Bandwidth keeps going to 0?

Hello, I don't even think this is related to the pfsense router… but it could be you never know.
Here is the problem I am experiencing when I am using a constant amount of bandwidth

This is a real problem, especially when playing games, I just freeze (and often die)
Now at first I thought it might of been the router, but I had a similar issue with my old dlink-dgl 4100, I noticed about a month before I replaced it, playing like quakelive I got random freezes, probably is the same thing here.
So then I built my pfsense router with these specs:

2.0 ghz p4
512 ram
40 gig hd
This is when I actually saw the dips in the traffic monitor, I thought it might be the two nic cards in there, so I tried another setup:

3.6 ghz pentium 4 prescott
2 gigs of ram
300 gig sata 7200rpm hd
nvidia 780i (using its 2 nics)

Now… same problem.

I am guessing it has nothing to do with the router, but you guys here are smart so I am open to suggestions.

I am using Comcast, and I am using the modem befcmu10 v4
I want to say that is the problem, because A LOT of the time, my internet just dies because its lights just start flashing and it's not online.
I called Comcast like 2 months before this, because my Internet was completely dead. They said my area was fine and stuff ,and they were pretty helpful, rebooted my modem and then it started working itself.

So I want to say it's the modem, any thoughts?

PS (If I even get a new modem, can someone recommend me some that support Comcast's powerboost?)

Here is the log from my modem:

2009-06-15 13:02:03 	 critical 	 No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out 
 2009-06-15 06:33:53 	 critical 	 DHCP FAILED - Discover sent, no offer received 
 2009-06-15 06:30:38 	 critical 	 No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out 
 2009-06-15 06:30:32 	 critical 	 DHCP FAILED - Discover sent, no offer received 
 2009-06-15 06:27:21 	 critical 	 No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out 
 2009-06-15 06:27:15 	 critical 	 DHCP FAILED - Discover sent, no offer received 
 2009-06-15 06:23:54 	 critical 	 No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out 
 2009-06-15 06:23:49 	 critical 	 DHCP FAILED - Discover sent, no offer received 
 2009-06-15 06:20:33 	 critical 	 DCC aborted unable to communicate on new upstream channel 
 2009-06-15 06:20:33 	 critical 	 Init RANGING Critical Ranging Request Retries exhausted 
 2009-06-15 06:20:33 	 critical 	 No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out 
 2009-06-15 03:26:36 	 critical 	 Started Unicast Maintenance Ranging - No Response received - T3 time-out 
 2009-06-15 03:21:30 	 critical 	 No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out 
 2009-06-14 14:39:37 	 critical 	 Started Unicast Maintenance Ranging - No Response received - T3 time-out 
 2009-06-14 14:39:35 	 critical 	 No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out 
 2009-06-14 11:47:29 	 critical 	 Started Unicast Maintenance Ranging - No Response received - T3 time-out 
 2009-06-14 11:23:35 	 critical 	 No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out 
 2009-06-14 03:08:58 	 critical 	 Started Unicast Maintenance Ranging - No Response received - T3 time-out 
 2009-06-14 02:11:38 	 critical 	 No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out 
 2009-06-13 20:58:10 	 critical 	 Started Unicast Maintenance Ranging - No Response received - T3 time-out 
 2009-06-13 20:57:41 	 critical 	 No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out 
 2009-06-13 17:30:02 	 critical 	 Started Unicast Maintenance Ranging - No Response received - T3 time-out 
 2009-06-13 17:25:57 	 critical 	 No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out 
 2009-06-13 17:18:41 	 critical 	 Started Unicast Maintenance Ranging - No Response received - T3 time-out 
 2009-06-13 17:15:42 	 critical 	 No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out 
 2009-06-13 15:47:14 	 critical 	 Started Unicast Maintenance Ranging - No Response received - T3 time-out 
 2009-06-13 15:31:42 	 critical 	 No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out 
 2009-06-13 14:21:23 	 critical 	 Started Unicast Maintenance Ranging - No Response received - T3 time-out 
 2009-06-13 13:03:51 	 critical 	 No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out 
 2009-06-12 15:28:30 	 critical 	 Started Unicast Maintenance Ranging - No Response received - T3 time-out 
 2009-06-12 13:55:52 	 critical 	 No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out 
 2009-06-11 08:27:24 	 critical 	 Started Unicast Maintenance Ranging - No Response received - T3 time-out

Oh here is some more info


 	 Status	 Comment
 Acquire Downstream Channel	 717000000 Hz	 Locked
 Connectivity State	 Operational	 Operational
 Boot State	 OK	 Operational
 Security	 Enabled	 BPI+

Downstream Channel

 Lock Status	 Operational
 Modulation	 256QAM
 Channel ID	 1
 Provisioned Rate	 13200 kbps
 Symbol Rate	 5360.537 Ksym/sec
 Downstream Power	 0.7 dBmV
 SNR	 37.5 dB

Upstream Channel

 Lock Status	 Operational
 Modulation	 16QAM
 Channel ID	 2
 Provisioned Rate	 2200 kbps
 Symbol Rate	 2560 Ksym/sec
 Upstream Power	 42.5 dBmV

wallabybob

Do you also see routine throughput drops on big downloads with no gaming? (If you get the same thing across a few different hosts and a few different applications that would more strongly suggest a common component is the cause.)

How long are the intervals when throughput drops to 0? (There's no time scale on the graph.) If you are on a shared medium (e.g. cable) its just possible your dropouts might correspond to usage spike by other people on the same segment. Have you tried at different times of the day to see if this behaviour might depend on time of day and possible usage peaks by others.

Have you looked through the system logs to see if any interface troubles are reported at around the times the throughput drops?

Have you looks at the system CPU utilisation graphs to see if there are CPU utilisation spikes at the time the throughput drops? (Maybe some rogue thread or process runs periodically and chews up a lot of CPU time.)

Thanks for the reply, the thing only happens at certain times, I mean right now it's not doing it… oh wait it just did, out of nowhere, like right now it was running fine for like twenty minutes. It happens when I download big files as well, say I am downloading Americas Army 3.0, and I keep seeing my speed dropping from 1.7 MB/s to 100 KB/s and then I look at the monitor and I see the bandwidth hitting 0. Then on my modem, I cleared the log and just when a spike occursI hit refresh and it says

 2009-06-15 16:52:05 	 critical 	 No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out

So I'm pretty sure it's the modem… or a bad connection with the isp.
Also the intervals can be every 40 seconds, like in the picture it's every 40 seconds, but when they occur they are chronic.

wallabybob

You could collect a few of those modem reports and time stamps and then call your ISP technical support and see if they can correlate the modem timestamps with anything reported by their equipment.

Do you know what the message No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out means?

Not really actually ::)
I am going to guess it means it didn't receive a reply back from the ISP? I don't know :P

ColdFusion

T3 timeouts are usually an indication of ingress or noise on the return path on Comcast's plant. The ingress also can be in your house as well as your neighbors. Some T3 timeouts are normal, but you have many. I would advise a tech visit. Do you experience packet loss as well?? Normal upstream S/N is 28db or better and minimum 32 or better for Downstream C/N. You can ping Comcast's CMTS(if responds to pings) overnight and see if you have sporadic pings or packet loss.