User talk:Jonathan

Armadillo Aerospace found when they arrived for the xprize that they were getting something like 90% packet loss from their laptop to the transmitter (or whatever. There was a cabled connection between the controlling computer and the rocket itself). They changed the ethernet cable and it went back to normal. Turns out the first cable got pinched in the van on the way down. --Lucifer 17:23, 4 November 2006 (CST)

I don't have much control here, so all I can do is report. My observations so far, in case anyone is interested: —Jonathan✉✐ 07:39, 5 November 2006 (CST)
 * Larger packets are lost more often.:Corrupted underway?
 * I can reach the local router with no loss.:LAN is fine.
 * Packets get lost before the next hop.:Now we know roughly where it is caused.
 * I don't always get loss. Either it works fine, or I get crazy loss, and changes aren't gradual. I can't relate it to anything.:No idea. Maybe a variable noise source near a cable?

Try this page, and see if you get all the images ;) http://www.elifulkerson.com/projects/downloads/mtu-eyechart/index.html

If you can't see the last images with the larger numbers, set your MTU to the highest value shown. If you're using DSL and you've got a router that does not automatically reject packets that are too big (for the connection to your ISP) then you'll get random packet loss if the request or packet send is too big. ... see here: http://kbserver.netgear.com/kb_web_files/N100603.asp http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximum_transmission_unit --Joda 03:53, 6 November 2006 (CST)

No, that's not it. The fact that 1500 byte packets get 89% loss (not 100%, BTW) doesn't mean that 84 byte packets don't get 18%. And yes, I can see everything on that page. I experimented with lowering the MTU to improve reliability before your message, but I found that I can't get practical performance out of it either way, and that it's better to leave it at 1500 so it works well when it works at all. --Jonathan✉✐ 07:32, 6 November 2006 (CST)

Well, it seems like the best thing to do is to call your ISP and have them send a person out to troubleshoot it. My old cable provider guaranteed the connection to the cable router, which includes the cable in the walls. Failing that, you'll probably need to try to correlate it to other factors, like surface water, humidity, rain, inside temperature, outside temperature, etc. Spidey's cable connection gets really bad in the rain because of bad wiring. He has no idea what it is exactly, but he had really bad internet for a little while because of wiring inside his house. He had to climb around in the attic hunting for the short, but it still didn't fix the larger problem of his ISP being sucky. --Lucifer 07:37, 6 November 2006 (CST)

Again, I'm not the one in charge of this cable connection, not living on my own at this age. But it is known now. I think I'll check the possibilities though. Weather is a good one, as it basically got worse along with the weather. AFAIK the ISP is sucky indeed. :-( —Jonathan✉✐ 11:17, 6 November 2006 (CST)