[SOLVED] Odd problem with high ping to local router.

Nov 5, 2019
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It seems I have very high pingspikes few minutes in while playing online games.

View: https://imgur.com/a/HxRlAnc


I was pinging this while ingame.

I have a wireless dongle, TP-Link Archer T2U v1 https://www.tp-link.com/us/support/download/archer-t2u/v1/#FAQs

When not in game and on server the average ping is 8ms. I have forced the dongle to use 5Ghz channel 36 so crowded channel should not be the issue. Checked on laptop the average ping is also around 8ms.

Using wired connection is not an option.

Sometimes I would ping the server before getting in the game and it seems ok around 40ms. ( yet to double check this and ping for longer time)

The high ping is not constant, but long enough for server to drop connection.

Could someone please help me solve this ? Suggest some more diagnostics I could do and software. Sadly I have no other dongle to check.

This is very weird, could it be that the dongle can't handle the bandwidth required?

Edit: I just tried the dongle on the laptop and the ping was way stable and average 2ms. Could it be something with my USB ports?
 
Solution
Using channel 36 does not do what you think it does I suspect. When you use 802.11ac the default mode is to use 80mhz of bandwidth. The channels in the 5g band on routers only represent 20mhz. So it is likely you are using channels 36-48.

It is common to see more errors as you increase usage. It is not noticeable on good connection but on weak ones it can get very bad. This would appear as larger average ping times when run games.

I would not suspect the USB port. I would more suspect the placement of the USB port. I would try a USB extension cable and see if moving it away from your PC works any better. Those small dongles do not have very big antenna so it does not take much to block them.

There is not much else after...
Using channel 36 does not do what you think it does I suspect. When you use 802.11ac the default mode is to use 80mhz of bandwidth. The channels in the 5g band on routers only represent 20mhz. So it is likely you are using channels 36-48.

It is common to see more errors as you increase usage. It is not noticeable on good connection but on weak ones it can get very bad. This would appear as larger average ping times when run games.

I would not suspect the USB port. I would more suspect the placement of the USB port. I would try a USB extension cable and see if moving it away from your PC works any better. Those small dongles do not have very big antenna so it does not take much to block them.

There is not much else after that. It could be a driver issues but not very likely.

I would try to force your machine to use the 2.4g band. You might even force the 2.4g band on your router to only use 20mhz channels. This will all cut your top speed but games need very little bandwidth. They need stability. 2.4g has more penetration and using narrower radio bands reduces the amount of bandwidth exposed to interference. You could always switch back to the 5g radio if you needed faster download or something.
 
Solution
Nov 5, 2019
3
0
10
Using channel 36 does not do what you think it does I suspect. When you use 802.11ac the default mode is to use 80mhz of bandwidth. The channels in the 5g band on routers only represent 20mhz. So it is likely you are using channels 36-48.

It is common to see more errors as you increase usage. It is not noticeable on good connection but on weak ones it can get very bad. This would appear as larger average ping times when run games.

I would not suspect the USB port. I would more suspect the placement of the USB port. I would try a USB extension cable and see if moving it away from your PC works any better. Those small dongles do not have very big antenna so it does not take much to block them.

There is not much else after that. It could be a driver issues but not very likely.

I would try to force your machine to use the 2.4g band. You might even force the 2.4g band on your router to only use 20mhz channels. This will all cut your top speed but games need very little bandwidth. They need stability. 2.4g has more penetration and using narrower radio bands reduces the amount of bandwidth exposed to interference. You could always switch back to the 5g radio if you needed faster download or something.
Thanks for your advise, I will switch off the "only use 5ghz" option then see if it helps.