Hub 3 / Compal CH7465-LG (TG2492LG) and CGNV4 Latency Cause

[Datalink]

Good Day Ladies and Gentlemen,

Greetings from the other side of the pond, so to speak.  Over the last few weeks I've been perusing various user forums across North America and Europe for issues related to Intel Puma 6 modem latency.  Of those forums, your Hub 3 stands out as yet another Puma 6 based modem where users see continuous latency no matter what site is used or what online game is played. Considering all of the problems that are on the go, the following information should be of interest to all Hub 3, Compal CH7465-LG and Hitron CGNV4 modem users.  There is much more to post regarding this, so this is a start, to alert VM users as to the real cause of the latency and hopefully engage the VM engineering staff, via the forum staff, with Arris.  I am surprised to see that there has been no mention on this board of users from other ISPs who are suffering the exact same issues with their modems, so, this may come as a surprise to some, and possibly old news to others.

So, the short story ........

The Hub 3 / Compal CH7465-LG (TG2492LG) & Hiton CGNV4 modems are Intel Puma 6 / 6 Media Gateway (MG) based modems.  These modems exhibit high latency to the modem and high latency thru the modem.  The latency affects all IPV4 and IPV6 protocols, so it will be seen on every internet application and game.  The basic cause is the processing of the data packets thru a CPU software based process instead of thru the hardware processor / accelerator.  It appears that a higher priority task runs periodically, causing the packet processing to halt, and then resume.  This is observed as latency in applications and in ping tests to the modem and beyond.  For the last several weeks, Hitron, along with Intel and Rogers Communications in Canada have been addressing the latency issue within the Hitron CGNxxx series modems.  To date, only the IPV4 ICMP latency has been resolved.  Although this is only one protocol, it does show that a Puma 6MG modem is capable of using the hardware processor / accelerator with good results.  Currently Rogers is waiting for further firmware updates from Hitron which should include an expanded list of resolved protocol latency issues.  For Arris modems, "Netdog" an Arris engineer indicated last week that Arris was onboard to address the issue for the Arris SB6190 modem.  That should be considered as good news for any Arris modem (read Hub 3) user as Arris should be able to port those changes over to other Puma 6/6MG modems fairly quickly.  This is not a trivial exercise and will probably take several weeks to accomplish.  Note that there is no guarantee at this point that it is possible to shift all packet processing to the hardware processor / accelerator without suffering from any packet loss side effects.  Time will tell if all of the technical issues can be resolved with the current hardware included in the Puma 6/6MG chipset.  Last night, Netdog loaded beta firmware on selected test modems on the Comcast Communications network.  As this was only done last night, it's too soon to tell what this version resolves and if it was successful or not.  Netdog has contacts with staff at Comcast, Rogers, Charter and Cox Communications to fan out beta versions and modifications for testing.  I'd say its time to add Virgin Media and/or Liberty Global to that group as well.

Recent activity:

Approx three weeks ago a DSLReports user, xymox1 started a thread where he reported high latency to an Arris SB6190 and illustrated that with numerous MultiPing plots.  This is the same latency that I and other users with Rogers communications have been dealing with for months so it came as no surprise.  As well as reporting via that thread, xymox1 took it upon himself to email several staff members at Arris, Intel, Cablelabs and others.  The result of that campaign was Netdog's announcement, last week, that Arris was fully engaged at resolving the issue.  That has led to last nights release of beta firmware, although as I indicated its too early to determine what the beta firmware resolves, if anything.

The original thread that xymox1 started is here:

https://www.dslreports.com/forum/r31079834-ALL-SB6190-is-a-terrible-modem-Intel-Puma-6-MaxLinear-mis...

Yesterday, DSLReports issued a news story covering the thread:

https://www.dslreports.com/shownews/The-Arris-SB6190-Modem-Puma-6-Chipset-Have-Some-Major-Issues-138...

Today, Arris responded:

https://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Arris-Tells-us-Its-Working-With-Intel-on-SB6190-Puma6-Problems-1...

That response was also picked by Multichannel.com

http://www.multichannel.com/news/distribution/intel-arris-working-firmware-fix-sb6190-modem/409379

This is more news likely to appear in the next few days as additional tech and news staff pick up on this issue.

Hub 3 observations:

Like many others using a Puma 6/6MG modem, Hub 3 users are experiencing latency when they ping the modem, or ping a target outside of the home, game online or use low latency applications.  The common misconception is that this is Buffer Bloat. It's not. Its most likely a case of the packet processing stopping while the CPU processes a higher priority task.  The packet processing is done via the CPU no matter what mode the modem is operating in, modem mode or router mode and no matter what IPV4 or IPV6 protocol is used.  Normally, the latency is just that, latency.  The exception are UDP packets. In this case there is latency and packet loss.  The result of that is delayed and failed DNS lookups, and poor game performance for games that use UDP for player/server comms or player/player comms.

Can this be fixed?

So far, it appears that the answer is yes.  Rogers Communications issued beta firmware to a small group of test modems in October.  This version shifted the IPV4 ICMP processing from the CPU to the hardware processor / accelerator, resulting in greatly improved performance in ping latency.  At the present time we are waiting for the next version firmware which should shift other protocols over to the hardware processor / accelerator.  That can be seen in the following post:

http://communityforums.rogers.com/t5/forums/forumtopicpage/board-id/Getting_connected/message-id/369...

The details and results of last nights beta release to the Comcast group have yet to be seen.

At this point there is enough reading to keep most staff and users busy.  My intention is to post some of the history leading up to this point and instructions on how to detect the latency and packet loss.  This is not thru the use of a BQM.  I had hoped to post this all at once but events are moving much faster than I had thought they would.  For now this should suffice to get the ball rolling.

