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Active: 1435 users

ISP Throttling Hurts SC2: How to Fix

Forum Index > Tech Support
Post a Reply
KTK99
Profile Joined November 2014
China48 Posts
November 26 2014 23:46 GMT
#1
If you have issues where you get ping jumps, unstable/inconsistant ping, Waiting For Server, or other things, it is probably your ISP throttling your connection to save money on their end at the cost of the user.

If you live in places like China, Russia, and (especially) the United States (this one is almost 100% likely!) this is a serious thing, and even if you don't notice anything, it helps to do this anyway!

Also, this fixes torrents, YouTube buffering, and so on. You should never have YouTube buffering at, say, 1080p with a 10mbps internet connection, but you probably do.

Here is how:

1. Run Command Prompt (Start+R, type cmd, hit Enter)

2. Type the following code in and press Enter:
netsh advfirewall firewall add rule name="THRTL BLK" dir=in action=block remoteip=173.194.55.0/24,206.111.0.0/16 enable=yes

3. Close Command Prompt. No restarts needed.
"If you lose, automatically assume their race is OP and they are map hacking." -Nathanias 2014
IntoTheWow
Profile Blog Joined May 2004
is awesome32278 Posts
November 26 2014 23:50 GMT
#2
Isn that dependant on the CDN Server your ISP uses? So... everyone should have different IPs to block?
Moderator<:3-/-<
KTK99
Profile Joined November 2014
China48 Posts
November 26 2014 23:52 GMT
#3
On November 27 2014 08:50 IntoTheWow wrote:
Isn that dependant on the CDN Server your ISP uses? So... everyone should have different IPs to block?

No, if you look, it is a form of Internal IP.
Basically, you block this general IP and the throttling mechanism goes all whacko and your connection is always up.

I noticed this when my torrents hit less than 0.5Kb/s. Now it is at a constant speed maxing out my connection. It also majorly helped SC2 because my ping would spike in large battles.
"If you lose, automatically assume their race is OP and they are map hacking." -Nathanias 2014
scott31337
Profile Joined January 2013
United States2979 Posts
November 27 2014 00:20 GMT
#4
The firewall rule is blocking IP addresses which start with 173.194.55 or 206.111 from making connections to your computer.

The article suggests that these addresses belong to CDN servers which is basically a cache that may be geographically close to you. This means that the YouTube servers don not have to send the same information over and over again.

The reason that the article gives for this causing a slowdown is that your Internet provider may be slowing down traffic from these addresses. Therefore blocking them will force the stream to be sent directly from YouTube's server which the Internet provider may not be slowing down traffic from.

If you have were not experiencing slow streaming before or have not seen any benefit from adding this rule, then I suggest you disable it as it could also slow down your connection if the CDN servers are not being slowed.

Additional Information About the Command

The netsh command is used on Windows systems for viewing and changing the configuration of network components and services. For more detail on the tool you can look here.

The advfirewall firewall add rule part tells it to add a rule to the firewall.

The name="THRTL BLK" part defines a name for the rule. This can be anything you like; to make it easy for you to recognise later.

dir=in specifies the direction of the rule, in this case inbound. This mean that this rule applies to computers trying to connect to your computer as opposed to when you connect to other computers.

action=block tells it to block any traffic that matches this rule.

remoteip=173.194.55.0/24,206.111.0.0/16 tells it that this rule applies to traffic where the other computer involved has an address starting with either 173.194.55 or 206.111. The /24 and /16 tell it how much of the address to use. There are eight bytes for each number between the dots so /24 tells it to use the first three (24/8) numbers (173.194.55) and /16 tells it to use the first two (16/8) numbers (206.111).

Finally, enable=yes simply sets the rule as enabled.
THIS WAGON IS HITTING MAFIA FOR SURE BOYS!
SinCitta
Profile Blog Joined August 2010
Germany2127 Posts
November 27 2014 00:41 GMT
#5
On November 27 2014 08:52 KTK99 wrote:
Show nested quote +
On November 27 2014 08:50 IntoTheWow wrote:
Isn that dependant on the CDN Server your ISP uses? So... everyone should have different IPs to block?

No, if you look, it is a form of Internal IP.
Basically, you block this general IP and the throttling mechanism goes all whacko and your connection is always up.

