Drop in FPS that seems to spike

[Elorah]

The past week to two weeks, I have been seeing a spike in my FPS.  It seems to go from about the 30's to about 6 or worse.....  then back up again.  I have tried this in Full Screen (as I play in Windowed mode), I Have tried lowering the performance levels, I still see a drop of 20-30 points and it will go back up....  regardless of what I try.<img src="http://i150.photobucket.com/albums/s106/sariana57/EQ2_000020-1.jpg" alt="" border="0" /><img src="http://i150.photobucket.com/albums/s106/sariana57/EQ2_000019-1.jpg" alt="" border="0" />These were taken about 30 a minute apart.....   Yes, it is that bad.  It makes playing very difficult...<span class="postbody"><ol><li>Server you currently playing on. <span style="color: #990099;"> Butcherblock</span></li><li>Any error messages you are experiencing.  <span style="color: #990099;">None anymore</span></li><li>Internet Service Provider you are using and type of Internet connection.  <span style="color: #990099;">Cox / Broadband Cable modem Lynksys Modem BEFCMU10</span></li><li>Do you have a firewall (even if you think it's disabled) between you and the Internet, or are you using any personal security/firewall software? If yes, what product and version.  <span style="color: #990099;">NAT (router Linksys WRT54G version 5 , Windows Firewall was never turned on after last reinstall.</span></li><li>Are you doing any Internet Connection Sharing or Network Address Translation? If yes, please provide details.  <span style="color: #990099;">Standard Router Settings.  Currently I am running DMZ to test this, but it doesnt seem to make any difference. </span></li></ol></span>Below is My Tracert and the Pathping results.  I see no issue with the tracert, but there are a few questions on the Pathping that I am uncertain about.... particularly 4-6....Microsoft Windows XP [Version 5.1.2600](C) Copyright 1985-2001 Microsoft Corp.C:Documents and SettingsNika>tracert butcherblock.everquest2.comTracing route to sdkeq2-08-01.everquest2.com [199.108.13.33]over a maximum of 30 hops:  1     1 ms     1 ms     2 ms  192.168.1.1  2     7 ms    11 ms     7 ms  10.2.24.1  3    12 ms     8 ms    12 ms  68.10.14.97  4    10 ms    10 ms    10 ms  172.22.48.206  5    19 ms    10 ms    12 ms  172.22.48.210  6    10 ms    20 ms    11 ms  172.22.48.161  7     9 ms     9 ms     9 ms  nrfkdsrj02-ge702.rd.hr.cox.net [68.10.14.13]  8    17 ms    16 ms    22 ms  ashbbbrj01-ae0.0.r2.as.cox.net [68.1.0.220]  9    78 ms    82 ms    80 ms  vl851.sdtermbr-1.sonyonline.net [64.37.144.165] 10   214 ms   252 ms   186 ms  vl831.sdkollsw-1.sonyonline.net [64.37.144.82] 11    82 ms    78 ms    79 ms  sdkeq2-08-01.everquest2.com [199.108.13.33]Trace complete.C:Documents and SettingsNika>pathping butcherblock.everquest2.comTracing route to sdkeq2-08-01.everquest2.com [199.108.13.33]over a maximum of 30 hops:  0  wanika.hr.cox.net [192.168.1.101]  1  192.168.1.1  2  10.2.24.1  3  68.10.14.97  4  172.22.48.206  5  172.22.48.210  6  172.22.48.161  7  nrfkdsrj02-ge702.rd.hr.cox.net [68.10.14.13]  8  ashbbbrj01-ae0.0.r2.as.cox.net [68.1.0.220]  9  vl851.sdtermbr-1.sonyonline.net [64.37.144.165] 10  vl831.sdkollsw-1.sonyonline.net [64.37.144.82] 11  sdkeq2-08-01.everquest2.com [199.108.13.33]Computing statistics for 275 seconds...            Source to Here   This Node/LinkHop  RTT    Lost/Sent = Pct  Lost/Sent = Pct  Address  0                                           wanika.hr.cox.net [192.168.1.101]                                0/ 100 =  0%   |  1   16ms     0/ 100 =  0%     0/ 100 =  0%  192.168.1.1                                0/ 100 =  0%   |  2   50ms    32/ 100 = 32%    32/ 100 = 32%  10.2.24.1                                0/ 100 =  0%   |  3   48ms     0/ 100 =  0%     0/ 100 =  0%  68.10.14.97                                0/ 100 =  0%   |  4  ---     100/ 100 =100%   100/ 100 =100%  172.22.48.206                                0/ 100 =  0%   |  5  ---     100/ 100 =100%   100/ 100 =100%  172.22.48.210                                0/ 100 =  0%   |  6  ---     100/ 100 =100%   100/ 100 =100%  172.22.48.161                                0/ 100 =  0%   |  7   39ms     0/ 100 =  0%     0/ 100 =  0%  nrfkdsrj02-ge702.rd.hr.cox.net [68.10.14.13]                                0/ 100 =  0%   |  8   37ms     0/ 100 =  0%     0/ 100 =  0%  ashbbbrj01-ae0.0.r2.as.cox.net [68.1.0.220]                                0/ 100 =  0%   |  9  100ms     0/ 100 =  0%     0/ 100 =  0%  vl851.sdtermbr-1.sonyonline.net [64.37.144.165]                                0/ 100 =  0%   | 10   95ms     0/ 100 =  0%     0/ 100 =  0%  vl831.sdkollsw-1.sonyonline.net [64.37.144.82]                                0/ 100 =  0%   | 11   82ms     0/ 100 =  0%     0/ 100 =  0%  sdkeq2-08-01.everquest2.com [199.108.13.33]Trace complete.<span style="color: #990099;">Thanks again for any help that can be given.... Let me know if more info is needed....</span>

