Getting rid of ping spikes over wireless?

Dreddybajs

Hi, I'm with NTL, the 20mb package - the router is located in the sitting room, directly below my room, where my PC is. I get a ping of 6-7ms to rte.ie, but every few minutes, the ping will jump up to a couple of hundred ms. This isn't a problem for browsing, but I play games which require ping to be constantly low (mainly fighting games).

I'm connected to the wireless network via a USB key, but the same problem exists using laptops around the house. When I have a computer/console plugged via ethernet cable directly into the router, there are no ping spikes.

What can I do in order to get rid of these spikes, other than running a cable around the house up to my room?

Some_Person

Can you post a trace route from both the wireless connection and the wired connection? tracert www.heanet.ie
Try changing the wireless channel, might be the problem.

eddhorse

Possibly interference? Is there any other wireless in your area ? Netstumbler will give you a free channel to work off

Dreddybajs

Some_Person wrote: »

Can you post a trace route from both the wireless connection and the wired connection? tracert www.heanet.ie
Also, what wireless router do you have?

Tracert: http://i43.tinypic.com/2aamwrt.jpg

The wireless router is the standard one that comes with the NTL package, a Netgear WGR-614 (v9 I think). Sorry for not including this in the OP, I'm a dope!

The only other interference I could think of would be from the cordless phone, which is set up quite close to the router. Would moving that away help?

When the connection isn't spiking, I can max out the 20mb connection pretty easily.

Installing Netstumbler now.

Some_Person

Try changing the wireless channel to something else in the router first, if it still spikes then try plugging out the phone and see if it still happens.

Dreddybajs

It's on Channel "Auto" at the moment, does it matter which I try switching to? There's 01-13.

Netstumbler only sees the one network, the one I'm on.

Some_Person

Does it say which channel it's using in auto mode? Try channel 13 first.

Dreddybajs

Nope, it just says Auto. Have switched to channel 13 now and am running a "ping rte.ie -t". :pac:

edit: After switching to channel 13, there were still jumps to 850ms~ within a minute or two of pinging - normally around 7-10ms.

edit 2: Still spiking with the cordless phone plugged out.

edit 3: Have tried channels 1, 13, and several others in between - still spikes on every channel, even with the phone plugged out.

StopNotWorking

Sorry to say mate but wireless does that. Every so often it will seek out a better connection and reconnect to it. That's where the bad ping comes from. I have the same netgear router and I'm on UPCs 10mb line. In the end I just bought some cable and ran it upstairs along the skirting boards.

Some_Person

What signal strength and connection speed are you getting? Wireless shouldn't spike unless you have a poor signal/interference, I have a Buffalo router and I get constant 1ms pings with a good signal, doesn't even spike too bad until the signal really drops.

Dreddybajs

54mbps, usually excellent signal strength, occasionally drops to very good. For the moment I've dragged a ridiculously long ethernet cable up to the room anyway. :pac:

edit: And StopNotWorking, I have friends who use wireless for the same games I do with no ping problems - not on NTL though I don't think. Could it be NTL-specific?

Some_Person

That's why I asked you to do the trace, to see where the problem is, pinging your router had <1ms latency so I assume that was with a wired connection, pings looked fine on NTL's side.
What wireless card are you using in your computer?

Dreddybajs

The tracert was done on wireless, I only changed to wired just before I made my last post.

I'm using some generic USB wireless key, not a card, though any laptop I test out, no matter what the wireless card, still has the spikes, even if it's in the same room as the router.

StopNotWorking

Dreddybajs wrote: »

54mbps, usually excellent signal strength, occasionally drops to very good. For the moment I've dragged a ridiculously long ethernet cable up to the room anyway. :pac:

edit: And StopNotWorking, I have friends who use wireless for the same games I do with no ping problems - not on NTL though I don't think. Could it be NTL-specific?

If it is then F them :pac:

Only cable I had before them was eircom and wireless wasn't around then..

You could try install a wireless card in your computer, those will give better connections but I'm sure that the problem you are having is the same one I dealt with. Literally every 2 minutes I would get a 1-2 second spike that would leave me dead. Serves me right for playing teh vidya so much :rolleyes:

Some_Person

Can you try 802.11B only mode in either the router or the Wifi adapter? You will have lower speeds(speeds aren't needed ingame anyway) but might help latency.

Dreddybajs

StopNotWorking: Yep that sounds like the exact same problem.

Some Person: I'll try that in a while, thanks for all the help.

Some_Person

Another thing I forgot, you should check the settings of the adapter and make sure it is set to maximum performance instead of saving power, probably done through device manager.