Problems with packet loss in my flat @ uni

teb

teb

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24 Feb 2009
Posts
40
Hi guys,

I'm in a six person flat at university in the city centre of Leeds (not halls, about 6 flats in the building). My connection to the internet goes from my computer into an Ethernet port in my wall; I can only assume this goes through to a router shared by the building to the internet (20MB Be There package AFAIK).

My actual speed is okay, I get around 350kb/s download speed on average. My ping is also fine (which I find surprising). The problem I have is packet loss, at any given time it can be between 6-20%; causing me huge issues when trying to play on-line games.

Does anyone know what could be causing the problem? The only reason why I think it might not be the sheer quantity of people using it is because of constant high speeds and low ping, unless that isn't usually the case..

If there's no real workaround for this (fixing the packet loss) Would it be possible to unfairly allocate the bandwidth to myself using a third party program or perhaps my own router? I guess that sounds stupid but I'm just trying to come up with ideas really!


Thanks,
Sam
 
Run pathping to a server, if packet loss is as bad as you say it'll tell you where you are loosing packets. If your lucky it will be in the building and it'll be an easy fix. If its outside on Be then somewhat more awkward to resolve.

Example - output is pretty obvious.

Code:
pathping www.jolt.co.uk
 
The problem is due to the proxy server analyzing packets of data, it may be running incorrectly and losing some data, or be set to remove certain data which comes from games.

Hell, my university has a fully blown proxy that blocks anything to do with games, downloading and even steam... and 4chan.
I'm suprised you can even play games, me and my friends have to LAN it up.

It's not possible to change anything, you would need your own server setup before the university network and then another server outside of the university network in which you could create a VPN and communicate through encrypted data.
 
The problem is due to the proxy server analyzing packets of data, it may be running incorrectly and losing some data, or be set to remove certain data which comes from games.

Hell, my university has a fully blown proxy that blocks anything to do with games, downloading and even steam... and 4chan.
I'm suprised you can even play games, me and my friends have to LAN it up.

It's not possible to change anything, you would need your own server setup before the university network and then another server outside of the university network in which you could create a VPN and communicate through encrypted data.

He said he's not in halls. The connection doesn't seem to be anything to do with "uni".
 
Can you discern if the packet loss occurs regardless of protocol; if you are using a Sip client (or even Skype), do you suffer packet loss there?
Or is it only gaming traffic which is affected?
 
Unfortunately I am not at home right now so I can't do any tests etc but I found out the packet loss was there through pingtest.com where it would show me- I'm guessing thats across everything (so skype as well as games).

I'll keep you guys posted with pathping, thanks.
 
Yea pingtest is not accurate really for testing packet loss. It works by sending lots of pings in VERY quick succession. Some router firewalls will block the mass of pings coming back since it believes it is under a malicious attack.
 
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