HELP PLEASE~ I get constant DC and cannot connect to server!

Actually 65kbps pretty much sucks. If that's a broadband link, you could almost get better speeds using a dial-up modem. I would recommend nothing less than a 256kpbs link at an absolute minimum, and truly, a 1.2mbps connection should be the desired minimum.

You've got heavy latency across the board as soon as it leaves your internal connections. With a regular high-speed connection I would recommend shutting your modem off for a few minutes to get a new route, however your connection may just not have the bandwidth to managed the traffic for the game on top of all of your other network overhead and traffic.


Edit:
Here's a helpful table on broadband speed....
http://broadband.about.com/b/2011/10/01/broadbandspeedtable.htm
Notice how it starts at 768kbps?
Online gaming is listed at 6-10Mbps. Though PWI uses a little less traffic than some other newer online games, I still stand with what I said on nothing less than 1.2Mbps.

I've the same problem for lagging till 2-3 mins with continues DC


Tracing route to pwieast3.perfectworld.com [74.201.183.69]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms D-Link.Home [192.168.1.1]
2 96 ms 141 ms 118 ms 117.222.104.1
3 143 ms 125 ms 120 ms 218.248.170.70
4 * 107 ms 89 ms 115.254.59.42
5 155 ms 116 ms 134 ms 115.255.239.13
6 670 ms 426 ms 433 ms 62.216.147.73
7 411 ms 454 ms 433 ms xe-8-3-0.0.pjr03.mmb004.flagtel.com [85.95.25.5]

8 429 ms 430 ms 490 ms xe-8-1-0.0.pjr03.ldn001.flagtel.com [85.95.25.30
]
9 445 ms 431 ms 391 ms xe-2-2-2.0.cjr01.prs001.flagtel.com [85.95.26.17
4]
10 426 ms 450 ms 422 ms ae0-203.par90.ip4.tinet.net [141.136.100.209]
11 476 ms 430 ms 544 ms xe-10-0-0.nyc32.ip4.tinet.net [89.149.181.178]
12 434 ms 512 ms 447 ms internap-gw.ip4.tinet.net [216.221.159.206]
13 508 ms 557 ms 512 ms border1.pc1-bbnet1.nyj001.pnap.net [216.52.95.9]

14 * * * Request timed out.
15 * * * Request timed out.
16 * * * Request timed out.
17 * * * Request timed out.
18 * * * Request timed out.
19 * * * Request timed out.
20 * * * Request timed out.
21 * * * Request timed out.
22 * * * Request timed out.
23 * * * Request timed out.
24 * * * Request timed out.
25 * * * Request timed out.
26 * * * Request timed out.
27 * * * Request timed out.
28 * * * Request timed out.
29 * * * Request timed out.
30 * * * Request timed out.

Trace complete.

There are 3 separate elements involved in providing a successful Internet (network) connection, each of them can present performance issues individually or collectively.

The first is the NIC (Network Interface Connector), which is a device (built in or addon card) installed on the Computer, laptop, cellphone or what have you. PC and network novices would be forgiven for confusing a NIC with a PC modem, but a NIC and modem are 2 entirely different devices.

The second is the router. You may not actually have a router, they are only needed as an AP (Access point) for Wi-Fi (Wireless network connection) or to connect multiple device and channel them through a single connection to the ISP modem. An exception to this is where a router may be installed to act as a physical firewall, even though it isn't required to facilitate a network connection.

The third is the ISP device (modem) that connects your personal device to the ISP's Network.

The ISP modem is not configurable, thus any problems with this device is addressed by causing a reset via reboot (Unplug for at least 1 minute).

The Router has several aspects to it, which can seriously impact network performance. The primary focus of this discussion will be on the Router.

The NIC has USER ADJUSTABLE settings which will impact network performance. This is a double edged sword, because default settings are NOT always optimal yet changing them without knowing what you are doing can make things worst.


When I read replies to PC and Network perfomance issues I'm typically dissapointed by the limited amount of information provided in replies.

