Question Problems with USB Wifi adapter - spiking ping

[bufy16]

I've recently switched from an in-built wifi card to an external usb adapter (due to new GPU taking up too much space). The usb adapter I have is an ASUS AX56 Wireless USB Adapter.

The problem I have is that I often encounter the issue (which from my reading is quite common with these adapters) whereby the ping will randomly shoot up every 10 seconds (3ms for 9 seconds, then for about 3 seconds it'll go up to 300, then back to 3 etc). It's fine for everyday use but makes gaming and even Discord very difficult.

I know there are workarounds, I have WLAN Optimizer installed and I'm also aware of the option to disable the autoconfig which stops Windows 10 randomly searching for networks - this does help the issue, but isn't a solve in my mind as every time I sleep and wake my PC I have to disable/enable which isn't great.

Strangely, whenever I do run into the issue I can most often reboot my computer, and then I ping Google via CMD after reboot it's back to a solid 3ms, no spikes. I don't know how long this lasts or what causes it to start spiking again, but eventually it will come back. My thoughts are, if the process of rebooting is solving the issue, there must be some way to reverse engineer and get the same result, without having to reboot all the time.

Would love any thoughts!

 

[Ralston18]

Try using a USB extension cable to move the USB wireless adapter up and away from the host computer.

Being able to move the USB wireless adapter just a small distance could make a difference. Easy to test and try different locations "above" the host computer.

Also helps to keep the USB wireless adapter cool - they can get quite warm and even hot sometimes.....

Another possibility is to turn off any related power savers. With a USB wireless adapter performance may be affected and you may not really be saving much power at all.

 

[bufy16]

Thanks for the response.

It's actually got a decently long cable on it to begin with, so I have it up sitting on the corner of my desk (PC tower is on the floor below). I dont think there's anything else near it that should be interfering.

And I'm pretty sure I have already disabled any power saving settings in device manager, I've tried most solutions I could find out there.. the most reliable being disabling autoconfig but as mentioned that isnt an ideal solve.

I just find it weird that rebooting my pc, seems to solve it just fine for about a week. Then it randomly starts spiking again until I reboot again.

 

[Ralston18]

Reboot the PC to "clear" the spking.

Immediately take a look at system performance via Task Manager and Resource Monitor. Use both tools but only one tool at a time.

Observe system performance when not spiking. Maybe take some screenshoots of the tool for future reference.

Continue watching on a regular basis.

Once the spikes begin again look at Task Manager and Resources Monitor. Determine what, if anything, is now different from performance when the system was not spiking.

Process Explorer (Microsoft, free) can be used as well.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/process-explorer

And pay close attention to the "timing" - i.e., when spiking actually begins again. Noted "about a week" which is okay.

However, there may be something else going on that happens on a weekly basis and that event causes the spiking to begin.

Look in Task Scheduler. Perhaps something being triggered on a weekly basis.

 

[gggplaya]

Try it on a USB 2.0 port, not USB 3.0.

USB 3.0 causes inherent interference with 2.4ghz wifi.

Or you can try locking it to 5ghz wifi only, assuming you have enough signal in your location.