Question I have good internet connection but can't play online games ?

[lawman25]

So at the end of May, the power to my house randomly shut off several times, and ever since then, I haven't been able to play any of my online games (on PS4) without it lagging like crazy. Before the power outage, I was able to play online games with no problem. Even with my family using it for whatever they want to use it for, I was able to play online with little to no lag and the ping never spiked.

After the power outage, my download and upload speeds have been about the same (40 - 55 mbps / 5 - 7 mbps) as before and there has been no problem with using the wifi for streaming, surfing the internet, or even downloading games. However, I just haven't been able to play my games online. The ping goes from 17 ms to 200 ms constantly and it's been very difficult to play because of that. I've unplugged the router/modem, called my ISP (Spectrum) and did everything they said, and even tried playing when I'm the only person in the house, but it still lags. I would try to use ethernet but I haven't because I never had to use it before.

Is there something I can do to fix this problem or is my network and console finished because of the power outage? I'm just trying to get back into playing online with my friends.

 

[Viking2121]

Are you using Spectrum provided Modem/router? If so, you should contact them for a replacement or just bring it to them and they will have sign something and give you a new one at no cost, but this will change your wifi password or any port forwarding and nat types if you set any of that.

My Spectrum provided modem/router took a nasty hit with a power spike over a year ago and ever since the wifi has never worked again on mine, I use a aftermarket TP-Link wifi 6 router so its no big deal for me.

If you are using a router or a wifi range extender that you have bought, You can try to factory rest it and set it back up and see if it improves. If not the router could be on its way out.

Things you can try though is hooking up your PS4 with a ethernet cable and see if its any better, You can request a Spectrum Tech to come out and they will look at everything, lines, a booster if they have one.

I know Uncles place, they have Spectrum and every now and then a storm hits and power get all wonky, he has to call them and they reset the boost outside on the pole remotely and then he's fine, but they have a business connection so they tend to fix that sooner than residential.

 

[bill001g]

As noted above you could have damaged the hardware. Unlikely but this is why I always use a UPS on everything.

What is more likely is your router is too smart. It likely picked different radio channels that the ones it was using before. The problem with routers and all the wifi scanner apps you find is they assume that the number of routers you see using a radio channel actually correlates to the amount of traffic. They do not actually see the number of end user devices using the different routers or even attempt to measure how much traffic is being used.

So if you had 10 routers on channel 1 and only 1 router on channel 11 it would recommend channel 11. Problem is if the router on channel 11 was say doing massive data transfers and the the 10 routers on channel 1 where doing nothing then you would get much less interference on channel 1. Years ago when I had a router that could put out multiple SSID I rigged it to put out about 20 so people though there were lots of routers using the channel and choose other ones.

I would manually change the radio channel to other values and see if you get something that works better. Many times setting the radio channel width to say 20mhz will reduce the amount of interference but it will also cut the transfer speed. Games don't care about bandwidth so much but this affects all users in the house so be careful about setting this. In the end you need to try very hard to not play games on wifi. You never know when some neighbor might fire up his 4k netflix stream using the radio channel you are using and cuase interference.

Things like moca if you have coax cable or even powerline networks are going to provide a much better experience for gaming. Of course ethernet is always the best if that is option. It just works and never causes any issues.

 

[lawman25]

Are you using Spectrum provided Modem/router? If so, you should contact them for a replacement or just bring it to them and they will have sign something and give you a new one at no cost, but this will change your wifi password or any port forwarding and nat types if you set any of that.

My Spectrum provided modem/router took a nasty hit with a power spike over a year ago and ever since the wifi has never worked again on mine, I use a aftermarket TP-Link wifi 6 router so its no big deal for me.

If you are using a router or a wifi range extender that you have bought, You can try to factory rest it and set it back up and see if it improves. If not the router could be on its way out.

Things you can try though is hooking up your PS4 with a ethernet cable and see if its any better, You can request a Spectrum Tech to come out and they will look at everything, lines, a booster if they have one.

