[SOLVED] Ping Spikes

[Patrick_Elliott]

Hi there,
I currently have an MSI GS65 Stealth-296 laptop, and recently, I have been getting ping spikes of up to 120ms when playing online games. After running what was suggested on this thread, I got these results from pinging my router: https://imgur.com/Ho53HP6 When running all three pings side by side, I found the problem was in my own network, as the ping spikes occurred consecutively. If I could get any insight into what my next steps would be, that would be fantastic. Thanks for any help!

Details:
Laptop make/model: MSI GS65 Stealth-296
Router make/model: ASUS RT-AC5300
Modem make/model: AT&T U-verse Pace 5268AC Gateway
ISP & Connection Type: AT&T , WiFi
Device Number : 12
Error Messages : N/A

EDIT: Forgot to mention, I believe it's an issue with my WiFi card, as I had this same issue when I was at college on a different connection. However, I downloaded the most recent driver and the issue wasn't fixed.

 

[bill001g]

Since you posted this in wifi I assume that means you are using wifi to test.

This could just be the "normal" problem you see playing games on wifi. You would have to collect more data but you only have 1 packet loss and that could have been the first one which is just a testing issue and not loss. You did get a spike to 120 but your average is not real high so you did not get a lot of them.

In any case all these issues like this in wifi are caused because wifi unlike most other network connections attempts to do error recovery and will re transmit data that is damaged. This is extra time when it may retransmit mulitple times is what causes the spike. Wifi does this because unlike other media it is very susceptible to data corruption caused by interfering radio signal many times form outside your house.

There are very few things you can do on wifi. You can try the other radio band 2.4 or 5 You try to change the channel but that tends to not work anymore since all channels are used. You could try to set the channel width to 20mhz. This will reduce the bandwidth it attempt to use and maybe the signal does not get stomped on. It also will reduce the transfer speed. Games don't care but other applications might.

 

[Patrick_Elliott]

Since you posted this in wifi I assume that means you are using wifi to test.

This could just be the "normal" problem you see playing games on wifi. You would have to collect more data but you only have 1 packet loss and that could have been the first one which is just a testing issue and not loss. You did get a spike to 120 but your average is not real high so you did not get a lot of them.

In any case all these issues like this in wifi are caused because wifi unlike most other network connections attempts to do error recovery and will re transmit data that is damaged. This is extra time when it may retransmit mulitple times is what causes the spike. Wifi does this because unlike other media it is very susceptible to data corruption caused by interfering radio signal many times form outside your house.

There are very few things you can do on wifi. You can try the other radio band 2.4 or 5 You try to change the channel but that tends to not work anymore since all channels are used. You could try to set the channel width to 20mhz. This will reduce the bandwidth it attempt to use and maybe the signal does not get stomped on. It also will reduce the transfer speed. Games don't care but other applications might.

Thanks for the response. I'm currently using a 5ghz band. Could you explain the channel width a bit more? What other applications would suffer from changing this setting?

 

[bill001g]

There is a setting on the wifi screen for most routers that let you select the channel width. It varies a bit from brand to brand but some say things like 20/40 or 20. Setting it to 20 will force it only use 20.

It mostly will affect file downloads since that is the only application that can really use all the bandwidth.

The reason you do this is there are 9 20mhz blocks in most countries on the 5g band. If you use 80 mhz blocks it is using groups of 4 of those 20mhz.

This is still a long shot. it used to work much better to try to use other channels. Now days people are hogs. They are putting in things like tri-band routers and mesh systems. Those attempt to use all the available bandwidth guarneteing they will conflict with neighbors.

Maybe by next summer wifi6e equipment will be widely available. There is a massive amount of new bandwidth allowed on the 6ghz radio band.

 

[Patrick_Elliott]

There is a setting on the wifi screen for most routers that let you select the channel width. It varies a bit from brand to brand but some say things like 20/40 or 20. Setting it to 20 will force it only use 20.

It mostly will affect file downloads since that is the only application that can really use all the bandwidth.

The reason you do this is there are 9 20mhz blocks in most countries on the 5g band. If you use 80 mhz blocks it is using groups of 4 of those 20mhz.

This is still a long shot. it used to work much better to try to use other channels. Now days people are hogs. They are putting in things like tri-band routers and mesh systems. Those attempt to use all the available bandwidth guarneteing they will conflict with neighbors.

Maybe by next summer wifi6e equipment will be widely available. There is a massive amount of new bandwidth allowed on the 6ghz radio band.

Ah I see. I'll give that a try, otherwise I'm just gonna get a USB WiFi adapter. Thanks for the help, friend!