Ping Spikes - Can you help me figure out what's causing it?

Basar

Fellow forumers, I need your help. I am an occasional gamer and whenever I play a game online, my ping spikes to around 200 every 3-4 minutes for 10 seconds or so. I am on a 50 mbit/s connection and I usually hover around 10-20 ms so I am not sure if it's something on my computer or another device on my network. We have 2 laptops, 2 iPhones and 2 iPads and a Chromebox hooked to the TV at home but this happens even when nothing else is being actively used. Is there an application for Windows that can check on my router and see which application or IP is causing it? Many thanks.

Noizlanif

Which game are you playing when the spikes happen? I know some older installations of games might have programs running in the background. I think as far as simple choices, I believe windows has a network "watcher" that kind of gives a graph of whats going in / out.

hsu

Good routers have QoS (Quality of Service) advanced settings that let you prioritize online game traffic over other network traffic like Netflix. Giving your online game priority helps a lot, with near zero effect on your Netflix streams (as they buffer anyways).

Shadowfire

Can you tell us what router you have? A model would be great.

dispatch.o

Modem could also be end of life. What model do you have?

Basar

Noizlanif wrote: »

Which game are you playing when the spikes happen? I know some older installations of games might have programs running in the background. I think as far as simple choices, I believe windows has a network "watcher" that kind of gives a graph of whats going in / out.

hsu wrote: »

Good routers have QoS (Quality of Service) advanced settings that let you prioritize online game traffic over other network traffic like Netflix. Giving your online game priority helps a lot, with near zero effect on your Netflix streams (as they buffer anyways).

Shadowfire wrote: »

Can you tell us what router you have? A model would be great.

Thank you for the responses.

Playing CS mostly.

Unfortunately my router is a Huawei HG253s that my ISP gave me (not sure if you have it in the US). I looked in the admin menu and couldn't find any page that lets me put a rule for which application or protocol should have priority.

Shadowfire

There may not be QoS settings on the router. I'm really not familiar with that router as it doesn't look like it's available in the US. Maybe contract your isp about getting a new one?

How does your connection work? It looks like you might have fiber? In the US, the fiber connections I've worked with have been a box on the outside of the house, and an Ethernet that runs inside to hit the router. Is that the case with yours? If so, you can plug a decent router in there instead.

dispatch.o

If you're trying to game on WiFi that's sort of the norm for a lot of people. You should be able to go to the router config and check on bandwidth use and connections. I wouldn't be terribly surprised if you have a neighbor who's using your connection.

*By sort of the norm I mean WiFi is shit for playing games. Netflix / Movie services can buffer and it's more about bandwidth than ping. Dropped packets and poor signal quality don't impact streaming stuff much, but it makes any FPS nearly unplayable.

Basar

Shadowfire wrote: »

There may not be QoS settings on the router. I'm really not familiar with that router as it doesn't look like it's available in the US. Maybe contract your isp about getting a new one?

How does your connection work? It looks like you might have fiber? In the US, the fiber connections I've worked with have been a box on the outside of the house, and an Ethernet that runs inside to hit the router. Is that the case with yours? If so, you can plug a decent router in there instead.

Yeah, I don't think there's a QoS setting on my router. I looked on my ISP's website and while it seems like they offer different routers to ADSL and cable customers, this is the only router they offer to their fiber customers.

I live in an apartment building so they have a box at the basement and from there they run a line to each apartment and each unit has its own modem and router. The modem is also a Huawei unit but I am not sure about the model number.

dispatch.o wrote: »

If you're trying to game on WiFi that's sort of the norm for a lot of people. You should be able to go to the router config and check on bandwidth use and connections. I wouldn't be terribly surprised if you have a neighbor who's using your connection.

*By sort of the norm I mean WiFi is shit for playing games. Netflix / Movie services can buffer and it's more about bandwidth than ping. Dropped packets and poor signal quality don't impact streaming stuff much, but it makes any FPS nearly unplayable.

I am pretty sure no neighbour is using my connection as I have the MAC filter on and a pretty strong wifi password with numbers, letters, characters, etc. I'll try to connect my computer to the router with an ethernet cable and see if the problem persists. If not, then it's a wifi issue. Thanks.

bowen

CS and CS:GO are especially finicky to shared computer situations. Any web request on your network will cause a small 20-50 ms ping increase. You'd really need to get a router that supports bandwidth restriction for port 80 or QoS.

Shadowfire

Basar wrote: »

Shadowfire wrote: »

There may not be QoS settings on the router. I'm really not familiar with that router as it doesn't look like it's available in the US. Maybe contract your isp about getting a new one?