Don't get me wrong, there are clearly some knowledgeable people providing good tips, but sadly they seem to repeat what others say, in different words; rather than offer anything new.

For example - one person with DC problems had explained they are connecting wirelessly. A response did elude to the router as a possible issue, but fell short of providing some critical information/solution. Typically a router does not need to be rebooted because it is merely a routing device, which recieves it's settings manually OR from connecting devices. It is the ISP provided Modem that needs to be rebooted on occasion.

Many people are not aware that their home wi-fi can easily be hijacked by neighbors. If your router isn't configured properly, any device within range of your AP (router) can access the internet using your router. Additionally, when more than one device is accessing the internet at the same time the Network bandwidth is split between those devices. Obviously, the more devices connecting, the lower the available bandwidth for each device.

The solutions to these problems can be a pain for people that lack basic technical abilities, because it requires:

1) Turning off BROADCAST ADVERTISING in the router, Which basically stops the router from yelling "I'M HERE!" to the world.

2) Set security

1. An Administrator password that denies anyone access to modem, except the owner of the router.
2. Restrict access to the router, using device MAC Addresses (Every wireless device has it's own unique MAC address), allowing access to ONLY the personal devices YOU allow.

3) SET DEVICE PRIORITY. You can relegate Bandwidth access based on the priority you define for each device.


Case in point:
I have a home network, which shares internet access between 2 PC's connected with network cables and our Laptop, PS3 and 2 tablets connected wirelessly.

I had everything set properly, as described above BUT I never set priorities for devices in the Router. My PC kept suffering severe DC in game, yet my wife's PC never did. I finally set device priorities for all our devices and my DC's have been reduced to the few common "busy PWI server" related.

I realize this information may be confusing and/or overwhelming to most - but I encourage you. if it's beyond your level of expertice to figure out, GET SOMEONE to do these changes for you.

Finally, it can never be said often enough - PC MAINTENANCE:
If you do not perform routine maintenance on your PC - it will eventually start suffering performance issues!! Symptoms of severely neglected PC maintenance can easily mimick symptoms of a malware infection. I have known people to be told they had a malware infection and under investigation I discovered NO VIRUS, but I did discover:

1. Dirty heat sinks on CPU's and GPU's (overheated CPU and GPU symptoms come on gradually, as the contaminents slowly buildup)
2. Too many processes running on the system (PC runs sluggish, programs take extra time to start etc.)
3. Too much garbage piled up on hard drives
4. Severely fragmented hard drives

When I first started fudging with PC's (about 20 years ago), doing routine maintenance was as painful as chiseling a book into stone tablets. Today there are free and inexpensive PC tuneup programs that perform all the important routine processes with the click of a button. If you do not have one, GET ONE!

The following are utilities I use, if you don't have any maintenance utilities or want to see how yours stack up against my preferences, check them out.


CCleaner (**** Cleaner) is completely free and excellent - unfortunately it doesn't provide Disk Defragment (You can use the basic Defragmentor that comes with all Microsoft Operating systems), OR make performance adjustments to system settings. It simply CLEANS garbage.


A better alternative is ASC (Advanced SystemCare)
IObit makes several utilities that range from FREE basic cleaning to FULL BLOWN PC MAINTENANCE and PERFORMANCE.

I rarely ever pay for programs if I can find FREE alternatives, but I justify using a paid version of IObit's "Advanced SystemCare Ultimate 6," on our 2 PC's and laptop. I love this particular program because it is CHEAP and DOES ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING necessary for PC maintenance and performance from a single screen! Including tweaking hidden system settings to improve the Operating system and Network connection settings.

These Utilities will only benefit YOUR COMPUTER(s) - they will do nothing to address the Router or ISP modem issue I alluded to.

FOR THE NOVICE: Understanding PING and HOP.