I noticed this when my torrents hit less than 0.5Kb/s. Now it is at a constant speed maxing out my connection. It also majorly helped SC2 because my ping would spike in large battles.


If you look... how?

The first IP range belongs to Google, the second IP range belongs to XO Communications. I doubt this will have an effect on anything other than Youtube/Google stuff and whatever XO Communication provides. I strongly doubt it has anything to do with your SC2 connections and your torrents.
hero_lief
Profile Joined December 2010
United States53 Posts
November 27 2014 01:01 GMT
#6
On November 27 2014 09:41 SinCitta wrote:If you look... how?

The first IP range belongs to Google, the second IP range belongs to XO Communications. I doubt this will have an effect on anything other than Youtube/Google stuff and whatever XO Communication provides. I strongly doubt it has anything to do with your SC2 connections and your torrents.


This. It might fix some weird form of throttling in your very specific use case, but this is pretty much guaranteed to be different for almost every situation.
Grobyc
Profile Blog Joined June 2008
Canada18410 Posts
November 27 2014 05:25 GMT
#7
On November 27 2014 08:52 KTK99 wrote:
Show nested quote +
On November 27 2014 08:50 IntoTheWow wrote:
Isn that dependant on the CDN Server your ISP uses? So... everyone should have different IPs to block?

No, if you look, it is a form of Internal IP.
Basically, you block this general IP and the throttling mechanism goes all whacko and your connection is always up.

I noticed this when my torrents hit less than 0.5Kb/s. Now it is at a constant speed maxing out my connection. It also majorly helped SC2 because my ping would spike in large battles.

Those two IP addresses are not in the internal/private IP address range. Can you explain the technicalities of how this works? If not, then I would refrain from sharing potentially false information.
the throttling mechanism goes all whacko and your connection is always up

is not reassuring to say the least.
If you watch Godzilla backwards it's about a benevolent lizard who helps rebuild a city and then moonwalks into the ocean.
Willba
Profile Joined June 2011
United Kingdom209 Posts
November 27 2014 18:41 GMT
#8
I have an extremely stupid problem that I have created myself here and I was wondering if someone can help me. I have no idea why I tried this since I'm not particularly competent with IT.

I ran the cmd on my pc as admin and typed in exactly what the OP said to. Upon pressing enter my internet disconnected and when diagnosing the problem I get the message ' Windows can't communicate with the device or resource (Primary DNS server). The WAN icon on my router is the only one that is not flashing the usual colour if that helps.
Kerence
Profile Joined May 2011
Sweden1817 Posts
November 27 2014 19:38 GMT
#9
On November 28 2014 03:41 Willba wrote:
I have an extremely stupid problem that I have created myself here and I was wondering if someone can help me. I have no idea why I tried this since I'm not particularly competent with IT.

I ran the cmd on my pc as admin and typed in exactly what the OP said to. Upon pressing enter my internet disconnected and when diagnosing the problem I get the message ' Windows can't communicate with the device or resource (Primary DNS server). The WAN icon on my router is the only one that is not flashing the usual colour if that helps.


You can remove the rule you just created in the advanced firewall settings found in the Control Panel.
Alternatively typing
netsh advfirewall firewall delete rule name="THRTL BLK"
into the Command Prompt should also work.
I am here in the shadows.
Willba
Profile Joined June 2011
United Kingdom209 Posts
November 27 2014 21:05 GMT
#10
On November 28 2014 04:38 Kerence wrote:
Show nested quote +
On November 28 2014 03:41 Willba wrote:
I have an extremely stupid problem that I have created myself here and I was wondering if someone can help me. I have no idea why I tried this since I'm not particularly competent with IT.

I ran the cmd on my pc as admin and typed in exactly what the OP said to. Upon pressing enter my internet disconnected and when diagnosing the problem I get the message ' Windows can't communicate with the device or resource (Primary DNS server). The WAN icon on my router is the only one that is not flashing the usual colour if that helps.


You can remove the rule you just created in the advanced firewall settings found in the Control Panel.
Alternatively typing
netsh advfirewall firewall delete rule name="THRTL BLK"
into the Command Prompt should also work.


I tried the command and I got the response 'The following command was not found: advfirewall delete rule name='THRTL BLK''

As for the firewall settings I couldn't find the rule, although I'm not exactly sure what I was looking for.

