High ping spikes, even from the laptop to the router, what's going on?

[Drinkyoghurt]

I've been having latency issues for a very long time now and I just can't seem to sort them. I have an Alienware 13R3 which came with the Killer 1535 wireless card. I also have a Fritz!box 6360 wireless modem/router.

My hardware
I have an Alienware 13R3 which came with the Killer 1535 wireless card. I recently switched it out to the Intel AC9260 with no real resolve for the issue. My router is a Fritz!box 6360 with the latest firmware. I have cable internet with 100mb down and 6mb up, I reach around 80mb download with wireless.


The issue
I have been getting massive ping spikes upward to 1000ms+ whilst gaming. It doesn't really matter which game I play, it happens all the time, sometimes a lot, sometimes hardly at all. I usually get thrown out of servers because of this and can't enjoy games that well. This issue also extends to watching Youtube videos. I've already scanned the neighbourhood and selected the channel with the least saturation.

Recently I've tried pinging the router only to notice that I sometimes get spikes upwards to 93ms



Running this ping test gives me a lot of spikes in the 20ms-50ms range with occasional 100ms+ spikes.

I've tried swapping out the cards and it doesn't really matter that much. Initially I thought the Killer card was to blame but I'm having the same exact issue on the Intel card. Can anyone help me out with this? I feel like the problem is definitely router sided but can't figure out what it is.

 

[ATMINSIDE]

Have you tried this wired instead of wireless?

 

[Drinkyoghurt]

Nope, because I don't have a cable long enough to run from the room next door to mine and currently don't have the funds to go out and buy one just for the sake of testing. The router is in the room next to mine maybe 3m away. I'm getting full signal strength and what seems like nearly full download speeds.

The network cards don't have this issue if I'm gaming at someone else's place.

 

[ATMINSIDE]

Sounds like the router then. That model looks like it is ISP provided, have you seen if they'll replace the router?

 

[JrClocker]

Have you tried different wireless channels? If you live in close proximity to other folks with wireless and you are using the same channels you can get this.

Additionally, many devices plop "noise" into 2.4 GHz...microwaves, wireless landline phones, etc.

Does the wireless have a 5 GHz band available? 5 GHz has less range (distance wise) but is also faster. There are not many non-WiFi devices that operate at 5 Ghz either...so you can go from crappy reliability at 2.4 GHz to solid at 5 GHz. Me personally, I always try to use 5 GHz for this reason.

 

[Drinkyoghurt]

Sounds like the router then. That model looks like it is ISP provided, have you seen if they'll replace the router?

That's the thing. I moved in a shared apartment and nobody knows anything about this kind of stuff. However, switching to 5GHz band seems to have fixed the issue. The only worry I have is one of my housemates has an older IBM thinkpad and I'm not sure if it can handle 5GHz bands but we'll find out soon.

Have you tried different wireless channels? If you live in close proximity to other folks with wireless and you are using the same channels you can get this.

Additionally, many devices plop "noise" into 2.4 GHz...microwaves, wireless landline phones, etc.

Does the wireless have a 5 GHz band available? 5 GHz has less range (distance wise) but is also faster. There are not many non-WiFi devices that operate at 5 Ghz either...so you can go from crappy reliability at 2.4 GHz to solid at 5 GHz. Me personally, I always try to use 5 GHz for this reason.

I already used the least crowded channel for the 2.4GHz band, but switching to 5GHz seems to have fixed the problem.

 

[JrClocker]

That's the thing. I moved in a shared apartment and nobody knows anything about this kind of stuff. However, switching to 5GHz band seems to have fixed the issue. The only worry I have is one of my housemates has an older IBM thinkpad and I'm not sure if it can handle 5GHz bands but we'll find out soon.



I already used the least crowded channel for the 2.4GHz band, but switching to 5GHz seems to have fixed the problem.

You should be able to run 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz networks at the same time.

 

[Drinkyoghurt]

Nope, not on this router. It's either 2.4GHz or 5Ghz which sucks because our repeater is 2.4GHz. Will have to inquire at our ISP to see what the deal is with the modem/router

 

[JrClocker]

Nope, not on this router. It's either 2.4GHz or 5Ghz which sucks because our repeater is 2.4GHz. Will have to inquire at our ISP to see what the deal is with the modem/router

That’s a good idea. My ISP will upgrade equipment for free if you ask them...

 

[Drinkyoghurt]

That’s a good idea. My ISP will upgrade equipment for free if you ask them...

I talked with my ISP, they told me to speak with the manufacturer and have them make a support ticket (I live in Germany). The manufacturer just said: "this thing is so old we don't support it anymore" and wrote it in the ticket. Long story short, I'm getting a new modem/router from my ISP with simultaneous 2.4GHz/5GHz support and Wireless AC.

 

[ATMINSIDE]

Woohoo! Upgrade!