I'm getting very bad pings today (lowest 200), although my connection seems ok (reading 1687 and 243 Kbps on the adslguide.org.uk speedtest). Is there a problem with the master server or is something odd going on my computer?

getting normal pings here

Still getting very high pings, no idea why nothing else seems to have been effected.

Quote from ajp71 :

my connection seems ok (reading 1687 and 243 Kbps on the adslguide.org.uk speedtest). Is there a problem with the master server or is something odd going on my computer?

But that only measures your bandwidth, not your latency. Do a tracert to some known addresses and see if there's a bad ping anywhere - if the delay is in a part of the route that belongs to your ISP, have a whinge to them.

(For trace route in WinXP, go Start -> Run -> "cmd" -> "tracert [insert web address or IP address here]")

(Remove the quotes, too)

I did the tracert for bbc.co.uk and (excluding my router IP) got readings between 11 and 31, this mean anything?

Yep, it means your pings to the bbc site are good - better than mine in fact.

There could still be network problems elsewhere between you and the LFS server of course, and the causes/solutions of which are beyond my scope of knowledge I'm afraid.

If it is a problem or a congestion spot inbetween the server and your ISP then there isn't always anything that can be done until a machine somewhere decides to reroute your traffic. Fortunately the net is very dynamic and constantly changing its' traffic paths. Alternatively it might be something on your computer (I occasionally get bad lag in-game even though the server list shows ok pings, until I reboot my pc - never worked out why) - so I'd suggest the standard anti viral/spyware/trojan scans to make you're "clean".

we just ran an ESL league race and we had really bad problems with lag and people disconnecting