[Takiana]

<p>Elorah -- I am having the exact same issue resulting in unplayable lag.  Also on Butcherblock.....</p><ol><li>Server you currently playing on.  Butcherblock</li><li>Any error messages you are experiencing.  Just horrible lag in all zones.</li><li>Internet Service Provider you are using and type of Internet connection.  Comcast Cable -- Cable Modem</li><li>Do you have a firewall (even if you think it's disabled) between you and the Internet, or are you using any personal security/firewall software? If yes, what product and version.  McAfee Security Firewall </li><li>Are you doing any Internet Connection Sharing or Network Address Translation? If yes, please provide details.  No.</li></ol>

[TSR-TrevorG]

ElorahThis doesn't seem to good.<span class="postbody">  4  ---     100/ 100 =100%   100/ 100 =100%  172.22.48.206                                0/ 100 =  0%   |  5  ---     100/ 100 =100%   100/ 100 =100%  172.22.48.210                                0/ 100 =  0%   |  6  ---     100/ 100 =100%   100/ 100 =100%  172.22.48.161Thats 100% loss on those hops, that very well could cause the issue.  See if you can grab another IP address from the ISP by either power cycling the modem for over 2 mins, or calling the ISP.  Hopefully you can be routed through different servers with a new IP.</span>

[Elorah]

Thanks Trevor, I admit that I have been watching this thread since I saw you posting earlier in hopes that you would get to me.  I saw that 100% on Hops 4-6 and didnt think that that sounded good at all...However, I also ran the pathping on my husbands system....  AND on a neighbors internet connection as well.  All seem to have that same 4-6 result....  It might be time to contact Cox Cable....

[TSR-TrevorG]

Here is what I can find on that IP for you.<pre>NetRange: 172.16.0.0 - 172.31.255.255 CIDR: 172.16.0.0/12 NetName: IANA-BBLK-RESERVEDNetHandle: NET-172-16-0-0-1Parent: NET-172-0-0-0-0NetType: IANA Special UseNameServer: BLACKHOLE-1.IANA.ORGNameServer: BLACKHOLE-2.IANA.ORGComment: This block is reserved for special purposes.Comment: Please see RFC 1918 for additional information.Comment: <a href="http://www.arin.net/reference/rfc/rfc1918.txt" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://www.arin.net/reference/rfc/rfc1918.txt</a>RegDate: 1994-03-15Updated: 2007-11-27</pre>I do not believe it should be routed through that at all.  <img src="/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

[Elorah]

Well......  any ideas?  My husband plans to contact Cox Cable soon to see what they can do....  As I said, it has been only the last week or two that this has been happening...  What would cause it to change to that IP?  I really do appreciate any help on this...

[TSR-DanielH]

<cite>TSR-TrevorG wrote:</cite><blockquote>Here is what I can find on that IP for you.<pre>NameServer: <b>BLACKHOLE-1</b>.IANA.ORGNameServer: <b>BLACKHOLE-2</b>.IANA.ORG</pre>I do not believe it should be routed through that at all.</blockquote>Those hops are aptly named.  Black hole indeed.

[Elorah]

<cite>TSR-DanielH wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>TSR-TrevorG wrote:</cite><blockquote>Here is what I can find on that IP for you.<pre>NameServer: <b>BLACKHOLE-1</b>.IANA.ORGNameServer: <b>BLACKHOLE-2</b>.IANA.ORG</pre>I do not believe it should be routed through that at all.</blockquote>Those hops are aptly named.  Black hole indeed.</blockquote>[Removed for Content]...  True....

[TSR-TrevorG]

You may have gotten a new dynamic IP when it started, so it began to route differently for you then.  Hopefully another new IP would correct this.