I know Uncles place, they have Spectrum and every now and then a storm hits and power get all wonky, he has to call them and they reset the boost outside on the pole remotely and then he's fine, but they have a business connection so they tend to fix that sooner than residential.

Hey bro just wanted to say thank you so much for all the insight and help. I tried playing it again today and randomly everything is back to normal. It sucks that I had to wait like 2 weeks for something to change but aye it works again. Thanks again for the insight and if it doesn't work again, I'll definitely take your advice!

 

[lawman25]

As noted above you could have damaged the hardware. Unlikely but this is why I always use a UPS on everything.

What is more likely is your router is too smart. It likely picked different radio channels that the ones it was using before. The problem with routers and all the wifi scanner apps you find is they assume that the number of routers you see using a radio channel actually correlates to the amount of traffic. They do not actually see the number of end user devices using the different routers or even attempt to measure how much traffic is being used.

So if you had 10 routers on channel 1 and only 1 router on channel 11 it would recommend channel 11. Problem is if the router on channel 11 was say doing massive data transfers and the the 10 routers on channel 1 where doing nothing then you would get much less interference on channel 1. Years ago when I had a router that could put out multiple SSID I rigged it to put out about 20 so people though there were lots of routers using the channel and choose other ones.

I would manually change the radio channel to other values and see if you get something that works better. Many times setting the radio channel width to say 20mhz will reduce the amount of interference but it will also cut the transfer speed. Games don't care about bandwidth so much but this affects all users in the house so be careful about setting this. In the end you need to try very hard to not play games on wifi. You never know when some neighbor might fire up his 4k netflix stream using the radio channel you are using and cuase interference.

Things like moca if you have coax cable or even powerline networks are going to provide a much better experience for gaming. Of course ethernet is always the best if that is option. It just works and never causes any issues.

Thank you so much for the insight and advice, my wifi randomly just started working today so all is good. I do have questions though. What is a UPS and also what is "moca" cause that might be good things to know about for future reference.

 

[bill001g]

A UPS is a battery backup that prevents your devices from losing power and also filters the power. Depends on how long the power goes out but for many people small units that last less than 15 minutes are fine.

MoCA is a method to allow you to carry a ethernet connection over a old coax tv cable when you don't have a actual ethernet wire run between the 2 rooms. This technology can get gigabit speeds with very consistent latency.

I bet your problem were you had some neighbor doing something they don't normally do. Wifi performance is very random when you can not control all the different people using it.

 

[lawman25]

A UPS is a battery backup that prevents your devices from losing power and also filters the power. Depends on how long the power goes out but for many people small units that last less than 15 minutes are fine.

MoCA is a method to allow you to carry a ethernet connection over a old coax tv cable when you don't have a actual ethernet wire run between the 2 rooms. This technology can get gigabit speeds with very consistent latency.

I bet your problem were you had some neighbor doing something they don't normally do. Wifi performance is very random when you can not control all the different people using it.

Is there something I can do to prevent this from happening again?

 

[lawman25]

A UPS is a battery backup that prevents your devices from losing power and also filters the power. Depends on how long the power goes out but for many people small units that last less than 15 minutes are fine.

MoCA is a method to allow you to carry a ethernet connection over a old coax tv cable when you don't have a actual ethernet wire run between the 2 rooms. This technology can get gigabit speeds with very consistent latency.

I bet your problem were you had some neighbor doing something they don't normally do. Wifi performance is very random when you can not control all the different people using it.

As a matter of fact, I just found out that my power mysteriously went out again and now the wifi is messed up again. There was no storm last night or anything like that so something out of the norm definitely happened.

 

[Viking2121]

How long did the power go out? Sometimes them really fast power flickers, it messes up the connection, probably should do a normal power cycle, Unplug your modem or routers from the wall and I tend to give them a little over 1 min before I plug them both back in, wait for it to connect and see if you got good internet again.