Strange ping figures & Xbox Live lag

[BertUK]

I signed up about 2 months ago and everything's been great, but just recently (last week or so) I've noticed quite a bit of lag on some FPS games on the 360. Sometimes it's fine and at then suddenly it's very noticable, and very annoying.
I never had any problems at all for the first 6-7 weeks.

Interestingly, I sat down at the PC yesterday just to make sure nothing was causing it (torrents running etc) and pinged a couple of addresses. The results are very weird, and it's still happening today...

This is the kind of results I get no matter what address I ping...


Pinging enta.net [195.74.96.162] with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 195.74.96.162: bytes=32 time=-902ms TTL=59
Reply from 195.74.96.162: bytes=32 time=15ms TTL=59
Reply from 195.74.96.162: bytes=32 time=-901ms TTL=59
Reply from 195.74.96.162: bytes=32 time=16ms TTL=59

Ping statistics for 195.74.96.162:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),

Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 15ms, Maximum = -901ms, Average = 1073741381ms

Pinging enta.net [195.74.96.162] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 195.74.96.162: bytes=32 time=15ms TTL=59
Reply from 195.74.96.162: bytes=32 time=-896ms TTL=59
Reply from 195.74.96.162: bytes=32 time=-899ms TTL=59
Reply from 195.74.96.162: bytes=32 time=-899ms TTL=59

Ping statistics for 195.74.96.162:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),

Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 15ms, Maximum = -896ms, Average = 1073741154ms

General surfing appears to be ok, and it's not as if I can't play online games at all, it's just as if there is SOME lag (more than most people would like, but the game is playable).

Here's some gumph from the router statistics page (NetGear DG834G)

System Up Time 125:14:21

ADSL Link Downstream Upstream
Connection Speed 8128 kbps 448 kbps
Line Attenuation 19 db 5 db
Noise Margin 11 db 24 db


I do hard reset my router quite regularly (once every few days). Is this a bad move?

Any help much appreciated - please let me know if I need to provide any more info.

Thanks,

Rob

[linker3000]

Wow, that's some weird stats!

Here's mine for comparison (Linux)
PING enta.net (195.74.96.162) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from telehouse-web.enta.net (195.74.96.162): icmp_seq=1 ttl=59 time=13.3 ms
64 bytes from telehouse-web.enta.net (195.74.96.162): icmp_seq=2 ttl=59 time=13.2 ms
64 bytes from telehouse-web.enta.net (195.74.96.162): icmp_seq=3 ttl=59 time=11.8 ms
64 bytes from telehouse-web.enta.net (195.74.96.162): icmp_seq=4 ttl=59 time=11.1 ms
64 bytes from telehouse-web.enta.net (195.74.96.162): icmp_seq=5 ttl=59 time=11.9 ms
64 bytes from telehouse-web.enta.net (195.74.96.162): icmp_seq=6 ttl=59 time=11.1 ms

--- enta.net ping statistics ---
6 packets transmitted, 6 received, 0% packet loss, time 5004ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 11.131/12.126/13.349/0.897 ms

What OS are you PINGing from?

Have a go with Pingplotter - it's free: http://www.pingplotter.com/freeware.html

Edit: Apparently AMD Dual Core processors can do this - see this thread:
http://forums.pcper.com/showthread.php?t=430695

[produx]

yup we get this with AMD servers at work all the time, you need to add the /usepmtimer
switch to your boot.ini file...

you'll need to edit c:\boot.ini to read something like this:

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect /usepmtimer

then reboot, and it should be fine..

[linker3000]

...mind you, I quite like the idea of data getting to its destination before I've even sent it,

[BertUK]

Phew! Thanks guys. I do indeed have a dual-core AMD on the desktop. Thanks for putting my mind at rest!

Still have the lag though...