[Elorah]

Well,    Just to give an update.....  He is talking with them now.  They have power cycled the modem and it was still going through those IP's.  She had no other ideas, so he is now talking to Tier 2 Tech support....  I will update on this post so not to keep bumping <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY<img src="/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />" />Well Tier 2 was not able to help much either *grumbles*  They did give us a NEW IP (which didnt seem to help) and stated that they would upgrade us to the Engineers.  I have been talking with Hubby about it, and we think that it may be more then just us that has this.  As I said, I tried it on a neighbors connection and ut still had that same packet loss going to the same IP's.  *shrugs*.  They say that it could be 24 hours before we hear from them  I sure do hope that they call tonight as the hubby is going to DC tomorrow.  I would hate for them to call and have to deal with me...  lolI can still play in game amazingly enough, I just cant adventure with those spikes....  so crafting and harvesting it is....Here's to hoping that they can see the issue fast enough....  lol

[TSR-TrevorG]

Hope to see you in game :p

[Elorah]

Well, I wanted to give you all an update ( I know, just what you wanted)...We called Cox Communications on Monday, we went through Tier 1 and tier 2 support.  Tier 2 said that they opened a ticket and an Engineer would be looking into it for us.  Having heard nothing back and still having the spikes, we called back today to check on the status.  They tried to tell us that Hop 4,5 and 6 were on our end and the pathping from the neighbor's connection was being completely ignored.  We did a direct wire and still the same path it took.  We tried a different OS (what this would do, I have no idea, but it was suggested), still the same path.  Hubby hung up and tried them all...I became upset after we did a bit more research and discovered that Hop 3 has a location that is Close to THEM in another city (not ours, so it couldnt possibly be on our end, right?).  With all this info, I called back and asked for the supervisor Techie for internet connections.  We got a reference number from this person (apparently we were lied to on Monday, as there was never anything opened previously on us) with a promise that they believe us and they will be looking into it asap.  Hubby seems to think that it is a switch or router on their end that is bumping us to the Blackhole servers.  When I web browse normally, I dont see any issue.  Only when I play EQ2 or use Messenger (keep getting booted off, but not sure if it is the same issue or not) do I notice it.  I have to wonder how many people are effected by this and dont know it?So, that is where I stand now....  still unable to adventure, but able to harvest (with a bit of pain, almost fell into the lava yesterday) and craft.....*goes off and grumbles*

[TSR-TrevorG]

<cite>Elorah wrote:</cite><blockquote>tried a different OS (what this would do, I have no idea, but it was suggested), still the same path.  </blockquote>/slaps foreheadThats why I left the ISPs <img src="/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

[Elorah]

Well, yet again, another update....My connection is getting worse as it is now Intermittent....  I will lose it and then regain it (usually in time to not lose connection to servers).  Since we did NOT hear from them by friday as promised (big surprise), we called back yesterday.Even though we had the ticket number, we had to go through the whole story again, emailing all the info and proof that we have that it is NOT on our end.....  this guy seemed to know more then the others, but he had never heard of the Black hole servers...   we sent him info on that one as well....and yet again, we must wait 48 hours....  grrrrr.Hubby did some more research.... and *gasp* found a person in 2006 posting on the WoW *gasp* that had the same exact issue with the same company.....  so it is nothing new.... 

[Jrral]

<cite>Elorah wrote:</cite><blockquote>Well, yet again, another update....My connection is getting worse as it is now Intermittent....  I will lose it and then regain it (usually in time to not lose connection to servers).  Since we did NOT hear from them by friday as promised (big surprise), we called back yesterday.Even though we had the ticket number, we had to go through the whole story again, emailing all the info and proof that we have that it is NOT on our end.....  this guy seemed to know more then the others, but he had never heard of the Black hole servers...   we sent him info on that one as well....and yet again, we must wait 48 hours....  grrrrr.Hubby did some more research.... and *gasp* found a person in 2006 posting on the WoW *gasp* that had the same exact issue with the same company.....  so it is nothing new....  </blockquote>The tech may be confused by the name. Those addresses are RFC1918 private network addresses, the same type as the 192.168.1.1 address your router's using for the LAN-side interface (it'll hand out 192.168.1.x addresses on your private network, then NAT them to your ISP-assigned address on the WAN side of things) and the 10.x.x.x address on the first hop. The "blackhole" in the names is an artifact of the nameserver being queried and doesn't mean anything. Ask the tech why RFC1918 private network addresses are showing up in the Cox portion of the network.Quick tutorial based on what I know about the Cox physical network. The first hop, the 10.x.x.x address, seems to be a bogus result. It should be your local Cox head-end router, immediately upstream of your cable modem. It should be a 68.x.x.x address but the hardware seems to respond with it's private cable-modem-network address instead. Not a major problem, it's a router and you'll never be trying to talk to it directly anyway, but it makes traceroutes confusing. Everything from there should be 68.x.x.x addresses up until the packets leave Cox's networks.  Since those 172.22.48.x private addresses appear after a valid 68.x.x.x router (which is a Cox network address, the router right above the head-end), and more 68.x.x.x addresses appear after them before the packets hand off from Cox to SOE (and it appears Cox has a direct connection to SOE's network, hop 8 is a Cox router and hop 9 is an SOE router), that tells me that those 172.22.48.x routers are definitely Cox's routing issue.