Previously I tried the command 'netsh int ip reset c:\resetlog.txt', not sure if that changes anything.
Kerence
Profile Joined May 2011
Sweden1817 Posts
November 27 2014 21:15 GMT
#11
On November 28 2014 06:05 Willba wrote:
Show nested quote +
On November 28 2014 04:38 Kerence wrote:
On November 28 2014 03:41 Willba wrote:
I have an extremely stupid problem that I have created myself here and I was wondering if someone can help me. I have no idea why I tried this since I'm not particularly competent with IT.

I ran the cmd on my pc as admin and typed in exactly what the OP said to. Upon pressing enter my internet disconnected and when diagnosing the problem I get the message ' Windows can't communicate with the device or resource (Primary DNS server). The WAN icon on my router is the only one that is not flashing the usual colour if that helps.


You can remove the rule you just created in the advanced firewall settings found in the Control Panel.
Alternatively typing
netsh advfirewall firewall delete rule name="THRTL BLK"
into the Command Prompt should also work.


I tried the command and I got the response 'The following command was not found: advfirewall delete rule name='THRTL BLK''

As for the firewall settings I couldn't find the rule, although I'm not exactly sure what I was looking for.

Previously I tried the command 'netsh int ip reset c:\resetlog.txt', not sure if that changes anything.

You need to have an extra "firewall" in there.
You can just copy-paste what I wrote, right-click into the Command Prompt and select paste.
In the Firewall rules, the rule will be under "Rules for incoming traffic" and have the name "THRTL BLK"
I am here in the shadows.
Willba
Profile Joined June 2011
United Kingdom209 Posts
November 27 2014 21:19 GMT
#12
On November 28 2014 06:15 Kerence wrote:
Show nested quote +
On November 28 2014 06:05 Willba wrote:
On November 28 2014 04:38 Kerence wrote:
On November 28 2014 03:41 Willba wrote:
I have an extremely stupid problem that I have created myself here and I was wondering if someone can help me. I have no idea why I tried this since I'm not particularly competent with IT.

I ran the cmd on my pc as admin and typed in exactly what the OP said to. Upon pressing enter my internet disconnected and when diagnosing the problem I get the message ' Windows can't communicate with the device or resource (Primary DNS server). The WAN icon on my router is the only one that is not flashing the usual colour if that helps.


You can remove the rule you just created in the advanced firewall settings found in the Control Panel.
Alternatively typing
netsh advfirewall firewall delete rule name="THRTL BLK"
into the Command Prompt should also work.


I tried the command and I got the response 'The following command was not found: advfirewall delete rule name='THRTL BLK''

As for the firewall settings I couldn't find the rule, although I'm not exactly sure what I was looking for.

Previously I tried the command 'netsh int ip reset c:\resetlog.txt', not sure if that changes anything.

You need to have an extra "firewall" in there.
You can just copy-paste what I wrote, right-click into the Command Prompt and select paste.
In the Firewall rules, the rule will be under "Rules for incoming traffic" and have the name "THRTL BLK"


Oh god that was silly of me. Thank you for your help.
Willba
Profile Joined June 2011
United Kingdom209 Posts
Last Edited: 2014-11-27 23:30:24
November 27 2014 23:02 GMT
#13
Ok so I used that command, and received the message 'No rules match the specified criteria'. My internet is still not connecting though. Does this mean the THRTL BLK rule has been removed and there is now some other issue that could be affecting my internet? I also used the command 'netsh advfirewall reset' when your command did not solve the problem.

[image loading]
Grobyc
Profile Blog Joined June 2008
Canada18410 Posts
Last Edited: 2014-11-28 03:31:30
November 28 2014 01:54 GMT
#14
Just going into the Windows advanced firewall GUI to find/delete the rule.

Control Panel > Windows Firewall > Advanced Settings (left hand navigation panel). At least that's where you can find it in Windows 8 within the control panel, I'd assume it's identical or very similar with Windows 7.

Click on Inbound rules in the left panel and scroll down until you see the name of the rule you created (THRTL BLK). If you can't find it you probably either made a typo when entering it or it's already removed.
If you watch Godzilla backwards it's about a benevolent lizard who helps rebuild a city and then moonwalks into the ocean.
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