Below is a link to a post with a couple of HrPing plots from my 32 channel modem to the connected CMTS.  This shows the latency that is observed and reflects what others have posted in this forum using Pingplotter and HrPing.

https://www.dslreports.com/forum/r31106550-

HrPing is one of the freebie applications that can be used to monitor the latency to and thru the modem. 

Pingplots with Pingplotter which show the latency from my modem to the CMTS can be found in the first two to three rows of my online image library at Rogers Communications, located below.  They are essentially what the BQM would look like if you were able to zoom into the plot to the point where you could see the individual ping spikes.  Those ping spikes are common to Puma 6 and Puma 6MG modems.

http://communityforums.rogers.com/t5/media/gallerypage/user-id/829158

 [MOD EDIT: Subject heading changed to assist community]

[Chiefuk]

Just moved from a different world (copper) - the connection said what it did after 4 idiots from openreach spent hours scratching heads and bottoms and we eventually got a coaching manager to fix the line. 

Virgin line was slow after install but after a bit of a moan (and everyone else doing the same here) it got fixed.

My lads have been experiencing intermittent ping spikes all week when gaming -but so have all their friends on virgin.

1 tip to VM in future -  not giving one if the modem costs more and it puts my price up - but supply a broadcom chipset based router - thanks! (could go on but nuff said)

[JohnGW75]

Or let customers use their own equipment

[Boygroucho]

I don't get what is the downside for Virgin to post out an SH2ac to anyone who asks?

Especially if the alternative is the customer taking their ~£500 quid a year to BT.

True there is a certain amount of inertia to overcome for a customer to leave Virgin, but once a customer leaves he is equally unlikely to come back.

[dossdes]

As one of the very lucky ones who managed to get a 2AC delivered last week. It was a nightmare trying to get through the normal channels.

Now, i am outside of contract so kept ringing up and selecting the ‘leave’ option. After having 2 separate individuals agreeing to send me a 2AC and receiving SH3’s instead i finally managed to get through to someone who said “you need to speak to Steve, if he can’t sort out your problems then I don’t know who can”. I then got an appt for Steve to ring me. Hurrah! He acknowledged the problem and sent me a 2AC out.

Now, these devices haven’t been manufactured for years, mine is a refurb. I can kind of see why they won’t habitually send out the 2AC to everyone who asks as there isn’t a plentiful supply of them.

My advice would be to keep on trying, keep mentioning the Puma 6 issue and try and get through to the right person. What i would also say is that if you are out of contract then you are likely (as I did) to get a more positive outcome.

[Adduxi]

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@Boygrouchowrote:

I don't get what is the downside for Virgin to post out an SH2ac to anyone who asks? <snip>

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Simply put, it's old technology as far as VM are concerned. It will only bond 8 channels and cope with 200mb.  The Hub 3 can bond 24 channels and cope with 500mb, VM need to get all users onto Hub 3 to spread the load on the network and prepare the groundwork for the next generation of cable broadband.

The only other solution is to allow users to buy their own Cable modems, but that's never going to happen.

[ShadowOfDeth69]

It's not like there's a shortage of SH2 hardware out there. If they were just a little more flexible with their stupid activation policies you could get as many as you like from eBay. However I was naive enough to believe the first guy at VM I spoke to who said there shouldn't be any reason they couldn't activate one I bought myself. The person I got mine from said he hadn't even plugged it in so and it arrived with everything as new still wrapped in plastic. There is absolutely no real reason for VM to be so rigid and so anticonsumer. It's ridiculous. Although I wasn't having any game breaking issues with the H3 for gaming I have since joined up with BT because VM's network stability and hardware were really bugging me. I've had BT a couple days now and even though it's only 80/20 vs 350/20 websites open faster, not getting any dropped packets and everything online just feels smoother. It's crazy.

[Adduxi]

Historically VM had a major issue with cloned modems, so they are very, very nervous of allowing anything on the network that did not come from a known, verified source. That I think is where the reluctance comes from.

As an aside, I'm very fortunate to have a DualWAN for work purposes, i.e. circuit redundancy, and I have no problems with BT, so hope you have a similar experience.  I've posted a wireless speed test below of VM 100/5 and BT 80/20 running together.  

[Boygroucho]

Yeah I've tried every which way to get a SH2ac...just waiting for a reply to my second email to the CEOs complaints handling dept to confirm that they would rather see me leave than supply one.    

Sure I get that Virgin would rather keep everyone on the hub 3, but supplying SH2acs would only be a stopgap until the either the SH3 firmware update proves effective or the next gen Hub comes out.

Once I get  confirmation from Openreach that I'm able to get 50mb from my local FTTC box [1] then I'm going to give BT a go.

[1]  My address doesn't show on the BT fibre checker (everyone else in my street does) so just waiting for Openreach to add my address.

[WhyLieToUs]

I dont believe VM are waiting on a firmware fix.. its been so long I suspect we are more likely to see SH4 before SH3 gets fixed. I just wish we could take VM to the ASA to force them to remove the prefix "Super" from their Hubs as they are clearly nowhere near being "Super" --- "SubStandardHub" anyone?

[Sephiroth]

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@WhyLieToUswrote:
I dont believe VM are waiting on a firmware fix.. its been so long I suspect we are more likely to see SH4 before SH3 gets fixed. I just wish we could take VM to the ASA to force them to remove the prefix "Super" from their Hubs as they are clearly nowhere near being "Super" --- "SubStandardHub" anyone?

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The Hub 3 doesn't have the "Super" handle!  The ASA complaint should be about the "perfect for gamers" that they currently claim.