[SOLVED] Major Ping Spikes when downloading, inconsistent wi-fi connection

[ianwhitehurst1]

Hi everyone,

For a while, my family has been experiencing some internet difficulties. We used to have a SB6190 and a Almond 2014 router, but we just got a Netgear CM500. However, the problems have maintained. Whenever one of us downloads something, our ping goes from around 20 to sometimes over 2000. Is this a router issue, or is this something worse than that?

Ping:
https://imagizer.imageshack.com/img923/3074/TGQv9L.png

 

[jojesa]

There are many reasons a ping could spike.
It could be that you are using all the bandwidth allocated to you
What service do yo have?
How many users connected to the router?
Did you reset the and reconfigured the Almond 2014 router, after swapping the modem?
Does it happen over WiFi only? Does it happen over the 2.4GHz or 5GHz or both?
Does it happen when connected to the modem only?
Does it happen at any time during the day or night?
It could be faulty wiring inside or outside your residence.
It could be issues with a faulty or misconfigured router (hop) from your ISP.

 

[ianwhitehurst1]

I'm no techie, but right now, here are as many answers I have to your questions.

We have Xfinity service, and we have between 1-8 different devices connected to our network. We reset and reconfigured the router to the modem, and the router only supports at max 802.11n, so we don't have a 5ghz connection. This happens when our devices are connected to Wi-Fi, but when it's connected via ethernet, the problem goes away. It happens at random times at no particular time, but no matter what time of day it is, whenever one of us starts downloading, it spikes to a consistent 200 ping.

Hope this helps!

 

[bill001g]

If it does not happen on ethernet then it pretty much proves its the wifi. Wifi does not share bandwidth well. There is no actual control the end machines try to get all they can get. In addition they tend to interfere with each other because many times they can not detect the signal from the other machines and will transmit at the same time.

There is nothing you can really do to fix this. Maybe trying to limit the download rates in the download application might help.

To a point it depends on if it purely because some machine is downloading huge amount or if the signal is just poor and the machines are stomping on each other. Not enough bandwidth might be fixed with a newer router that can transfer more data. Poor signals are not likely to be helped much since most times that is the end client that has small antenna or a weak radio causing it.

 

[ianwhitehurst1]

OK, thanks! I guess I'll look out for any good routers that can replace this one. Since it is sort of old, we suspected that the problem may have been the router, so thanks for confirming this.

 

[S1L3N7]

Before purchasing a new router - check your router logs. See if you are getting any messages that look like any of the following:
[DoS attack: ACK Scan]
[DoS attack: RST Scan]
[DoS attack: Fraggle Attack]
[DoS attack: snmpQueryDrop]

Please reply back if you see any of these in your router log... thx

 

[ianwhitehurst1]

Sorry for not replying for a while! I checked the router logs and no, I have not been getting any of these messages.