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Is my ping normal?

Adam13337
On our wavelength

I've just gotten broadband in my new home and I just want to make sure everything seems ok with my latency. I noticed my ping in online games is a tad higher than others I've seen. I've setup a BQM and had it running for the day. I can see a big spike at 12pm which I'm unsure about but I also noticed my ping seems to sit around 25ms. This seems a little higher from what I've seen from others in the UK on Virgin Media. Any other information needed to see if my connection I'll be happy to send through. Thanks!

BQM: https://www.thinkbroadband.com/broadband/monitoring/quality/share/93ad9bda75989687b283af8644c01b0c24...

11 REPLIES 11

Andrew-G
Alessandro Volta

Looks normal to me.  The minimum latency is partly driven by your location - how much signal processing goes on on your local circuit (typically related to distance from head of the local coax network) and how far you are geographically from the Thinkbroadband test servers, which I seem to recall are in London.  There's also an overhead depending on internet traffic routing, which can vary depending on a multitude of factors.

All things considered the minimum and average latency are pretty good, your main concern is ping spiking.  There's one or two visible, but at the implied rate of peaks they aren't anything to worry about.

Thanks for the information! I've run speed tests to servers close to me and I get around 20-30ms which seems weird to me but I'm not very knowledgeable on the issue. Is there any way to check if my routing is good or if there's a way to lower my latency?

Internet traffic routing can be deduced from a tracert command in Windows, but you'd have to rely on others to explain the details it will produce.  Even if that shows up a slow hop, there's nothing a customer can do to change that because traffic routing is all handled by network wizards hidden so deep in the bowels of VM that they've never met a customer, and have only heard of daylight as an unproven rumour.  Sometimes network changes occur that we don't see and your latency may improve, but that's a bit of straw clutching. 

In terms of thing you could do for improving your latency, nothing obvious that I can see.  SOMETIMES the Hub 4 that's provided for 1 Gbps contracts produces better and lower latency than a Hub 3, but not reliably so.  I'd not recommend taking a 1 Gig contract in the hope of improving your ping.

If a few ms are really important, then an Openreach VDSL connection would usually save you a few ms compared to VM, but I'm unconvinced the difference would be material for most gamers, other than those whose VM connection is subject to congestion problems.  Considering that your minimum response time to an on-screen stimulus is 250ms, shaving 4-9ms of your average latency (and thus half of that off the ping) isn't going to be perceivable.

I've been keeping an eye on the BQM and I've noticed there's a bit of dropped packets at the top and I was wondering if this is something that needs fixing or not. 

Packet loss is always a bad thing.  And your BQM is currently showing some very unhealthy spikes around 4:45pm and 5:15pm yesterday.

Connect to the hub by clicking on this link http://192.168.0.1/  That should pull up the log in page for the hub.  But don't log in, just click on the link "Check router status"  That'll bring up a window with five tabs.  Open the Downstream tab.  Select all the text (Ctrl-A if using a keyboard), copy it (Ctrl-C), then paste it (Ctrl-V) into a reply here as TEXT not screenshots.  Post that, do the same for the Upstream and Network log.  You'll get an error message when you post the Network log, just click on "post" a second time.  Then we can check for any obvious problems with power, noise or error counts.

Here are my Hub stats:

Downstream bonded channels

Channel Frequency (Hz) Power (dBmV) SNR (dB) Modulation Channel ID
13310000003.540256 qam25
2203000000240256 qam9
32110000001.740256 qam10
42190000001.740256 qam11
52270000001.940256 qam12
6235000000140256 qam13
72430000001.440256 qam14
82510000001.740256 qam15
9259000000240256 qam16
10267000000340256 qam17
112750000002.540256 qam18
122830000002.740256 qam19
132910000003.440256 qam20
142990000002.940256 qam21
153070000002.740256 qam22
16315000000240256 qam23
173230000002.240256 qam24
183390000003.740256 qam26
19347000000440256 qam27
203550000003.740256 qam28
213630000003.240256 qam29
223710000003.740256 qam30
233790000003.540256 qam31
243870000003.540256 qam32