[Elorah]

<cite>Jrral@Unrest wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite></cite>The tech may be confused by the name. Those addresses are RFC1918 private network addresses, the same type as the 192.168.1.1 address your router's using for the LAN-side interface (it'll hand out 192.168.1.x addresses on your private network, then NAT them to your ISP-assigned address on the WAN side of things) and the 10.x.x.x address on the first hop. The "blackhole" in the names is an artifact of the nameserver being queried and doesn't mean anything. Ask the tech why RFC1918 private network addresses are showing up in the Cox portion of the network.Quick tutorial based on what I know about the Cox physical network. The first hop, the 10.x.x.x address, seems to be a bogus result. It should be your local Cox head-end router, immediately upstream of your cable modem. It should be a 68.x.x.x address but the hardware seems to respond with it's private cable-modem-network address instead. Not a major problem, it's a router and you'll never be trying to talk to it directly anyway, but it makes traceroutes confusing. Everything from there should be 68.x.x.x addresses up until the packets leave Cox's networks.  Since those 172.22.48.x private addresses appear after a valid 68.x.x.x router (which is a Cox network address, the router right above the head-end), and more 68.x.x.x addresses appear after them before the packets hand off from Cox to SOE (and it appears Cox has a direct connection to SOE's network, hop 8 is a Cox router and hop 9 is an SOE router),<span style="color: #990099;"><u><b> that tells me that those 172.22.48.x routers are definitely Cox's routing issue.</b></u></span></blockquote>No idea what the rest is all about (I will be sure to sure to show this to the hubby <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" width="15" height="15" />), but I understand the highlighted part (even my non technical brain could see that), but for some reason, they dont yet....grrrrrBut when Hubby did explain the Black hole servers, the guy still didnt seem to get it..  so not sure what is going on their end..  But I want to PLAY darnit...   by the time this is solved, 7 of my crafters will have their crafting epics!  Since I cant play, I am attempting to harvest and craft....  but I want to adventure *sniffles*  We finally get rid of all the errors and then we get this...  *grumbles*Thanks for the explanation, I will have the hubby ask about this if they STILL cant solve it....I am seriously starting to learn WAY more then I wish about computers and connections.....*wink**edit*  I showed Hubby the post and he reminded me that Hop 1 is his router...  lolBut the techie asked him what a black hole server was....  *shrugs*

[Jrral]

<cite>Elorah wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite></cite>*edit*  I showed Hubby the post and he reminded me that Hop 1 is his router...  lolBut the techie asked him what a black hole server was....  *shrugs*</blockquote>Yep, on your trace the 10.x.x.x is at hop 2.The techie's probably confused because there's no such thing officially as a black hole server. The mention of BLACKHOLE-1 and BLACKHOLE-2 in the whois information has nothing to do with those machines, those are the names of the DNS servers IANA (Internet Assigned Names Authority) uses to provide a working "no such address" result on address-to-name requests for RFC1918 netblocks.

[Elorah]

Well, to give an update I am posting this story....Cox was saying that it was not on their end.  they would not explain the 3 "blackhole" servers at all....After finally having enough of this lag (it was getting worse), hubby started looking at it and testing it more...  We took out the graphics card and put it in sons PC..  his ran fine...  We took out a PS2 HD and put it in my PC....  Same issues as before, so we knew that it was the Hard drive....AT this time we began to see BSoD's as well.  We would try to reinstall Windows with issues there.  We started to notice that the BSoD's were related to memory issues...  just not sure which memory.  So we ran Everest and stressed the system out.  After about 40 Minutes, an error showed up.  So I ran the stress test on Individual parts (CPU, GPU, Cache and memory)  All worked great until the memory...    I took out one of my memory stick and ran it, Fine....  Swapped the sticks out and tested, it worked fine..  We tried to swap the connectors..  It all worked fine.Then Everest began not knowing the Motherboard (it always had before).  AT this time, we decided tht it was most likely the Motherboard (which is only a few months old).  We bought one in the local store here and went to put it in when He noticed that many of the pins were bent.... the store said had said that if it was opened, we could not return it <img src="/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />  After a few days of arguing and talking with ASUS, the store took it back.  Miraculously they fixed it.  We installed it and so far so good....  No lag at all like I had before...*knocks on wood*The only thing that we could think of was that it was slowly dying and the Lag was the start of it...now we just need to return the broken card......   *grumbles*Thanks for any of the help that was given in this thread...  You guys are great!