For those unfamiliar with the subject of "PING," as it is mentioned in topics concerning connections to servers such as PWI. Ping is a network command which measures the amount of time it takes for a signal to be transmited between each network device between the source (where the ping command is issued) and the destination (the target server). When the ping command results in a "Request timed out" response it means that a host (network device) did not acknowledge a response to the ping command. This failed acknowledgement can be a result of excessive network congestion OR there is configuration problem on the source device or the network device which was the cause of the "Request timed out" response.

When you see the term "HOP," this simply refers to the next network device in the route. In otherwords, if there are 4 network devices between the source (you) and destination (the server you are trying to reach) then there will be 5 hops; the destination is the 5th hop. Just think of your transmissions across the internet as hopping, from one network device to the next, as the transmission works it's way to the destination server.

On the internet, the further you are from the desired server the more hops your transmission will encounter before it reaches its destination.

HuYoDD - Harshlands wrote: »

DCing ingame (Harshlands) if it manages to connect at all, sometime it doesn't even make it to the character screen aka disconnects. Can play West Coast and Europe Servers without a problem.

At all who have same problems, try to connect to other servers 1st (if you cannot connect to East, try West and even Europe) before you make any changes to your router, pc etc. If it works on other servers, do NOT change anything, the probability the problem to be on your side is in this case very low! You might mess up things even more then.

Here is the trace on 74.201.183.17:

...
141 ms 142 ms 141 ms nyk-bb1-link.telia.net [213.155.131.145]
142 ms 142 ms 187 ms nyk-b6-link.telia.net [213.155.133.11]
* * 150 ms internap-ic-150761-nyk-b5.c.telia.net [213.248.81.150]
* * 150 ms border1.pc1-bbnet1.nyj001.pnap.net [216.52.95.9]
* * * Request timed out.
...

74.201.183.18:

...
153 ms 140 ms 142 ms nyk-bb2-link.telia.net [213.155.135.63]
140 ms 141 ms 141 ms nyk-b6-link.telia.net [213.155.130.251]
* * 148 ms internap-ic-150761-nyk-b5.c.telia.net [213.248.81.150]
* * 141 ms border1.pc2-bbnet2.nyj001.pnap.net [216.52.95.73]
* * * Request timed out.
...

74.201.183.19:

...
140 ms 151 ms 141 ms nyk-bb2-link.telia.net [213.155.131.149]
142 ms 140 ms 145 ms nyk-b6-link.telia.net [213.155.133.13]
* * 150 ms internap-ic-150761-nyk-b5.c.telia.net [213.248.81.150]
* 149 ms * border1.pc1-bbnet1.nyj001.pnap.net [216.52.95.9]
* * * Request timed out.
...

74.201.183.20:

...
141 ms 142 ms 152 ms nyk-bb2-link.telia.net [213.155.135.63]
141 ms 141 ms 141 ms nyk-b6-link.telia.net [213.155.130.251]
* 149 ms 149 ms internap-ic-150761-nyk-b5.c.telia.net [213.248.81.150]
* 149 ms * border1.pc1-bbnet1.nyj001.pnap.net [216.52.95.9]
* * * Request timed out.
...

well you're only sending partials of your trace so we can't see how your ISP connection is, but all of those hops suck.

ok listen, I'd love to help you, but until you actually post a full traceroute, I am unable to find where the source of the issue might be in order to tell you how best to fix it. Right now, I'd say shut down your PC and your modem/router for 5 minutes and then turn them back on. (Wait several minutes for your PC to actually boot. Just because you can see your desktop does not mean it's done booting.)

Here is what a full traceroute looks like.

Tracing route to pwieast1.perfectworld.com [74.201.183.17]
over a maximum of 16 hops:

  1    <1 ms    <1 ms    <1 ms  192.168.15.1
  2    <1 ms    <1 ms    <1 ms  192.168.1.254
  3    12 ms     8 ms     7 ms  76-250-208-3.lightspeed.livnmi.sbcglobal.net [76.250.208.3]
  4    20 ms     9 ms    20 ms  75.26.64.122
  5     *        *        *     Request timed out.
  6     *        *        *     Request timed out.
  7    11 ms    12 ms    11 ms  12.83.32.173
  8    27 ms    28 ms    27 ms  gar14.n54ny.ip.att.net [12.122.105.25]
  9     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 10    55 ms    30 ms    29 ms  border1.pc2-bbnet2.nyj001.pnap.net [216.52.95.73]
 11     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 12     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 13     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 14     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 15     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 16     *        *        *     Request timed out.

