Windows 7 High Ping Fix

logicearth said:

As for the autotunning command, read this for information.
Windows Core Networking : Receive Window Auto-Tuning on Vista.

And you know what, this problem has long existed since 2004, routers/firewalls are not being fixed! This involves Linux and its own means of scalling the TCP window: TCP window scaling and broken routers [LWN.net]

Personally, I'm not entirely clear on why disabling TCP window scaling would have the slightest effect on ICMP echo response times.

(Perhaps some of these games and link test utilities are instead basing their "ping" results on TCP throughput stats, and the packets dropped by routers which can't do window scaling are having very negative consequences for the TCP sessions in question? That would seem like a very silly way to measure link latency though.)

You seem very knowledgeable (and probably well connected) so I'm curious to hear your take on these reports of supposed "slower game pings" in win7. In your personal opinion, is each of these reports caused by entirely environmental factors, or is win7 in some way different in the relevant code?

Has anyone got any before and after result to see just how effective this really is?

QuackPot said:

Has anyone got any before and after result to see just how effective this really is?

I'm going to go out on a limb (it's a hulking thick one) and say that the original proposed solution has absolutely nothing to do with high ping times, although it may slow down your general internet experience.

"Ping" in the ping.exe sense issues an ICMP "echo" command to the target, then times how long it takes for the target to respond with an "echo response". ICMP is a network-layer entity. There is no handshake, no session, no transport protocol anywhere in that interaction.

TCP (Transport Control Protocol) includes the concept of a window size - how much data the sender can fire off before it must pause and wait for ACKs from the receiver. Large window sizes mean better throughput (faster transfers), especially on higher latency links. The problem is that the TCP "window size" parameter is a 16-bit field, thus making 0xFFFF (64KB) the largest possible window size. "Window Scaling" is the practice of using a different field in the TCP options header to specify a multiplier for the nominated window size. For example, 4 times WS equals 256KB effective window size.

Some routers are still too #####y to deal with TCP window scaling, as logicearth pointed out, so they either drop scaled TCP packets or generally misbehave in their presence. However, that should not impact ICMP (ping) in the slightest, given ICMP does not ride a TCP session.

This did solve my ping problems.

My ping was fine for all my games except Left 4 Dead, which I always had over 800 - 1500 ping, other games, CS:S etc were fine but Left 4 Dead was awful.

Tried this command line and its fine, back to normal completely.

Worked for me and its easily reversible if it doesn't!

Oh hello, first post here, used this forum many times already, just thought I'd say that this did work!

I only disabled it, not restricted or normal options so idk.

Hello guys, i cant fix this problem, i tryed all things who can lower ping, but nothing helps me, still my ping in my country 110ms~ in other countrys 170ms~, what should i do? Should i back to Windows Vista or Windows XP?

No one can help me?

Ok guys, now i back to XP BUT WTF!!!!!!!!!!!!!? I GOT HIGH PING TOO!, after w7 instaling i never had this problem just in w7 i had this problem, but now than i tryed to back in windows XP, i have same problem omgmgmg what happened. STUPID winodws 7!

Ah, the agony of invisible Operating System behaviours! I noticed my browser experience slowing down. After running a gamut of tests, the cause seemed to be a slow ping time. Ping times seem fine until I ran Dropbox [note: I do NOT think Dropbox v0.6.557 is to blame].

Reply from 66.102.9.105: bytes=32 time=29ms TTL=54
Reply from 66.102.9.105: bytes=32 time=31ms TTL=54
>> Dropbox status 'Uploading 3 files'
Reply from 66.102.9.105: bytes=32 time=644ms TTL=54
Reply from 66.102.9.105: bytes=32 time=996ms TTL=54
Reply from 66.102.9.105: bytes=32 time=1620ms TTL=54
Reply from 66.102.9.105: bytes=32 time=2047ms TTL=54
Reply from 66.102.9.105: bytes=32 time=3375ms TTL=54

Have found some of the recommendations here at Windows Seven Forums and Computing Forums but nothing to restore balance to my network connections. I tried:

netsh interface tcp set global autotuning=disabled
netsh interface tcp set global autotuninglevel=disabled

but ping times were unaffected. I then restored those settings to their default with:

netsh interface tcp set global autotuning=normal
netsh interface tcp set global autotuninglevel=normal

I've written up my problem on my blog:
Windows 7 high ping times | alex stanhope

Any advice would be appreciated.