LAG ? why me all the time

[TamiyaCowboy]

hi guys and girls

problems have started too show with my machine. running games is great now hardly no problems except LAG. everything lags bigtime. even when browsing i get lag and connection timed out.

my set up consists (sp) of two machines. the main internet feeder is my P4 2.4ghz with 60 gb samsung and pc3200 1gb (2x512). down the line on the network cable is a P4 2.8ghz with a maxor 80gb and pc2700 1gb (2x512). the lan link is running a fast 100mbps and i have a 1mb connection coming from ADSL and a speedtouch modem. when running any games on both machines they both start too lag. in eve i can wait upto ten seconds for the lag to go by then im in trouble and have too warp out. bf2 when playing the enemy moves away from my line of fire causing server too read a no hit count same goes for counterstrike. its realy winding me up when playing and i have refrained from beating hell out of both machines. im under quater of a mile from the main telephone exchange but still get lagged too hell. any sugestions too how i can stop lag. my ISP said i can upgrade too 2mb for an extra £20gbp but for the same price everyone else is offered upto 8mb connection speed for the same moneys (highly unfair me thninks) they have said that even if i go with the 2mb connection i could/may still get the lag. im confused highly stressed and wanting too beat my machine into submission please help

thank you

[furious trout]

Stop using ICS and buy a router - that's probably contributing to your lag, it'll put load on the machine that's sharing the connection as it has to route two loads of packets instead of just one, that'll add additional overhead to your network cards and your processor.

Also check with your ISP that your connection doesn't have any issues at the exchange or (anywhere else).

Run some tracerts to www.bbc.co.uk and post the results here. It'll help identify where the latency is on the connection.

[Greeny]

Clean out both machines, check for spyware/malware/garbage which is using your connection. Currports or cports is good for checking what has open ports for traffic.

Close all unnecessary IM clients etc.

Also when using multiple machines on the LAN reducing your rates a shade for your game of choice might be neccessary. Most we've ever run is about 4-5 clients from one DSL connection, it was necessary to adjust the rates down to ensure sufficient bandwidth for all clients (else one of the clients may hog the bandwidth). Depends what your playing, CS1.6 for example needs about 5-6k up per client so multiply that by 5 and as you can see your around the limit of conventional DSL.

Distance to exchange makes little difference to ping other than if your extremely close to it. Number of hops is more significant to base ping. Tracert to server, less hops = more stable, lower ping usually.

[TamiyaCowboy]

what is ICS?. i dont want too use a router as all people i talk with had problems setting it/them up needing lots of info my isp is not very helpful and im not that good with things electronic.

tracerts ? that went over my head i never heard of that word/thing before. i tought computer sorts everything out so connection runs how it should. i have all IM and other rubbish running in background turned of except Xfire and my temp monitoring prog, sometimes ventrillo runs too. all i know is i can connect to my clan server with ping of 35ms and still lag like hell

[Leeum]

what is ICS?. i dont want too use a router as all people i talk with had problems setting it/them up needing lots of info my isp is not very helpful and im not that good with things electronic.

Internet Connection Sharing - it's what you're doing atm.

Routers are dead easy to setup, didn't need any info from my ISP for mine :huh:

[fillip]

Nope, shouldn't need any info. from your ISP. Some use to restrict you on the basis of the MAC address you use to connect to ADSL from (Telewest use to do this with my BB ). But all you need to do is clone the MAC address of that PC on your router, so your ISP thinks it's talking directly to that PC still.

Take my advice, and FT's, and go buy a Linksys WRT54G wireless router. You can pick 'em up cheap now, even from Fleabay, and it has 4 wired ports in the back if you don't feel brave enough to go wireless just yet. All you need is the MAC address of the PC you currently have hooked up to your ADSL connection. (you can find your MAC address by going Start > Run > 'cmd' > 'ipconfig')

You power everything down, plug your two PC's into the router, plug the ADSL into the WAN port on the router and power it up. There's a CD that comes with the router which helps you auto-configure your PC's, though you don't actually need it.
Then, you jump into the router's web based menu by typing 192.168.1.100 into your browser, find the setting that relates to 'MAC address cloning' and enter the MAC address of the PC you found out above.
That's pretty much all you'll need to do to get up and running since the router is allocating IP's to your computers through DHCP out of the box, then it's just down to tweaking things a bit and enabling port fowarding etc for your games. It really isn't difficult if you take your time and RTFM. :thumb:

The only other thing I can imagine you may need to change is the connection settings in IE, esp. if these have been configured specifically for your current ISP, though they should be set to 'automatically detect connection settings'

[TamiyaCowboy]

sorted the problem

unpluged the network and told everyone tough luck no gaming for them.i no going toobeat hell out of a router when i messes up on me, i have short temper and do break things out of anger. now hopefuly i should have less lag if the other computer is not connected and feeding from my main machine.

asked isp (www.orange.co.uk) about why i get lag and timed out, didnt get much explanation than try our faster service and check my browser. but they did ask if i have two computers connected. i told a little white lie and said no was i correct in doing this, as when i accepted the contract i did say i only had one computer, but then dad brought one and hooked up to me and ICS

[fillip]

Why Orange? They didn't look particularly good to me when I was looking for ISPs recently. :huh:

i have short temper and do break things out of anger.

Probably best you don't spend too much time around computers then tbh, you gotta have patience to 'get good' with 'em.

Btw, here's a link to the WRT54G at your favourite site - http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Linksys-Wireless-G-Broadband-Router-WRT54G_W0QQitemZ170006407990QQihZ007QQcategoryZ101 269QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

;-)

[furious trout]

Why Orange? They didn't look particularly good to me when I was looking for ISPs recently. :huh:



Probably best you don't spend too much time around computers then tbh, you gotta have patience to 'get good' with 'em.

Btw, here's a link to the WRT54G at your favourite site - http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Linksys-Wireless-G-Broadband-Router-WRT54G_W0QQitemZ170006407990QQihZ007QQcategoryZ101 269QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

;-)

Orange bought wanadoo recently.....

As for the router.... if you're using ADSL you'll need a slightly different model that includes the modem, then you can lose the speedtouch ( iirc its the WAG54G but don't quote me on that; I don't use ADSL so I have no idea if this is the best model to go for)

As for tracerts....
Click on Start point to Run type CMD and hit enter
At the command prompt type tracert www.bbc.co.uk

And post the results here.

[steglegs]

Im with orange and have had problems with the xbox360 losing connections or slowing down since they took over wanadoo.
i have a router running 2 pc,s and a 360 but orange dont know about that. TC a router is the way to go, just plugged mine in and was up and running in a few minutes.

[fivecheebs]

It might be a coincidence, but orange have just started giving away free ADSL with mobile phone contracts i think. Lots of new connections could explain the packet loss / lag

[steglegs]

It might be a coincidence, but orange have just started giving away free ADSL with mobile phone contracts i think. Lots of new connections could explain the packet loss / lag
yep. 30£ a month and you can have free broadband. i tried to upgrade to the 8meg service from 2 meg and they want me to take out a phone contract with them.