Question Late Packets Caused by One Device

[BG32]

Hello,
I've come across an issue where when I'm gaming I will occasionally receive large ping spikes, going anywhere from 500 to 800 ms. After some trial and error I've found that this only occurs when one device is connected to the network by wifi, a galaxy S22. The large spike in ping is accompanied by a large number of late packets, lasting for a span of about 15 seconds sometimes. I haven't tried measuring time between incidents so I'm not sure if there is a pattern associated with the behavior. My computer experiences these ping spikes and is directly connected to the router by ethernet, but I'm not sure if the same issue occurs on other wireless devices. The easiest workaround has been to just disable the wifi on the device but it isn't exactly ideal. I've scanned the device for potential viruses as that was my first thought but that didn't return anything. Any input/ideas would be greatly appreciated.

https://imgur.com/a/KUKcpKL

 

[bill001g]

So you are running all your tests on ethernet and it works fine if you disable the wifi interface that you are not actually using.

Those latency numbers are huge for any ethernet data. I guess it depends on where it tests. If you were to ping your router IP do you see any large spikes. Most people get 1ms or so with spikes maybe to 5ms just because of testing error and maybe the router is slightly busy.

To get latency like that you traffic almost has to be going over the wifi. On most pc if you have both ethernet and wifi enabled it should always use the ethernet. There is a metric that windows uses to select which port to use. You could for example have 2 ethernet ports and it must select one. I am unsure how windows exactly sets this metric..you can actually change it. It should never send traffic over the wifi if the ethernet is up. Now with special software you can use both the wifi and ethernet but windows by default will only use 1 interface.

This has to be something stupid with the way windows is selecting the interface. Ethernet cable have no way to delay traffic. They send the data at some fractional speed of light and if the data is damaged it droped and you see packet loss. Wifi if it detects damage retransmits the data which causes the delays.

Don't know I have seen an number of similar posts where people have strange issues if both ethernet and wifi are enabled. The only people that I see would need both is if they had a laptop on say a docking station and then took it off and didn't want to lose connection while they walked down the hall to say a meeting.

 

[BG32]

So you are running all your tests on ethernet and it works fine if you disable the wifi interface that you are not actually using.

Those latency numbers are huge for any ethernet data. I guess it depends on where it tests. If you were to ping your router IP do you see any large spikes. Most people get 1ms or so with spikes maybe to 5ms just because of testing error and maybe the router is slightly busy.

To get latency like that you traffic almost has to be going over the wifi. On most pc if you have both ethernet and wifi enabled it should always use the ethernet. There is a metric that windows uses to select which port to use. You could for example have 2 ethernet ports and it must select one. I am unsure how windows exactly sets this metric..you can actually change it. It should never send traffic over the wifi if the ethernet is up. Now with special software you can use both the wifi and ethernet but windows by default will only use 1 interface.

This has to be something stupid with the way windows is selecting the interface. Ethernet cable have no way to delay traffic. They send the data at some fractional speed of light and if the data is damaged it droped and you see packet loss. Wifi if it detects damage retransmits the data which causes the delays.

Don't know I have seen an number of similar posts where people have strange issues if both ethernet and wifi are enabled. The only people that I see would need both is if they had a laptop on say a docking station and then took it off and didn't want to lose connection while they walked down the hall to say a meeting.

Let me clarify a bit,
I'm running tests on my computer which is connected to my home router by ethernet. When the galaxy s22 wifi is enabled and connected to my home wifi, I experience occasional ping spikes regardless of whether my computer is connected by ethernet or wifi.

 

[bill001g]

So I didn't look up what a s22 was I assumed it was a laptop.

So your computer has issue when the phone (s22) connects to the wifi even when your pc is connected via ethernet.

When you say you disable the wifi on the device you mean basically you disconnect the phone from the network.

I would first disable the wifi interface in your pc.... I doubt it make any different but your problem is very strange.

There are only a couple ways a second device can mess up your pc.

The most common is some kind of IP conflict. Most times it would be the phone is attempting to use the same IP address as the pc or it is trying to use the IP of the router. The phone I can't say for sure how you look at the lan IP. On your pc IPCONFIG /all should show you the IP.

Although is a unlikley possibility that the router assigned the same IP to both device it is more likely that one of the 2 device was manually set with a IP.

How large is your internet connection. Is there any possibility that the phone might be using up all the internet bandwidth. It would be easier to use too much upload. This is almost impossible if you have a very fast internet like gigabit. Maybe the router and/or the phone will show how much network traffic is being used.

This is a very strange problem.