Question Packet Loss/Timed Out Requests - MSI MOBO

[BrixSquad]

Never had this issue since I first built my PC (2023). Experiencing packet loss and network time outs for the past few weeks. (On Wi-Fi)

Noticed these horrible packet loss and lag spikes when I would be playing Call of Duty (both Warzone and Multiplayer). Some initial troubleshooting, I ran a ping google.com -t on the side while I was playing and I noticed I would get one packet loss every so often. These would be sporadic in the time span of 5min-10min. I initially thought this only happens when I would be gaming but even just watching YouTube or live streams and I would still run into packet loss and bad video buffering.

Further troubleshooting I booted up Call of Duty on my PS5 - no packet loss what so ever. Booted up my MacBook watched YouTube and live streams, no packet loss. (Did this while I was running ping google.com -t on my workstation and every time I had a packet loss, neither of other devices were affected.

Just recently, I bought a Netgear Powerline, and I know those are very hit and miss. But once I was hooked up I didn't receive any more packet loss but my download and upload speeds were SUPER slow.

Drivers and BIOS have been updated

Computer Specs:
i7-14700K
MSI PRO Z790-A MAX WIFI
32GB GDDR5 CORSAIR RAM
RTX 3070 EVGA
1TB Samsung SSD
800W PSU

 

[lantis3]

Wifi and powerline sucks on latency, stability & reliability because both have to deal with error correction and packets retransmission all the time.

 

[bill001g]

Sounds like your experience is what is predicted.

Wifi is the absolute worst option for playing online games. Games are one of the few applications that are extremely latency sensitive. Wifi error correction directly impacts the latency between packets. In addition wifi is extremely random in performance. It can be affected by almost anything, someone walking through a room changes the radio wave patterns. Different devices will perform differently because of slightly different placement in rooms and slight difference in antennas.

Powerline networks seem to have hit a brick wall technology wise a few years ago and we have seen no improvements to the technology. Powerline has much less bandwidth than wifi so it will be slower. The key thing is get very little packet loss and has very consistent latency.

Other than when you download the game a game does not need much bandwidth. Most online games are well under 1mbps. Most people get around 130mbps on powerline units which is more than good enough for almost any application. Of course downloading a 50gbyte game is going to take a bit more time .

If the download is a issue maybe switch it to wifi for the download and the go back to the powerline to play the game.

If you have coax cable MoCA is the best option, other than a real ethernet cable. Some moca units can run 2.5gbit.

 

[Viking2121]

So what Router are you using for wifi? Is it one on them ISP provided ones? And how many other devices do you have hooked up to it?

Them powerline adapters are best used on the same Circuit, so most newer houses, its typically the same room an adjacent room, they will work on a different circuit but not as fast, not as reliable and honestly they can be worse than wifi, even on the same circuit.

 

[BrixSquad]

So what Router are you using for wifi? Is it one on them ISP provided ones? And how many other devices do you have hooked up to it?

Them powerline adapters are best used on the same Circuit, so most newer houses, its typically the same room an adjacent room, they will work on a different circuit but not as fast, not as reliable and honestly they can be worse than wifi, even on the same circuit.

It is a ISP provided one.
Probably around 10 devices give or take.

Would a MoCa adapter be more ideal? Currently my house set up has coax in all of our rooms. From some research the newest Xfinity modem/router are MoCa enabled already

 

[BrixSquad]

Sounds like your experience is what is predicted.

Wifi is the absolute worst option for playing online games. Games are one of the few applications that are extremely latency sensitive. Wifi error correction directly impacts the latency between packets. In addition wifi is extremely random in performance. It can be affected by almost anything, someone walking through a room changes the radio wave patterns. Different devices will perform differently because of slightly different placement in rooms and slight difference in antennas.

Powerline networks seem to have hit a brick wall technology wise a few years ago and we have seen no improvements to the technology. Powerline has much less bandwidth than wifi so it will be slower. The key thing is get very little packet loss and has very consistent latency.

Other than when you download the game a game does not need much bandwidth. Most online games are well under 1mbps. Most people get around 130mbps on powerline units which is more than good enough for almost any application. Of course downloading a 50gbyte game is going to take a bit more time .

If the download is a issue maybe switch it to wifi for the download and the go back to the powerline to play the game.

If you have coax cable MoCA is the best option, other than a real ethernet cable. Some moca units can run 2.5gbit.

Would the MoCA adapters just be plug and play for the most part? I have an ISP provided modem/router combo from Xfinity

 

[bill001g]

Moca in most cases is very simple. You connect a moca adapter near the router to the coax and plug a ethernet cable between the router and the moca adapter. In the remote room you plug the moca into the coax and a ethernet into your PC.

You generally do not have to configure anything on the moca adapters.

The case that might be a little more complex is if there is only 1 coax cable in the room with the router/modem and it is used for the internet. In general you can just put a t connector in the coax and connect the moca adapter.

If you have a more complex install the moca manufactures have pretty good examples of how to wire them. The best ones I have seen are on gocoax site. Gocoax also makes very good units for a good price. For a long while they were the only brand that sold the 2.5g ones but they had big supply issues during covid and other manufactures started to sell products.