Question PC is struggling despite Ethernet + WiFi signal is poor upstairs

[RT234]

I’m a little techy but not too much but not exactly sure what to do.

I’m from the UK and recently upgraded to a EE FTTP (500mbps service) from my old Virgin Media (cable) service.

There are two problems:

1. My PC is really struggling (the Mobo is an ASUS B550M with built in networking) to access the Internet and game at times. Last week, I had an Ethernet cable run to it (costing me £180, which hurt, but I was unable to do it myself due to a disability and it was the cheapest option - other traders wanted around £500, definitely not worth it!), thinking that would help. I have updated the network adapter with no results.

One thing I feel that is of note is that I had another PC I had to return (had a B660 ASUS motherboard + I believe an Intel wireless card) and that was fine/closer to what I would expect with the WiFi I had at the time (but when I got the new PC is when the issue got worse. Is there any way I can test to see if it is the built in network card at fault?)

2. My WiFi network is struggling to get a signal anywhere but the living room, where the router is - this is problematic and causes frequent dropouts for wireless devices. What can I do/what equipment can I get to improve this? (Note: I’ve always used the default provider routers - VM Hub5 and lately the EE SmartHub Plus, but setting up a router etc is not beyond me, just the difficulty of running Ethernet cables)

Any help would be appreciated!

 

[Roland Of Gilead]

Hey there,

You could try a Mesh extender, or Powerline adaptors with wifi capabilities. I use powerline adaptors, as I can put them in different rooms if I want a hardwire connection. Very adaptable (pardon the pun! )

My primary router is dual band, 2.4/5ghz. So 5ghz is great for speed, but mostly for closer devices (this depend on the layout of your home). I use 2.4ghz for mobile devices, and those a bit further away from the router.

You could buy a Wifi dongle, which will plug into any USB. There are some good ones that are quite reasonably priced. TP Link have some nice ones.

 

[bill001g]

You spent all the money and did not test it before the guy left ?

I guess what doesn't work properly.
Does the IPCONFIG /all show the ethernet connected.

Do you have any lights on the ethernet port on the motherboard.

 

[RT234]

You spent all the money and did not test it before the guy left ?

I guess what doesn't work properly.
Does the IPCONFIG /all show the ethernet connected.

Do you have any lights on the ethernet port on the motherboard.

I never said it wasn’t working - but not very well (connection is pretty poor at times) and tbh even if I had tested it, the issues would still be difficult to spot immediately.

Ethernet is recognised and connected.

 

[bill001g]

If you look at the ethernet status does it show 1000 or 100 mpbs connect speed.

What speed to you get from the speed test site.

Try a ping from a cmd window.

Ping 8.8.8.8 -t

Do you see packet loss

 

[RT234]

Hi.

Link speed is fine (showing 1000mbps)

So Speedtest.net is normal (500 down/around 70 up on the affected device - so what I pay for)

I’m not seeing packet loss when I ping -t 8.8.8.8 in command prompt, but in Pingplotter I’m seeing packet loss on the router (1st hop) and the intermediate hops (particularly hop 3) - can't share my screenshots as it won't allow me to.

 

[bill001g]

That means nothing. If the packets were really being lost at a intermediate hop they would affect traffic past it.

This is testing error. Many times routers are configured to not respond to ping or limit the number of packets they will respond to. This is to prevent denial of service attacks against routers with ping commands.

So what is your actual problem.

Maybe a couple things to blindly try. Disable IPv6 in the ethernet settings and while you are in there change the DNS server in the IPv4 settings to 8.8.8.8 or 1.1.1.1.

 

[RT234]

That means nothing. If the packets were really being lost at a intermediate hop they would affect traffic past it.

This is testing error. Many times routers are configured to not respond to ping or limit the number of packets they will respond to. This is to prevent denial of service attacks against routers with ping commands.

So what is your actual problem.

Maybe a couple things to blindly try. Disable IPv6 in the ethernet settings and while you are in there change the DNS server in the IPv4 settings to 8.8.8.8 or 1.1.1.1.

So the actual problems on the device are:
Struggling to load pages
Frequent buffering
Random ping spikes (on my Xbox. also using Ethernet, this doesn’t happen)

 

[RT234]

Source to Here This Node/Link
Hop RTT Lost/Sent = Pct Lost/Sent = Pct Address
0 RachaelsPC.lan [192.168.1.98]
0/ 100 = 0% |
1 0ms 0/ 100 = 0% 0/ 100 = 0% 192.168.1.254
100/ 100 =100% |
2 --- 100/ 100 =100% 0/ 100 = 0% 172.16.11.76

Trace complete.

