Massive ping spikes

[valleygoat]

Hello all, I've been having troubles with my wireless internet for about a month now. Haven't fixed it, obviously so i did a little google search and here I am looking for some help, any and all is appreciated. this might be a little long, I'm trying to give all the information possible to try and isolate the problem.

For the TLDR, my internet is shitty and i've posted a screenshot of me pinging google at the bottom.

I have multiple devices connected to my wireless router. I owned a motorola surfboard a month ago. What would happen is, when playing video games I would notice a ping spike of up to 200-300ms. This was a constant lag, and would last anywhere from a minute to all night. I have isolated the problem to not being a bandwidth issue (turned off all other devices on the network). I had a technician come from Time Warner Cable, no idea what the problem was so he just replaced the router with a new Arris one.

I now have a different problem, and I'm currently on my 2nd Arris router and the tech's 3rd visit (don't think he was too bright, no idea what was causing my new problem).

My new problem is this. I have a steady ping of 10-20ms when pinging google or any website. I now have random ping spikes of up to 2000ms. I will upload a photo of me pinging google. It's the same scenario when pinging yahoo or anything else. It as well is a random problem, not seemingly linked to anything I do (torrenting, browing, gaming all do not effect the ping).

So I went to my electronics store, purchased the power ethernet (through the walls internet thing) but couldn't get it to work for some reason so I returned it, purchased a new wireless pci adapter for my computer. This seemed to ease the problem, but not totally fix it. The lag when playing video games was now bearable. But now, a week later I'm continuing to get the issues I had from day 1 with the new router/old wireless adapter. I have also tried running the ping tests in safe mode with the same results.

Now, the hardwired Mac on my network doesn't have these lag problems i've noticed except for 1 time. Constant low pings when pinging other than that though, even when my wireless is lagging. The other wireless laptop on my network does act up like my PC, and I have tried moving it to my room (1 wall away, maybe 20 feet from router) and beside the router with the same results, distance makes no difference.

Edit: When i google whats my ip, and try pinging it (i don't really know what this does, just ping my router i guess?) the exact same problem occurs except the spikes are actually HIGHER than when pinging google.

Edit2: The lag is not noticeable when browsing the internet, or streaming youtube/netflix. It only affects me while gaming.

 

[bill001g]

First thing to do is to do this ping from wired connection.

Then do a traceroute and ping at the same time the end address and the second one....it should be the IP you set in your router as you gateway. This is your ISP edge router.

So if you see the issue to the ISP first router this implies there is a problem between your house and the ISP. It could be the ISP overselling the wire so you would want to confirm this by trying this test again early in the morning when most your neighbors are asleep. Now of course they will SAY it tested clean but its not really something you can test yourself very easy.

If the first hop ping is clear but issue are past there not a lot you can do, it may not even be your ISP equipment causing the issues.

Now if the problem only occurs in the wireless then pretty much..."welcome to the world of wireless" is the best answer. Any type of interference will cause packet retransmission between your ends device and the router. Unlike packet loss in the internet the wireless equipment itself will attempt to fix the problem. But it takes time to do that so you see these spikes in the delay. Interference could be anything from another authorized devices getting unlucky and transmitting over the top or it could be a cordless phone,baby monitor or even wireless data running on your neighbors wireless network