Losing packets?

[Kassadin]

Hey all,

I recently moved into a new house, and once everything was setup and running did a speedtest with my new ISP (BT> moved from Talktalk). I got around 19MB Download, 20 Ping, 1MB Upload.

Now it's been around 6-7 days since that test, and i've noticed whilst playing games that I will randomly get a ping spike. My ping sits at roughly 30ms, then boom it shoots up to 300+ for around 2-3 seconds.

I had re-used my router from my previous house, but needed an update anyway so BT sent me out there latest router. Which I installed this evening thinking my packet loss would subside. Wrong.

I think I should mention that I live in a 3-story building with the router on the bottom floor and the PC room on the second floor. So as a quick job, threw the cable out the windows which reaches the router with lots of slack. However my girlfriend doesn't realize how fragile the cable is and is continuously opening and closing the windows which comes down onto the cable. I have noticed that the casing has torn slightly, and instantly taped it with electrical tape, giving it a few layers so it wasn't damaging the casing so much. However the rest of the cable is in good working order, and no problems anywhere else. The cable is CAT6, and was purchased as an outdoor cable.

I was wondering, could this be the reason why I'm loosing packets which are leading to my ping spikes during games?

The cable runs up into the pc room, which then connects to a switch which splits and runs to the PS4, XBOX, PC and laptop.

Any ideas or confirmation would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

EDIT: This would probably have helped, I did the speedtest today and got 5.5MB DL, 16 ping, 0.50 UL. This is from my 19MB DL rate 4-5 days ago.

 

[Skynet5]

This is most likely. Buy new cable and run it indoors and see what happens.

 

[Steveocee]

I wouldn't worry about speed fluctuation to much as new bt lines train for 10 days after going in.
You could test your theory by setting up a constant ping to the router and see if it spikes or drops packets. Maybe leave the ping whilst you game then if you get a spike cross check out with your router ping to see if it's your cable.

 

[Kassadin]

Thanks for your replies, I will invest in another outdoor cat6 cable and let you know the outcome.

 

[ci_newman]

I was going to suggest running a ping to your local router too, that would isolate whether its an internal or external problem.

Your download speeds suggest that your switch might only be connecting at 10Mbps too, that will cause some stability issues. If problems persist with a new cable, try running your PC directly to the router.

 

[Kassadin]

I'll be ordering a new cable with a 10m slack, so I should be able to test your suggestion. Thanks