Hello everyone,

I've been having packet loss which causes rubberbanding in-game.

I am using a PC, which is connected to a router through cable.
When I use my phone/laptop and connect to the said router using WiFi, I do not experience any packet loss.

Referring to Instance 1 (https://imgur.com/a/XxBeE7S), I experienced packet loss at my first hop. I believed this was a problem with the cable connecting to my router.

I then connected one of the cables which connects my router to the modem directly to the PC. At first, it solved the problem, but then I experienced the packet loss again (refer to Instance 2: https://imgur.com/a/XxBeE7S).

Any help would be greatly appreciated, thank you!

EDIT: During the period which the above tests were conducted, I conducted the same test on the family PC which is connected directly to the modem and no packet loss was found.

EDIT 2: Update, while my PC is connected to the cable which connects my router to the modem (similarly to Instance #2), I experienced packet loss from Hop 1 again: https://imgur.com/a/L7vCelq

Hi Eric,

Sorry to hear you're having internet issues but thanks for writing into the forum!

So it sounds like your wireless works fine but when plugged in with an ethernet cable you're seeing packet loss starting at the first hop (your router) and going through to the final hop (in this case google.com). You also clarified that you are getting packet loss when plugged directly into the modem, correct?

This is going to be mostly more troubleshooting steps and the name of the game with troubleshooting is to eliminate as many parts of the system as possible until you narrow down where the issue is. You already know that it's an issue when you're plugged in with a cable and only on your gaming machine so this narrows things down quite a bit.

I would say a good place to start is to make sure that your TCP/IP stack is functioning as it should. Here are some steps that you can follow:

In the search on the taskbar, type CMD, right-click the command prompt result and then select Run as administrator and confirm.

At the command prompt:

- Type ipconfig /release and press Enter.
- Type ipconfig /flushdns and press Enter.
- Type ipconfig /renew and press Enter. (this will stall for a moment)
- Type netsh int ip reset and press Enter. (don’t restart yet)
- Type netsh winsock reset and press Enter.

Now restart your machine using Start > Power > Restart and check in PingPlotter to see if this makes a difference. If not the next thing to try is finding the IP address of your NIC card to see if the packet loss happens there. You can find your NIC IP by doing (once again in CMD) an ipconfig command and looking for the IPv4 address (likely 192.168.x.x or 10.x.x.x). Plug this IP into PingPlotter and see if you see the packet loss here. If you do then it's an issue with your NIC, if not then it has to be something between the NIC and the router/modem. If you haven't tried a known-good ethernet cable now is the time but it sounds like you likely already have.

If you're still having issues let us know and we're happy to continue to troubleshoot with you.

Let us know if you have any more questions and good luck!

Thanks,

-Poe

Hello Poe,

Thanks for the detailed information!

I've followed your steps as mentioned, and after restarting I experience the same packet loss starting from Hop 1 (Refer to picture 1: https://imgur.com/a/Jk2keem). Do note that this was conducted while my gaming PC is connected to the router instead of a modem.

I then plugged the IPv4 address to PingPlotter and also pinged it in CMD. There was no packet loss for IPv4, but I did have packet loss when pinging to Google (Refer to picture 2: https://imgur.com/a/Jk2keem).

While these tests were conducted, my family PC (which is plugged directly to the modem) experienced 0 packet loss. The final hop did receive 18.9% loss and 0.2% loss at hop 6 and 7 respectively. I believe I read an article that said I can ignore that if the final hop is fine, but I'm pointing it out in case.


From the information above, can it be concluded that the issue is the cable connecting my router with the modem?

Hello, if possible I would still love to get help on the above. Thank you!

Hi Eric,

Sorry about the delay in getting back to you!

These are some really good troubleshooting steps that you've done. So it sounds like you've ruled out the TCP stack on your gaming PC, your NIC (the IPv4 IP), and your modem as the other PC is connected directly and has not had issues.

So it sounds like it's either the cable between gaming PC and your router, the cable between your router and your modem or else the router itself somehow. Have you done a factory reset on the router? To do this just google the router make and model and "factory reset". It's possible if you're router is a bit older than it could be starting to fail. Often a factory reset kicks things into gear.

If that still doesn't work I'd suggest getting a known good cable (between the other PC and the modem perhaps?) and try that with the gaming PC. You could also try different ports on the router as well.

As far as packet loss on intermediate hops, you're correct, no need to worry about those if the final hop is clear.

Let us know how it goes!

Thanks,

-Poe

Thank's for the reply Poe!

The cable to my PC to router is a CAT 5 router, when I changed it for a CAT 7 router there was no changes to packet loss so we can assume that that's not an issue.

The cable from my router to modem (which goes across many rooms), as far as I know isn't even CAT 5.

I'm not so sure what's a good cable, if I have a CAT 5 cable from the router to modem, is that sufficient?

Thank you so much Poe.