Question Mesh routers, multiple switches, PS4 lag

[moresco]

Greetings everyone. I am getting lag on my PS4, every 1-3 seconds my commands will throttle a bit, or go on for a up to a second after I’ve let the button go.

I’ve got a wired home setup, wires leave the ISP router and go into a network of 3 D-Link COVR-1100 mesh routers. These are wired too, but because they only have 2 ports each, I use a very basic switch (D-Link DGS-1008A) by 2 of the COVRs to relay to the next:

ISP router - COVR - switch - COVR - switch - PS4 - COVR

All ports are gigabit and everything works great besides the PS4. There are several things connected to the switches as well.

This setup worked great before the mesh routers, so I am thinking they are the issue. My hypothesis is that the communication they carry out to hop clients between them is a lot of broadcasting and that might be getting in the way of traffic, I think. They are on the cheap side so I would not be surprised if my home network is already more than these were designed to operate in. I do have some CAT5 wires that have been outside for a few years too which is definitely not ideal, so they might be the issue, but I am not sure which would be more relevant.

Let me know your thoughts 🙂

 

[bill001g]

Not sure if a ps4 can do it but can you leave a ping run to the router IP.

Hard to be really sure without reading lots of specs but in general the ports on mesh units are a small switch. Like the 8 port switches you have they "should" not delay the traffic in any way.

Even if they pass traffic they are not going to exceed a gigabit total and your game console likely is not using very much either.

If there was some problem in the path that was bad enough to cause lag you would easily see it with a ping command. You will see small variations you are looking for something large..like over say 20ms.

 

[moresco]

Okay so I have an underwhelming update.

I had three background downloads going on and I did not realise it, and apparently they were having a TREMENDOUS impact on performance. I apologise for that, though to be honest, I am very disappointed at this console being unable to handle downloads and a game. After pausing the downloads, the lag came down to a very tolerable level, so that is the problem solved.

I did run the ping tests you suggested though, it is always nice to learn something new. A 100-packet ping test on the cable shows 0% packet loss with an average round-trip of 1.191ms with a maximum of 5.783ms, which seems okay. Comparatively, the same test on wi-fi is abismal. avg of 12ms with 5% packet loss and longest round-trip at an absurd 160ms lol.

At the end, I am glad the cables are okay and the routers are not problematic 🙂