WiFi Lag Spikes and Inconsistent Connection

[Tnick03]

Hi, everyone. So I have been have a NETGEAR Nighthawk AC1900 router and a TP-LINK TL-WN881ND WiFi PCI-E card. I have been having very inconsistent and slow connection, especially in games. I will be fine for a couple seconds then my ping will spike up a ton then repeat. I'm not sure what could be causing this problem. I have already turned off auto config and that seemed to help for a little bit but now its back. Wired connection is not an option for me. I'm not sure what methods I can take to fix this or if I should just buy a new wifi card or what.

 

[jossrik]

What are the positions of the router/card? If you've got walls between them and are trying to connect on the 5Ghz band, that would be the first problem. The card might be at fault, can't rule that out, but if it's working at all, it should be working right, usually when there's a problem it's catastrophic, but not always. You could try better antennas on the router and the card, also, you can get antennas with cables with them so you can place them several feet away from the card to get better reception. The 2.4 Ghz band passes through obstacles easier, try to force that. The router needs to be plugged in and so does your computer, so a powerline adapter is not out of the options. I use one and I have line of sight to my router, just the performance is shotty over wireless from all the other wireless stuff in the middle plus the microwave etc etc.

 

[Tnick03]

What are the positions of the router/card? If you've got walls between them and are trying to connect on the 5Ghz band, that would be the first problem. The card might be at fault, can't rule that out, but if it's working at all, it should be working right, usually when there's a problem it's catastrophic, but not always. You could try better antennas on the router and the card, also, you can get antennas with cables with them so you can place them several feet away from the card to get better reception. The 2.4 Ghz band passes through obstacles easier, try to force that. The router needs to be plugged in and so does your computer, so a powerline adapter is not out of the options. I use one and I have line of sight to my router, just the performance is shotty over wireless from all the other wireless stuff in the middle plus the microwave etc etc.

My router is upstairs and my PC is downstairs. I am on a 2.4ghz band. I have tried a powerline adapter but it did not work in my house.