Question issues with internet connection and hoping for advice

[BrandonH262]

Hi! hoping somebody can help me, about a year ago we switched our internet to gigabit speeds with xfinity and ever since we have had issues. I'm using the eero pro 6 mesh system with the s33 modem. I'm not sure if the issue is just limited to me but since my room or pc since my family claims they aren't having the issue but I get pretty consistent packet loss. some days its not bad but sometimes I cant even play games with how bad it gets. I've had several techs out and they say there is no issue on their end and even had a supervisor out who said the same thing. basically what I'm looking for is for someone to help me figure out whether this is something on my end or comcasts. I have replaced multiple modems and routers so it cant be faulty hardware and even made the techs replace coax cables and splitters. any advice or help is greatly appreciated!

edit: I'm not hardwired and cant due to the modem location in the house but the eero pro 6 has the ethernet ports of every node so I'm wired into my pc that way, also it works fine sometimes playing games when nobody else is home but once multiple people are connected it gets super touchy which shouldn't happen on gigabit speeds

 

[JohnBonhamsGhost]

if ISP techs have tested both on their end and at your residence and concluded there is no issue
and others in the residence are not experiencing any problems then the issue would have to be due to your particular system.

run speedtest and include the results of both while experiencing the issue and when not.

 

[bill001g]

You only "think" you have a wired connection if you plugged it into a remote eero. All you did was put a wifi card on your pc that is connected via ethernet rather than say USB. You still have a wireless connection between your room and the router.

Putting these units in the remote rooms is generally the worst placement but the pretty marketing picture make it look that way and nobody reads the instructions to see that is not what is actually recommended.

These units need to be placed where they can get a very strong signal from the main unit and still send the signal to remote room. Generally 1/2 between but it is never that simple because walls and floors absorb a lot of signal.

Your problem is the wifi signal is bad to your room. You need to try different placement but you would then also need to use a actual wifi card in your PC.

You should never play games on any kind of wifi. It is always subject to packet loss and delays. It is made even worse when you use repeater/mesh systems because you now have even more wifi signals interfering.

If you can not get it to work by changing the placement of the remote eero boxes I would look at other technology. The best is MoCA if you have coax cables in your room and near the router. The newest units can get full 1gbit speeds. If you do not have coax you can consider powerline networks. These work in most houses and tends to work better than wifi for games. They can be slower than wifi for some people but games do not need bandwidth so speedtest numbers mean nothing. What they have is consistent latency that wifi can not deliver.

 

[BrandonH262]

You only "think" you have a wired connection if you plugged it into a remote eero. All you did was put a wifi card on your pc that is connected via ethernet rather than say USB. You still have a wireless connection between your room and the router.

Putting these units in the remote rooms is generally the worst placement but the pretty marketing picture make it look that way and nobody reads the instructions to see that is not what is actually recommended.

These units need to be placed where they can get a very strong signal from the main unit and still send the signal to remote room. Generally 1/2 between but it is never that simple because walls and floors absorb a lot of signal.

Your problem is the wifi signal is bad to your room. You need to try different placement but you would then also need to use a actual wifi card in your PC.

You should never play games on any kind of wifi. It is always subject to packet loss and delays. It is made even worse when you use repeater/mesh systems because you now have even more wifi signals interfering.

If you can not get it to work by changing the placement of the remote eero boxes I would look at other technology. The best is MoCA if you have coax cables in your room and near the router. The newest units can get full 1gbit speeds. If you do not have coax you can consider powerline networks. These work in most houses and tends to work better than wifi for games. They can be slower than wifi for some people but games do not need bandwidth so speedtest numbers mean nothing. What they have is consistent latency that wifi can not deliver.

Thanks for the reply, the thing is that we had Xfinity for years already to this point. With zero issues, same setup except I didn’t have the eero system we used their modem/router combo. The issues didn’t arise until we switched to the upgraded speeds, like almost immediately once we set up their new modem. And yea I could try moving the eero to a room closer as I have a Wi-Fi adapter I can use. But I had a full connection prior I just bought the eero system for a family member who was further in the house and got poor reception

 

[bill001g]

Having too much wifi in your house many times can be worse than not enough. All these signals from the repeaters interfere with each other and this is in addition to any signals coming from your neighbors.