C:\Users\rtrav>pathping google.com

Tracing route to google.com [2a00:1450:4009:81d::200e]
over a maximum of 30 hops:
0 RachaelsPC.lan [2a00:23c7:2ba2:4d00:d9a1:14f:4b8f:4c78]
1 2a00:23c7:2ba2:4d00::1
2 2a00:2302::1100:203:3ee
3 * * *
Computing statistics for 50 seconds...
Source to Here This Node/Link
Hop RTT Lost/Sent = Pct Lost/Sent = Pct Address
0 RachaelsPC.lan [2a00:23c7:2ba2:4d00:d9a1:14f:4b8f:4c78]
0/ 100 = 0% |
1 1ms 0/ 100 = 0% 0/ 100 = 0% 2a00:23c7:2ba2:4d00::1
100/ 100 =100% |
2 --- 100/ 100 =100% 0/ 100 = 0% 2a00:2302::1100:203:3ee

Did a trace and i'm not even getting to google.com or Google DNS

1.1.1.1 wasn't getting there either

Tracing route to one.one.one.one [1.1.1.1]
over a maximum of 30 hops:
0 RachaelsPC.lan [192.168.1.98]
1 192.168.1.254
2 172.16.11.76
3 * * *
Computing statistics for 50 seconds...
Source to Here This Node/Link
Hop RTT Lost/Sent = Pct Lost/Sent = Pct Address
0 RachaelsPC.lan [192.168.1.98]
0/ 100 = 0% |
1 0ms 0/ 100 = 0% 0/ 100 = 0% 192.168.1.254
100/ 100 =100% |
2 --- 100/ 100 =100% 0/ 100 = 0% 172.16.11.76

 

[bill001g]

You need to turn off IPv6 or you can't compare. IPV6 even though they have been for years saying it is the "future" of the internet has worse performance.

BUT that is not the key issue just why you see the strange addresses in the first trace. It too seems to stop in hop 3.

Not sure what would be blocking trace. Can you ping 1.1.1.1 or 8.8.8.8

From your previous post
Are you saying if you use the xbox on ethernet it works fine but if you use the same ethernet cable on your pc you see these issues.

This would imply there is something very strange on your pc. I can think of anything that would make a trace stop where it does. Hop 2 is likely the first ISP router and it would be strange for a ISP to block trace.

It would have to be some strange software or setting in windows you would think. Maybe try to boot windows into safe mode. You could also I guess try a linux USB boot image. That would verify the hardware was fine. Web based stuff like speedtest etc are pretty much the same but ping and trace have slightly different syntax. All it would really confirm is there is some windows stuff messed up.

I would still first try to disable IPv6 and set the DNS to 1.1.1.1 or 8.8.8.8.

Then look for software that claims to favor one kind of traffic over another. This garbage is bundled with many motherboards...asus in particular. It has many names but a common one is cfosspeed. This all claims to somehow magically reduce gaming latency but it causes lots of strange issues. Try to find and uninstall any software like that.

Did you ever install a vpn on your machine. Some of these do not uninstall cleanly.

 

[RT234]

29/05/2024, 00:35:55	Network interface eth1 down
29/05/2024, 00:35:58	Network interface eth1 up
29/05/2024, 00:36:09	Network interface eth1 down
29/05/2024, 00:36:13	Network interface eth1 up
29/05/2024, 00:37:07	Network interface eth1 down
29/05/2024, 00:37:10	Network interface eth1 up

Example from the logs (the device connected to "eth1" is the problematic device - it wasn't in use at the time)

Although it's also happening with the other devices (eth3 is a TV Box)

29/05/2024, 05:46:05	Network interface eth3 up
29/05/2024, 05:46:10	Network interface eth3 down
29/05/2024, 05:46:13	Network interface eth3 up
29/05/2024, 05:46:19	Network interface eth3 down
29/05/2024, 05:46:22	Network interface eth3 up

unfortunately, the logs on this router aren't very helpful!

 

[bill001g]

That isn't good. I would unplug all but 1 device to see if make a difference.

Most times ethernet going up and down means some kind of hardware failure. Software the ethernet ports stay up they just don't pass data correctly.

Look in the logs on the router if you can find them. Maybe the router has some issue.

This does not explain why the xbox works fine on the same router.