IOL/Esat trouble - again

zoro

Yet more connection issues. Anyone else getting random disconnections from game servers or having their active connections just severed? (DSL is still on, just connections are cut)

PaulMcG

I've not lost my IOL BB connection once since I got it before Christmas...

Lex_Diamonds

Up and down like Marilyn's skirt over here. Same for a mate with it down the road (iol users).

TimTim

Stable as a rock for me had the occasional problem but I can't remember any problems within the last 3-5 months

OfflerCrocGod

No problem - for many months now

Mutor_CS

I've had a lot more connection drops to servers and to TeamSpeak / IRC during the last week or so.
I've also started to get constant packet loss in half-life online games for almost a week now, with 'net_graph 3' it's always around 7 to 10 packets lost.

I've to check my router first before I blame IOL, but it wouldn't surprise me it's their fault. Traceroute results are inconsistent, some pings are large, some are normal, and some time out. I'll do a few ping tests later and try to learn more.

zoro

I've had those exact problems for a very long time now. And I've gone through 3 routers so it's definitely not the router on my end

padraigf

Has anyone else been having woeful performance on IOLBB+ for the last while?

Up until recently I've had pretty good performance. Pings not as good as eircom, but well within what i'd call acceptable. (60-80ms to a 40 man CS:S Server in the UK).

Lately, ingame CS:S has reported constant heavy loss on upstream (choke:20-40) and constand loss on the downstream too (loss:5-10). I'm using the right rates, cmdrate 30 updaterate 30 cl_rate 7500. Changing them any higher or lower doesnt improve performance at all.

Using "ping plotter" I've performed traces to esat's primary and secondary dns servers under instructions from their tech support, and i'm waiting for a respons from them. At peak times we're talking about 50ms to their DNS server with 20-30% packet loss! Similarly 90ms pings to english games servers with 30% packet loss. I think this is just *way* through the roof for the definition of a rubbish service.

I've reset my modem/router and inputted all my settings again. I've reformatted my PC in sheer desperation incase I had some malicious little bugger destroying my net connection.

Up until recently there was no problem at all with the service, and I'd go as far as saying I was chuffed with it and pitied the eircom fools with their download limits of 4 or 8 gigs! Now I'm seeing if I can break my contract because of the sh*tty service.

Anyone have *any* ideas at all on this? Tech support have been typically useless.

snappieT

I'm getting this aswell. Its because stupid neighbours learned how to use stupid Gnutella. Contention down the shíthole

padraigf

Forgot to mention that I'm in shankill, not a million miles from the exchange. WELL inside the 4.5km or whatever ADSL is specced for. Maybe 1km?

padraigf

same problem yeah.... just after making my own thread about it. **** at tech support maintain it aint their problem too

Infini

Yeah right. They probably have a fauly exchange or something and don't have the balls to admit it. Any of you with problems in a similar area to one another?

zoro

Coolock - TERRIBLE pings tonight ... TERRIBLE
They'll be getting a call from me tomorrow

C Fodder

Sure it aint the router cause the Zyxel thinges aint the best. Gotta restart mine at least once a day cause it starts dropping packets and eventually connection degrades to rubbish(second one this is happening to).

padraigf

Shankill here. the zyxel is rubbish, but i always restart it right before games. restarting it has a slight effect, but slight enough to maybe be placebo. Loss:10 Choke:40 Ping:100 tonight on my CS server! Only 8 of us online playing aswell! Its a f'n joke!

Moriarty

Threads merged.

zoro

Thanks Moriarty

padraigf

yeah, cheers. thats some nice modding

butts

Was having similar problems with IOL until I put my D-Link DSL modem into bridge mode and let my Netgear router handle the login details and monitor the connection status. My last login duration was 920 minutes. My connection never lasted more than a few hours when I relied on the D-Link modem to handle the connection.

JohnMorrissey

I've been having problem with IOL for the past few weeks. Connections dropping for 5 mins etc...

