Packet Loss...help!

[saberon]

Been getting bad packet loss (20%) on and off today. Rebooted my modem multiple times, and nothing is helping. I'll maybe get a 15-20 min break during the day here and there where my connection is rock solid, but otherwise the packet loss makes the Internet unusable.

DCP3825 Modem bridged, problem persists with just the modem connected directly to the PC. Frustrating thing is that I have 2 friends with Shaw in my town (Both XB6) and they have no packet loss whatsoever. 

I'm so frustrated and any assistance is greatly appreciated. 

[mdk]

@saberon -- I have 2 friends with Shaw in my town (Both XB6) and they have no packet loss whatsoever. 

What town? See Shaw's web-page for possible problems in your part of town.

Open a Windows command-line prompt, and enter the command:  tracert www.google.ca

Does it show any packet-loss between you and Seattle (Washington State)? At which Internet router?

Can you contact Shaw Support, and get them to remotely logon to your cable-modem, to view the incoming "signal-strength" ?

[saberon]

Fort Macleod, AB, but I always check and there's no outages

Yesterday it worked perfectly all day long, just woke up today and the exact same problem has returned. I did the tracert and get timeouts everywhere, randomly, not just exclusive to Washington.

Contacted Shaw support and it was a joke to be honest. CSR didn't even know what packet loss was, kept insisting everything was fine including signal strength.

[mdk]

@saberon -- I did the tracert and get timeouts everywhere, randomly, not just exclusive to Washington State.

If you try to drive from Fort Macleod to Medicine Hat, but there is roadwork on Highway 3 west of Lethbridge, such that traffic is reduced to "alternating one-way", then your total travel time will be "randomly" increased.  The same is true for Internet access -- any "packet-loss" on one Internet segment between you and Washington State shows up in the output from tracert.

Can you copy-and-paste the output from that tracert into this thread?

> Shaw ... kept insisting everything was fine including signal strength.

They could be correct, because they are just measuring the signal-strength between your cable-modem and the first Shaw router located in your town.  They probably are not measuring the signal-strength at every "hop" between your cable-modem and that IP-address in Washington State -- the highway from Lethbridge to Medicine Hat might be interruption-free, but if there are intermittent traffic-delays west of Lethbridge, your travel to Medicine Hat will be affected.

Watch "Highway From Hell" -- sometimes, Jamie Davis Towing needs to block one lane, and sometimes they need to briefly block all the lanes, resulting in start-stop traffic-flow interruptions.