Question Spiking Internet speeds

[3mplify]

My dad's old computer had consistent high internet speeds but his is right next to the modem, meanwhile, mine is on the other side of the house, but I use a "NETGEAR Orbi Whole Home Tri-band Mesh WiFi 6 System (RBK752) – Router with 1 Satellite Extender | Coverage up to 5,000 sq. ft., 40 Devices | AX4200 (Up to 4.2Gbps)" (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B086HJXKJJ?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details&th=1) and am connected via ethernet through that router, my ethernet cable being used is "Cat 8 Ethernet Cable 5 ft Shielded, Indoor&Outdoor, Heavy Duty High Speed Direct Burial 26AWG Cat8 Network Wire, 40Gbps 2000Mhz SFTP Patch Cord, In Wall&Weatherproof RJ45 Cable for Router/Modem/Xbox" (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07QZH6C8F?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details)

I am on Windows 10 Pro and I have a "GIGABYTE X570 AORUS Elite Wi-Fi (AMD Ryzen 3000/X570/ATX/PCIe4.0/DDR4/Intel Dual Band 802.11AC Wi-Fi/Front USB Type-C/RGB Fusion 2.0/M.2 Thermal Guard/Gaming Motherboard)" (https://www.amazon.com/Gigabyte-X57...aorus+elite+wifi+,electronics,106&sr=1-1&th=1)
I also just recently bought a network adapter for my computer as well because I thought that might've been the problem, but it didn't really change anything (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BHW8BJVZ?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details)
My ISP is Xfinity and the modem I have is a xFi Gateway.

My steam download speeds are the same way, but it seems like when I stop the download for a bit, then start it up again, it seems good and consistent for about 20 seconds, then goes back to spiking between nothing and high speeds.

 

[bill001g]

First the cable you have is highly likely a fake cable. Real cat8 cables are used in data centers and are extremely expensive so you are not going to find them on amazon. There are big issues using shielded cable with home user grade equipment and the wires are too small. Cable that do not meet the standards for ethernet are hard to say how well they will perform. At short distance any garbage wire can sometime work fine. Unless you have 10gbit ports you only need cat5e and faster just is a waste of money.

Check the event log and see if the ethernet port is going down. It is not real likely and you tend to notice the icon change on the desktop but there is the rare chance it is the cause of your issue.

What I suspect the large part of your issue is you technically are not running ethernet. I strongly suspect you followed the fancy marketing garbage rather than read the manual and place the remote mesh unit in your room. What you are basically doing is using the mesh unit as a wifi nic card that is connect with a ethernet cable rather than say USB. If you get poor wifi signal in your room the mesh unit will get the same poor wifi signal. A remote mesh unit must be placed where it can get strong signal from the main router and still be able to send the wifi signal to the remote room. In theory you could place the repeater/mesh unit say 1/2 between you and the router and then run a long ethenet cable to the unit. You in effect move your pc wifi adapter closer to the router without moving the pc.

It is highly likely your issue is poor wifi signal in your room. There is no simple way to fix that. You can try the standard use other radio bands or change the channel etc but it likely will make no difference. You can not fix the fact that your neighbors are likely sending garbage into your house interfering with weak signal from your main router. You could also try proper placement of the remote unit and then try the wifi card in your machine.

Your best option is to look for a way to not use wifi for your connection. Real ethernet all the way is the best but tend to not be a option for many people. If you have coax jacks in both rooms you can look at MoCA which can easily get 1gbit with low latency.
The next option would be powerline networks. It can be slower than some wifi but the speeds and latency tend to be very consistent which is important for people who play online games.

 

[KM23]

The Orbi is decent. I have used it with 2/3 Satellites for quite some time. Mines has the backhaul option, which I mostly use - the Satellites are not cheap, but it may be worth the investment if hardwiring is not an option - if you get the satellites as close to each other as possible, they work just as well as hardwiring it in my experience.

 

[3mplify]

First the cable you have is highly likely a fake cable. Real cat8 cables are used in data centers and are extremely expensive so you are not going to find them on amazon. There are big issues using shielded cable with home user grade equipment and the wires are too small. Cable that do not meet the standards for ethernet are hard to say how well they will perform. At short distance any garbage wire can sometime work fine. Unless you have 10gbit ports you only need cat5e and faster just is a waste of money.

Check the event log and see if the ethernet port is going down. It is not real likely and you tend to notice the icon change on the desktop but there is the rare chance it is the cause of your issue.

What I suspect the large part of your issue is you technically are not running ethernet. I strongly suspect you followed the fancy marketing garbage rather than read the manual and place the remote mesh unit in your room. What you are basically doing is using the mesh unit as a wifi nic card that is connect with a ethernet cable rather than say USB. If you get poor wifi signal in your room the mesh unit will get the same poor wifi signal. A remote mesh unit must be placed where it can get strong signal from the main router and still be able to send the wifi signal to the remote room. In theory you could place the repeater/mesh unit say 1/2 between you and the router and then run a long ethenet cable to the unit. You in effect move your pc wifi adapter closer to the router without moving the pc.

It is highly likely your issue is poor wifi signal in your room. There is no simple way to fix that. You can try the standard use other radio bands or change the channel etc but it likely will make no difference. You can not fix the fact that your neighbors are likely sending garbage into your house interfering with weak signal from your main router. You could also try proper placement of the remote unit and then try the wifi card in your machine.

Your best option is to look for a way to not use wifi for your connection. Real ethernet all the way is the best but tend to not be a option for many people. If you have coax jacks in both rooms you can look at MoCA which can easily get 1gbit with low latency.
The next option would be powerline networks. It can be slower than some wifi but the speeds and latency tend to be very consistent which is important for people who play online games.

Before I used the Orbi Satelitte, I had hardwired my ethernet from my modem via like, a 75 or 100 ft ethernet cable, and I would have the same issue

 

[bill001g]

I would try to use a ethernet cable again the wifi connection in the middle is going to confuse any testing you can do by injecting random data errors. Since this is extremely common issue on wifi it tends to be very hard to test anything when you have a wifi connection.

Your first test is to leave a constant ping run to say 8.8.8.8 while you run the download to see if you are getting packet loss. It should affect both machines in your house but it is best to check this. You can also ping the router IP but it almost never gets outage on ethernet, it is extremely common on wifi which is why it will damage any results. On ethernet it can happen if you used that flat ethernet cable rather than a real ethernet cable that has proper wire size. It is much more common on long runs.

If this is fine then you have some software on your machine causing it. Common ones are so called "gamer" network software that comes bundled in the bloatware with motherboard and video cards. A common name is cfosspeed but any QoS or anything that claims to favor one kind of traffic over another should be uninstalled.

Steam itself does strange stuff at times. Maybe try download a large windows install image from microsoft and watch the download speed in the resource monitor to see if the speed jumps around.