Lex_Diamonds

Am I right in saying that tech support simply fob people off every time? How the hell do we get this sorted? Im assuming they have no idea what it is so they dont admit there is a problem.

JohnMorrissey

Seems to have got more frequent today, with longer outages.

DrChoda

Been having huge problems as well.
The only thing consistent is the lack of answers provided by IOLbb
Getting huge amounts of packet loss. Up and down transfer speeds, but nowhere near acceptable.
For gaming?
moderately low ping, sometimes spiking. Constant loss and choke.
This type of service is just getting stupid.


*note: Last time this happend, they acted like nothing was wrong on their end. Then many customers began to be affected and it turned out they were upgrading. Finally, they let the public know.

DrChoda

Lex_Diamonds wrote:

Am I right in saying that tech support simply fob people off every time? How the hell do we get this sorted? Im assuming they have no idea what it is so they dont admit there is a problem.

I'd bet money that this is the truth.
I can't get an answer out of them, but usually they push it as a user problem.
I've tried running a few packet loss tests and although I can get out, nothing seems to be bouncing back to me, it always timesout. (not my firewall issue either)

CuLT

Awful for me too, random disconnects and packet loss, huge amount of file corruption over FTP.


I haven't restarted my modem for two months though... which may be a problem O_O;

padraigf

Just on to them on the phone there this evening. If you want to register your complaint do the following:

Describe how your ping is fluctuating in games. Emphasize your packet loss (they won't guarantee ping but youve got them in a corner with packet loss). Get a program such as ping plotter (www.pingplotter.com). Run traces to the following addresses:
192.111.39.1
192.111.39.1
google.ie
You need to run one at off-peak times when your service is fine, and one when the service is crap. Again, emphasize packet loss. This is *all* they will listen to.

I did this and I seem to be getting somewhere with their tech support. I'll keep u guys posted with the results whenever they respond. Since its gone on to their 2nd level analysts. Beyond me how u need an analyst to see 25% PL as a problem but there ya go :rolleyes:

JohnMorrissey

Still going for me... cannot make any new connections, yet all existing connections work without trouble, e.g cant load webpages or connect to games, msn etc, yet if I have a download/upload started before the outage, it keeps going fine at full speed.

nosferatu

Are people using USB or Ethernet? if it's Ethernet try reducing the MTU on your network adaptor to 1460, as the default is 1500 and with that setting every packet sent is going to have to be fragmented meaning your modem will have to send twice as many packets as it needs to.

May not have anything to do with anything, but probably a good idea anyway.

zoro

holy _f*ck_ the packetloss today is unbearable! not 5 seconds of uninterrupted gameplay

vibe666

not into online games much meself, so can't comment on that sort of thing, but I had no end of trouble with my connection just cutting off in the first 2 months of my trial. i contacted them 3 times and the last time i told them that if it wasn't sorted that i wouldn't be continuing the service after the trial if the problem wasn't sorted. never hard a peep back, but the problem went away after 3 days.

I've also since turned off dhtp etc. on the modem and i'm using a broadband router to do all the work and it seems a lot better.

i know it's not likely to help anyone here, but i just wanted to share.

nosferatu

zoro wrote:

holy _f*ck_ the packetloss today is unbearable! not 5 seconds of uninterrupted gameplay

Have you tried my suggestion above?

To me it sounds like one of 4 things.

1 you're in an area where contention is an issue.
2 Either your PC is eating up resources/bandwidth, or if you have more than one PC someone else in your household could be eating up bandwidth intentionally or otherwise.
3 You've got a shoddy modem. Any chance of getting another make not supplied by iol to even try out for a few nights?
4 Could be a dodgy line, possibly being affected by interference of some kind, the least likely but still a possibility.

It sounds more likely to be the first one, that kind of behaviour is pretty typical of contention issues. The next most likely one is the third, even in this thread there are already 3 people who say they have improved performance by either changing or rebooting their modem.