Question Streaming lags and freezes

[verdugo]

Hi guys. I'm having issues when i watch TV at home. The images on shows, news and sports events gets choppy, then lags and ultimately freezes on me completely. Interestingly enough the audio continues on real time. I check my speed with my provider, Spectrum, and it shows a download speed of 116.3 but then i went to MySpeed to verify and it shows 24.37. I'm a little confused by the discrepancy. Anyways, I verified my connection with Hulu and also my Smart TV, Sony X900 and everything check but it keeps freezing on me. My question for you guys is, is my speed enough for streaming shows and sports events? Is MySpeed verification number reliable and why the discrepancy? Anything else I might've missed is appreciated. Thanks in advance.

 

[bill001g]

What is "myspeed". You want to test with one of the larger testing platforms. The most common is speedtest.com.

The problem you have with any speed testing is it only shows you the data rates between you and that one server. If you test to different servers you will get different rates. On the speedtest.com site you can choose servers from different ISP in the same city or in different cities or even different countries.

I suspect though your problem is not the bandwidth. Even if you only get 24mbps that is almost enough to watch 4k video from netflix. If you are watching at lower resolution it will not use as much.

What I suspect is happening is you are getting data loss.

Data loss is extremely common on a wifi network because of things like wifi usage by your neighbors interfering. If you can run other ethernet that is always recommended.

With a TV it is hard to do much testing becuase they have limited tools. If it does this on a PC also then you can do better trouble shooting.

The basic test are going to be to run constant ping to your router IP to see if you are losing the data inside your house. The next is to run ping to a network IP like 8.8.8.8 to see if you have a generic network problem or if the problem is only to certain servers. There are other steps like running tracert and ping various hops but it all depends on what you find. With a TV I am not sure how to recommend you do testing.

 

[verdugo]

Thanks for your response Bill. MySpeed is a testing website. I believe that you are into something here since i've been having issues with my range expander connecting to my router. It may not be my router but my Netgear range expander. It is struggling to connect to my router. The little light that shows connection goes from Orange to Red to Orange and then Green. Its all over the place. That could be the culprit. Btw, i'm using an Asus AC1750 (RT=AC66W) wireless router.

 

[verdugo]

Well, looks like the problem is solved. After unplugging everything and plugging it in again I saw the little hole in the range expander with the writing " Reset to factory settings" . I figured why not so I did. The range expander sees my router without a hitch and I watched TV for over half an hour without any lagging. I had several Hulu upgrades in the last mths plus the electricity went out several times too due to thunderstorms in my area. Dunno, maybe something got out of whack in the process.