How does your connection work? It looks like you might have fiber? In the US, the fiber connections I've worked with have been a box on the outside of the house, and an Ethernet that runs inside to hit the router. Is that the case with yours? If so, you can plug a decent router in there instead.

Yeah, I don't think there's a QoS setting on my router. I looked on my ISP's website and while it seems like they offer different routers to ADSL and cable customers, this is the only router they offer to their fiber customers.

I live in an apartment building so they have a box at the basement and from there they run a line to each apartment and each unit has its own modem and router. The modem is also a Huawei unit but I am not sure about the model number.

So if you have your own modem and router, what's stopping you from putting in your own router?

Also, any chance you could connect your computer via Ethernet directly to your modem without the router in the way? Just to test for a night.

Basar

Shadowfire wrote: »

Basar wrote: »

Shadowfire wrote: »

There may not be QoS settings on the router. I'm really not familiar with that router as it doesn't look like it's available in the US. Maybe contract your isp about getting a new one?

How does your connection work? It looks like you might have fiber? In the US, the fiber connections I've worked with have been a box on the outside of the house, and an Ethernet that runs inside to hit the router. Is that the case with yours? If so, you can plug a decent router in there instead.

Yeah, I don't think there's a QoS setting on my router. I looked on my ISP's website and while it seems like they offer different routers to ADSL and cable customers, this is the only router they offer to their fiber customers.

I live in an apartment building so they have a box at the basement and from there they run a line to each apartment and each unit has its own modem and router. The modem is also a Huawei unit but I am not sure about the model number.

So if you have your own modem and router, what's stopping you from putting in your own router?

Also, any chance you could connect your computer via Ethernet directly to your modem without the router in the way? Just to test for a night.

I really would like to buy a better router with increased range and more features but I am a bit low on funds at the moment to buy one as electronics are pretty expensive here in Turkey due to high VAT (18%) and another tax that's specifically aimed at imported electronic goods (20%).

A friend has a spare TP-Link router though and I see that on Amazon it has gotten good reviews. I can get it (link) off his hands for about $15, would you recommend this model? I think it has QoS.

Djeet

Before investing money in a new router ID check to see if you have the problem over a wired Ethernet connection as Shadowfire suggested. Lots of things can potentially cause wifi interference like Bluetooth devices, cordless phones, microwaves (granted those wouldn't cycle very 3-4 minutes continuously), baby monitors, pretty much any wireless device. If you still get it over Ethernet then it's probably either the router itself or some piece of software running in the background. Do you have any apps/or services that phone home or sync regularly?

Shadowfire

Well yes, but I'd also really like him to test the connection without the router. Make sure the problem is just that hardware and not something else with his ISP.

Basar

Thank Djeet & Shadowfire, I have been getting home really late so didn't get a chance to look around the house for an ethernet cable and test it out but will surely do on the weekend. I'll bump this once I get off my lab coat and have some results Cheers.

Basar

Ok I finally got a chance to grab a 20m cat5 cable. Will try that later tomorrow and let you all know

Another question I have is: I am going to run this cable from the router to my room. Can I plug it into a switch and run two shorter cat5 cables to both my desktop and laptop? Will that cause any IP confusion on the network? As far as I know and I probably know it wrong, the router would assign an IP to my switch and then the switch would assign two new IPs on its own?

Tofystedeth

Basar wrote: »

Ok I finally got a chance to grab a 20m cat5 cable. Will try that later tomorrow and let you all know

Another question I have is: I am going to run this cable from the router to my room. Can I plug it into a switch and run two shorter cat5 cables to both my desktop and laptop? Will that cause any IP confusion on the network? As far as I know and I probably know it wrong, the router would assign an IP to my switch and then the switch would assign two new IPs on its own?

Close. It's probably an unmanaged switch, so it won't ask for an IP from the router. It'll just shuttle packets from the devices on the LAN side of the switch, to the router, and the router handles IP management. That is assuming that it is a switch and not another router. If it is another router you can put it in bridge mode, and it will just act like a switch.

Basar

@dispatch.o @Shadowfire @Djeet @Tofystedeth

Running a cable solved all ping issues. Thanks again :biggrin:

BlazeFire

I don't think you did this, but if you want to remain on WiFi, look into changing the channel you're using. I was having similar problems. Switched to a less congested channel and it was amazingly better.

Basar

BlazeFire wrote: »

I don't think you did this, but if you want to remain on WiFi, look into changing the channel you're using. I was having similar problems. Switched to a less congested channel and it was amazingly better.

I did try changing channels but it didn't help much. Thanks for the suggestion though!