
Reply from 142.250.180.14: bytes=32 time=16ms TTL=117
Reply from 142.250.180.14: bytes=32 time=16ms TTL=117
Request timed out.
Reply from 142.250.180.14: bytes=32 time=19ms TTL=117
Reply from 142.250.180.14: bytes=32 time=16ms TTL=117
Reply from 142.250.180.14: bytes=32 time=16ms TTL=117
Reply from 142.250.180.14: bytes=32 time=16ms TTL=117
Reply from 142.250.180.14: bytes=32 time=15ms TTL=117
Reply from 142.250.180.14: bytes=32 time=16ms TTL=117
Reply from 142.250.180.14: bytes=32 time=17ms TTL=117
Reply from 142.250.180.14: bytes=32 time=16ms TTL=117
Reply from 142.250.180.14: bytes=32 time=16ms TTL=117
Reply from 142.250.180.14: bytes=32 time=16ms TTL=117
Request timed out.
Reply from 142.250.180.14: bytes=32 time=16ms TTL=117
Reply from 142.250.180.14: bytes=32 time=16ms TTL=117
Reply from 142.250.180.14: bytes=32 time=16ms TTL=117
Reply from 142.250.180.14: bytes=32 time=16ms TTL=117
Reply from 142.250.180.14: bytes=32 time=16ms TTL=117
Reply from 142.250.180.14: bytes=32 time=16ms TTL=117
Reply from 142.250.180.14: bytes=32 time=16ms TTL=117
Reply from 142.250.180.14: bytes=32 time=16ms TTL=117
Reply from 142.250.180.14: bytes=32 time=19ms TTL=117
Reply from 142.250.180.14: bytes=32 time=16ms TTL=117
Reply from 142.250.180.14: bytes=32 time=16ms TTL=117
Reply from 142.250.180.14: bytes=32 time=16ms TTL=117
Reply from 142.250.180.14: bytes=32 time=16ms TTL=117
Reply from 142.250.180.14: bytes=32 time=16ms TTL=117
Reply from 142.250.180.14: bytes=32 time=16ms TTL=117
Reply from 142.250.180.14: bytes=32 time=28ms TTL=117
Reply from 142.250.180.14: bytes=32 time=16ms TTL=117
Request timed out.
Reply from 142.250.180.14: bytes=32 time=16ms TTL=117
Reply from 142.250.180.14: bytes=32 time=16ms TTL=117
Reply from 142.250.180.14: bytes=32 time=16ms TTL=117
Request timed out.
Reply from 142.250.180.14: bytes=32 time=16ms TTL=117
Reply from 142.250.180.14: bytes=32 time=16ms TTL=117
Reply from 142.250.180.14: bytes=32 time=16ms TTL=117
Reply from 142.250.180.14: bytes=32 time=16ms TTL=117
Reply from 142.250.180.14: bytes=32 time=16ms TTL=117
Reply from 142.250.180.14: bytes=32 time=16ms TTL=117
Reply from 142.250.180.14: bytes=32 time=16ms TTL=117
Reply from 142.250.180.14: bytes=32 time=16ms TTL=117
Reply from 142.250.180.14: bytes=32 time=16ms TTL=117
Reply from 142.250.180.14: bytes=32 time=16ms TTL=117
Request timed out.
Reply from 142.250.180.14: bytes=32 time=16ms TTL=117
Reply from 142.250.180.14: bytes=32 time=16ms TTL=117
Request timed out.
Reply from 142.250.180.14: bytes=32 time=16ms TTL=117
Reply from 142.250.180.14: bytes=32 time=16ms TTL=117

I took a look through the troubleshooting as you suggested, and all suggestions were either already in place, or I have tried them to no effect.

Thanks.

[#4]

Thanks for getting back to us @8arr3tt

Potentially a router issue. Those pings look fine to me. Some hops will time out or show high latency but that'll just be the server doing what's known as "rate limiting ICMP" which is not responding back because they'll be busy routing traffic. 

Are your devices connecting over WiFi or plugged into the router using an ethernet cable?

[#5]

Both PCs are connected via ethernet cable.

[#6]

Moderators Note
This topic has been moved from ADSL Broadband to Fibre Broadband.

[#7]

Thanks a lot for letting us know.@8arr3tt

As @Gandalf has suggested then, this might be a router issue. I'd be happy to have a replacement router sent out free of charge if you'd like to give that a go?

[#8]

That would be much appreciated! Hopefully that'll sort it

[#9]

That's all been sorted for you @8arr3tt

Your new router will be arriving within the next 3-5 working days, all associated fees have been waived on this occasion.