tracert shows different responses from different laptops. Is it normal?

I recently noticed the following. Is this normal?

Running two laptops side by side, one tracert command shows responses along the routers from modem all the way to 8.8.8.8

At the same time, the other laptop keeps getting "Request timed out", except the initial response from my modem and the final destination 8.8.8.8

Is this normal?

B Chen

Posted 2018-11-16T12:28:11.940

Reputation: 235

Answers

This is not normal, but has a number of possible explanations including

Double NAT/bad carrier grade NAT.
Different types of ping, with some types being blocked at the router (there are actually multiple different ways to ping/traceroute which are handled differently through firewalls)
Bad router firmware which can't track multiple connections when using NAT.

davidgo

Posted 2018-11-16T12:28:11.940

Reputation: 49 152

A timeout occurred in the tracert, indicating that the network node device passing the laptop to the 8.8.8.8 server is prohibited from returning the tracert package.

This is normal if two laptops are connected to different networks.

If the two laptops are connected to the same network, this is not normal.

Daisy Zhou

Posted 2018-11-16T12:28:11.940

Reputation: 812

This is not the only possible option. Pong is one of the least priority processes. If the load on the router is large, it may just have no resources for the response. – Akina – 2018-11-16T15:10:22.640

@Daisy, The two laptops are connected to the same network. So what would be the cause(s) and how to fix them. – B Chen – 2018-11-16T17:18:23.953

@Akina, if I understand your response correctly, are you suggesting that if the router (which one? home modem/router?) is overwhelmed, it may not have the bandwidth to show/allow for a back response from the outside router(s) to the other laptop. Is this correct? – B Chen – 2018-11-16T17:20:44.990

Yes. But in most cases the thin place is inner processor resources, not bandwidth. – Akina – 2018-11-16T17:24:32.960