Downstream bonded channels

Channel Locked Status RxMER (dB) Pre RS Errors Post RS Errors
1Locked40.32330
2Locked40.92431
3Locked40.32181
4Locked40.32592
5Locked40.32791
6Locked40.33120
7Locked40.93290
8Locked40.92622
9Locked40.32290
10Locked40.92670
11Locked40.32120
12Locked40.31960
13Locked40.32410
14Locked40.92561
15Locked40.32877
16Locked40.92907
17Locked40.32601
18Locked40.92150
19Locked40.91590
20Locked40.91500
21Locked40.91270
22Locked40.9830
23Locked40.31170
24Locked40.31180

 

Upstream bonded channels

Channel Frequency (Hz) Power (dBmV) Symbol Rate (ksps) Modulation Channel ID
12579998844.3512064 qam6
23260000044.3512064 qam5
33939996444.3512064 qam4
44619999345.8512064 qam3


Upstream bonded channels

Channel Channel Type T1 Timeouts T2 Timeouts T3 Timeouts T4 Timeouts
1ATDMA0000
2ATDMA0000
3ATDMA0000
4ATDMA0000

 
Network Log
Time Priority Description
29/10/2021 13:56:54criticalReceived Response to Broadcast Maintenance Request, But no Unicast Maintenance opportunities received - T4 time out;CM-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CMTS-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
29/10/2021 13:54:26Warning!Lost MDD Timeout;CM-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CMTS-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
29/10/2021 13:54:21criticalSYNC Timing Synchronization failure - Loss of Sync;CM-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CMTS-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
29/10/2021 13:54:21Warning!RCS Partial Service;CM-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CMTS-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
29/10/2021 13:54:21criticalSYNC Timing Synchronization failure - Loss of Sync;CM-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CMTS-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
29/10/2021 13:54:20Warning!RCS Partial Service;CM-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CMTS-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
29/10/2021 12:08:42criticalReceived Response to Broadcast Maintenance Request, But no Unicast Maintenance opportunities received - T4 time out;CM-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CMTS-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
29/10/2021 12:06:42Warning!RCS Partial Service;CM-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CMTS-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
29/10/2021 12:06:42criticalSYNC Timing Synchronization failure - Loss of Sync;CM-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CMTS-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
29/10/2021 12:06:41Warning!RCS Partial Service;CM-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CMTS-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
29/10/2021 12:05:39Warning!Lost MDD Timeout;CM-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CMTS-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
29/10/2021 12:05:33criticalSYNC Timing Synchronization failure - Loss of Sync;CM-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CMTS-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
29/10/2021 12:05:33Warning!RCS Partial Service;CM-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CMTS-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
29/10/2021 12:05:33criticalSYNC Timing Synchronization failure - Loss of Sync;CM-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CMTS-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
29/10/2021 12:05:31Warning!RCS Partial Service;CM-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CMTS-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
29/10/2021 12:05:31criticalSYNC Timing Synchronization failure - Loss of Sync;CM-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CMTS-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
29/10/2021 12:05:28Warning!RCS Partial Service;CM-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CMTS-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
29/10/2021 10:37:33noticeDHCP Renew - lease parameters tftp file-cmreg-vmdg505-bbt062+voc-b.cm modified;CM-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CMTS-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
29/10/2021 10:37:33ErrorDHCP RENEW WARNING - Field invalid in response v4 option;CM-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CMTS-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
26/10/2021 05:08:23criticalNo Ranging Response received - T3 time-out;CM-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CMTS-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;

jpeg1
Alessandro Volta

Levels are all perfectly normal.  A temporary connection problem around mid-day on 29th but otherwise all OK.

- jpeg1
My name is NOT Alessandro. That's just a tag Virginmedia sticks on some contributors. Please ignore it.

Hi Adam13337, thanks for the message. As Jpeg1 has said, the ping looks normal, can you confirm if you are having any issues with the service since posting? ^Chris