Trace complete.

Hop 1 is my router.
Hop 2 is my modem.
Hop 3 is my ISP's CO.
Hops 4, 5, and 9 never give me a ping response because they have it disabled.
Hop 11 is where I hit PWE's ISP and you won't ever get a response after that point for security reasons.
My server ping to Harshlands shows 23ms, and in-game I am getting between 78ms and 135ms. (With the occational spike to 350ms which I know is traffic on my PC and local network atm.)

Observations:
1. Your traceroute is nice and clean. (Assuming that it's taken at the time when you are getting disconnected.) So the problem would not be with your ability to connect with the servers. This means it's more likely to be an issue on your local network.
2. Netflix on the PS3 will use a LOT of your bandwidth if you haven't changed the settings in your Netflix profile. ("A lot" is close to 1.5GB of data per hour if you're watching an HD title, and around 800MB per hour on a standard title.)
3. If your PS3 or your PC's are connected wirelessly this amount of bandwidth can cause a problem on many modem/router combo's that are issued by ISP's. (The devices aren't equipped with enough memory to manage the traffic on the wireless bands and the data packets get backed up and time out.)

I'd like to hear more about the data rates on your ISP, Network, and how all of your systems are connected. That sometimes will shed light to a solution. Also, how long until you get DC'ed, and when it happens, how long until you can connect again?

No problem with the spaces. that is why we use the CODE tag when posting things like traceroutes and dxdiag data though. It puts it into a neat little box with scrollbars. (Code tag is accessed by using the # in the editor.)

Lastly, ew Vista. Only the second worst OS Microshaft ever released. jk b:chuckle

amandakill420 wrote: »

Yep, I've heard a lot of terrible things about Vista (and experienced some firsthand) and I must say I wish i had a different OS!

My router is.... air router 802.11n wireless router
Both my ps3 and my laptop are wireless, the desktop is connected via ethernet cable.
I'll go look at my netflix profile and see what it says about how much memory it uses.
When the desktop is on PWI and I try to sign in on my laptop, the desktop is signed off and I can't sign in. Sometimes we can both log in together, last night we were able to play for a few hours without being disconnected but usually it's somewhere between 5 and 30 minutes. Right now I can't sign in and the desktop just got disconnected. So frustrating, I just wanna play the game!!!
I'm pretty sure that my memory usage is unlimited (from ISP) but don't know much else about it or how to find anything out lol
What other info do you need?
Also, thanks for all the info! b:pleased

Here's what the netflix girl said...the default setting in the US is "Best', which is 2.3 GB. turning it down to "good' or "better" should help. do this at your account settings>streaming plan>manage video quality

There's a difference between bandwidth, and memory. Your Netflix connection, and PWI connection uses bandwidth. The hardware that is inside you modem/router uses memory (like the memory in your PC.) The problem is that most modems, (not sure what an "air router" is unless you just mean it's wireless, in which case, that tells me nothing.), have a very small amount of memory available for caching data on the network. When you are using a lot of bandwidth on the wireless network, this buffer gets full very quickly because of the way most cheap routers transmit the wireless data. (Wireless is also not recommended for most MMO's.)

Personally, if you can, the best solution is to get the PS3 off the wireless. (I personally got a 30ft 6E cable to run under the floor to my living room so I could do this.) Reducing the bandwidth for Netflix will help, but it's still transmitting a decent amount of data, and depending on how cheap your modem is, that might not actually help anything. You can try putting the laptop on wired as well and leaving the PS3 on wireless, but it's going to depend a lot on your configuration as to whether that will help or not. (Several Linksys and D-Link routers use the same memory for both wired and wireless traffic.)