- Joined
- Mar 27, 2011
- Messages
- 1,349
My friend is getting HUGE ping spikes on his internet. Pings can jump up to 100-2500 ms. Its a pain playing with him when he DCs or lags. I decided to take a look at it for him. He is on the wireless. The Ethernet appears to work ok. It seems to mostly work ok if he's the only one on the network at a time. We're using a 2.4Ghz router.
First thing I did was a ping to the router 192.168.1.1 -t within cmd. I noticed his average ping was about 10 ms. Every so often it would spike to 100 ms and sometimes upwards of the 2000's. This leads me to believe something is wrong with his own network, not the ISP. During all testing, I sat very close to the router for FULL signal strength.
The Network Setup
Pretty standard setup. 1 modem/router wireless N 2.4GHZ. 2 desktops plugged in via Ethernet, rest of mobile phones, laptops, etc using Wi-Fi. There are no second routers, repeaters or other fancy equipment on the network. Let me know if you need more info.
What Have I done?
Channels - I've tried using channels 1, 6 and 11. Changing the frequency range from 20 MHZ to 40 MHZ, even used other channels like 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, etc, with no luck.
Moving Router - Tried moving router in case of local EM interference to all different areas of the house. Even moved 10 meters away from the house with a long extension lead, but no luck.
New Router - His old router and his new router (bought 2 months ago) both have this problem. I even brought my router from my house which I know works, but the problem persists.
Played with settings - Tried using different wireless transmission speeds, changed some random settings like some websites suggested with no luck.
Firmware - No point mentioning this because its happening to all routers. But yes. The firmware is up to date.
Other Devices - We literally turned off everything that could use electromagnetic interference. Microwave isn't running, wireless phones were unplugged and batteries taken out. All wireless devices including TV, phones, and computers were disconnected from the router but (except mine for testing purposes), but pings were still averaging 10, jumping to 22, 44 and even the 100's. Come to think of it, we didn't actually put mobile phones in airplane mode so they were still connected to mobile towers, but.....surely not, lol.
What is the Ping actually like?
Most ping testing was done with nobody using the network (all other devices completely disconnected from the router). His ping could be at 1-2ms, but would frequently jump to 10 ms, and spike to 24 ms. Ocassionally (1-2 times per hour) it would spike to 100 or over.
Once during testing over a 4 hour period we got that deadly 2500ms ping. Other devices were connected at this time though.
I find his ping patterns very strange because we have full signal strength and there is no other network traffic at all. The ping at my house is always 1-3ms. I get no spikes. While loading videos, etc, my ping can spike to 6ms. I have several walls in between me and my router too! My friend's ping seems quite high.
What Could it Be?
Neighboring Interference - Using software to detect nearby networks, I can see there are a few networks in the area, all on channels 1, 6 and 11 (no overlapping channels), except for Telstra air on channel 4, which I believe is a national wireless network that Telstra has (an Australian ISP). I highly doubt other wifi networks are causing the problem though? My dad lives in an apartment block with several more nearby networks than this!
My Friend Lives on a Slab of Lead - .........?
Any Ideas?
Does anyone have any ideas whats causing the issue and how to fix it? Of course we could try buying a 5 GHZ router to bypass possible interference, or using Ethernet, but the router positioning is poor for using Ethernet, and there's his family's mobile device dropouts to consider which Ethernet won't fix.
First thing I did was a ping to the router 192.168.1.1 -t within cmd. I noticed his average ping was about 10 ms. Every so often it would spike to 100 ms and sometimes upwards of the 2000's. This leads me to believe something is wrong with his own network, not the ISP. During all testing, I sat very close to the router for FULL signal strength.
The Network Setup
Pretty standard setup. 1 modem/router wireless N 2.4GHZ. 2 desktops plugged in via Ethernet, rest of mobile phones, laptops, etc using Wi-Fi. There are no second routers, repeaters or other fancy equipment on the network. Let me know if you need more info.
What Have I done?
Channels - I've tried using channels 1, 6 and 11. Changing the frequency range from 20 MHZ to 40 MHZ, even used other channels like 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, etc, with no luck.
Moving Router - Tried moving router in case of local EM interference to all different areas of the house. Even moved 10 meters away from the house with a long extension lead, but no luck.
New Router - His old router and his new router (bought 2 months ago) both have this problem. I even brought my router from my house which I know works, but the problem persists.
Played with settings - Tried using different wireless transmission speeds, changed some random settings like some websites suggested with no luck.
Firmware - No point mentioning this because its happening to all routers. But yes. The firmware is up to date.
Other Devices - We literally turned off everything that could use electromagnetic interference. Microwave isn't running, wireless phones were unplugged and batteries taken out. All wireless devices including TV, phones, and computers were disconnected from the router but (except mine for testing purposes), but pings were still averaging 10, jumping to 22, 44 and even the 100's. Come to think of it, we didn't actually put mobile phones in airplane mode so they were still connected to mobile towers, but.....surely not, lol.
What is the Ping actually like?
Most ping testing was done with nobody using the network (all other devices completely disconnected from the router). His ping could be at 1-2ms, but would frequently jump to 10 ms, and spike to 24 ms. Ocassionally (1-2 times per hour) it would spike to 100 or over.
Once during testing over a 4 hour period we got that deadly 2500ms ping. Other devices were connected at this time though.
I find his ping patterns very strange because we have full signal strength and there is no other network traffic at all. The ping at my house is always 1-3ms. I get no spikes. While loading videos, etc, my ping can spike to 6ms. I have several walls in between me and my router too! My friend's ping seems quite high.
What Could it Be?
Neighboring Interference - Using software to detect nearby networks, I can see there are a few networks in the area, all on channels 1, 6 and 11 (no overlapping channels), except for Telstra air on channel 4, which I believe is a national wireless network that Telstra has (an Australian ISP). I highly doubt other wifi networks are causing the problem though? My dad lives in an apartment block with several more nearby networks than this!
My Friend Lives on a Slab of Lead - .........?
Any Ideas?
Does anyone have any ideas whats causing the issue and how to fix it? Of course we could try buying a 5 GHZ router to bypass possible interference, or using Ethernet, but the router positioning is poor for using Ethernet, and there's his family's mobile device dropouts to consider which Ethernet won't fix.
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