When you change equipment it can be as simple as the equipment is now using different radio channels. This is kinda why it is important to set that stuff yourself so you know whats going on and you when then know for sure if something changes. Maybe forcing other radio channels will help.

If the xfinity box is a router that has wifi I would try to turn off the eero and see how bad it is connecting via wifi directly to the main router. Many times a weak signal is better than a stronger signals going via repeaters.

Hard to say wifi is all trial and error. And even worse it will be sometime be random because your neighbor could get new equipment and start interfering. It does not affect most wifi apps that much but it causes massive problem when you try to play online games on wifi.

What I would consider doing in the long run is to use your eero boxes as simple AP. You would either use MoCA or powerline to get the signals from the router room to the remote rooms. You would then plug the eero boxes into the powerline or moca and use them to provide wifi in the remote rooms. This should provide wifi coverage without the problems of repeaters. You of course would plug your game machine into the moca or powerline box rather than use wifi.

 

[BrandonH262]

Having too much wifi in your house many times can be worse than not enough. All these signals from the repeaters interfere with each other and this is in addition to any signals coming from your neighbors.

When you change equipment it can be as simple as the equipment is now using different radio channels. This is kinda why it is important to set that stuff yourself so you know whats going on and you when then know for sure if something changes. Maybe forcing other radio channels will help.

If the xfinity box is a router that has wifi I would try to turn off the eero and see how bad it is connecting via wifi directly to the main router. Many times a weak signal is better than a stronger signals going via repeaters.

Hard to say wifi is all trial and error. And even worse it will be sometime be random because your neighbor could get new equipment and start interfering. It does not affect most wifi apps that much but it causes massive problem when you try to play online games on wifi.

What I would consider doing in the long run is to use your eero boxes as simple AP. You would either use MoCA or powerline to get the signals from the router room to the remote rooms. You would then plug the eero boxes into the powerline or moca and use them to provide wifi in the remote rooms. This should provide wifi coverage without the problems of repeaters. You of course would plug your game machine into the moca or powerline box rather than use wifi.

I’m at work right now so I can’t try much but I will when I get home. I see a lot of stuff about the modem logs and how the signal levels could be off and things like that. If you’re knowledgeable of that could I post my levels when I get home to see if those are off? I’m just trying to narrow down whether it’s an issue on my end or the isp’s end

 

[Old Molases]

There are three ways you can fix the packet loss issues at your end.
1. Inspect your own machines and equipment at home
starting from exploring the basic peripherals that you have. The user's home computer and internet network are the first ones to look at. Check if you or anyone in your home is currently downloading something. Also make sure that your own Anti-Virus is not limiting your access from the internet connection as some Anti-Virus programs may block or limit internet access on certain programs or games. After surveying those suggested items and finding that no such source is keeping you from having a stable connection, restart your router.
2. As much as possible, stop using the Wi-Fi connection and try using a good standard LAN/Ethernet cable.
8 out of every 10 gamers prefer to use their built-in WiFi function or a USB Wi-Fi Connector because they are usually cheaply priced. As the saying goes, "You get what you pay for!". A cheap price just means low product quality. You can also find reviews of certain devices from popular YouTube channels in which all of them had similar conclusions. If you really need to use a USB Wi-Fi Connector, it is advisable to purchase a good quality item. This would give you the peace of mind knowing that you have a reliable piece of hardware. As you may or may not know, wireless or Wi-Fi connections will not achieve the same data transmission speed as a LAN/Ethernet cable.
3. Redirect your internet traffic with a VPN.
The packet traffic route is the same as the real-life traffic routes on the road. Each route will have a peak time at the point of heavy traffic which causes congestion onto all of the devices that are connected to various routes. This also causes them to not be able to be processed in time which then causes our data to be indirectly sent to other routes. This altogether causes problems such as high ping and packet loss. For us gamers, this would be very evident as it would make us feel like we are not getting a quick response in our movements in the game. (For more articles about ping, we will provide more links at a later time.) In these cases, the only one who will be able to fix this is your Internet Service Provider (ISP) or a VPN dedicated for gaming (I prefer using Ivacy VPN). This allows the traffic from your device to be transmitted using the VPN provider's route instead of the primary route (of your ISP). In simple words, if you are driving your car on a 4-lane road, you will have the road mostly for yourself which would give you a faster travel time with no congestion.

I hope this helps.