Wireless = Massive Lag....

[microwolf96]

Hey guys.. been a while since I've been on. I've been having some trouble with connectivity on my router.

It seems to only be effecting wireless, though. The problem with that, is I don't want to have to buy a 100 ft. Ethernet wire to be able to use the laptop I normally play on.

I have an SMC SMCD3GN router. The wireless connection seems to be very unstable and hits random lag spikes that can last up to 35 seconds or more, and possibly completely drop the connection. These lag spikes usually occur within 2 minutes of eachother or less.

Heres a link to some screenshots of the settings. They're numbered based on which page they're from (Wireless main page = 1, Encryption = 2, etc).

http://www.mediafire.com/?dh0ky1mxyfjwlar

Hopefully I'm not leaving out any information you may need. Thanks in advance!

 

[crackdaddy]

Hey, yea, well gaming on a wireless is always going to be a bit of a daunting task.
And I have the same problem a bit on my sons ps via wireless.
wireless and gaming really don't mix too well and trust me, a cable would not be a bad investment.
But..
Here is some things to try.
Go download this and set your routers channel, to the least used channel of other routers.

http://www.metageek.net/products/inssider/


Make sure your router is away from other electrical devices, like radios, tv's microwaves, etc.

Get someone to help and use that tool above to monitor your signal, and try to find the most powerful spot to put that router, My router spot is on its side, with the antennae at about 1:00 only experimentation and the inssider tool can you find out for sure.

Do a power cycle of your router.
unplug the power wait 30 secs, plug it back in.

If that does not help, try getting a pin and push the reset button on the router and force everything back to the original default settings.

you did not say what kind of connnection speed or quality your getting, 5 bars out of 5 bars or signal strength of 89% or anything, but it may benfit from putting a better, stronger, bigger antannae on your router. Ebay? But I would not expect much of a boost if your only in the next room.

If your not file sharing on your internal network, you could disable encryption, this actually slows down your router slightly.

Lets face it, wireless just does not have the bandwidth we need for gaming, For webbing, and board games, its fine, for FPS, not really. It can be cruising along on my sons pc just fine, when we are just running around, but meet 3 guys and get in a fire fight and boom, a 5 sec pause in the middle of a gun fight or even errors exactly like you experience.

If all fails, Get that cable.
Honestly, there is probably nothing wrong with the router or settings.
But it does not cost a thing to try most of these things.
Good Luck.

 

[microwolf96]

Connection strength is not an issue since I can be right on top of the router with any device and hit these lagspikes. Anywhere in my house I get 4-5 bars constantly, though. I use the laptop and many other wireless devices that connect to that router in a lot of different rooms in my house too. An Ethernet wire isn't really an option for me at the moment.

Sorry if this is a wall of text. I'm typing this on my iPod so I can't tell very easily.

Also, the only other device by the router is a telephone router of some sort that doesn't transmit anything and I've never had a problem with that before, and they've been next to eachother for more than a year.

I'll look at that link when I get home, too.

I'll get back to you with a bit more information after I get home as well.

Peace.

 

[Kevimaster]

Out of curiosity, when you experience lag spikes is it only within the game? Do programs like Ventrilo or just your normal internet get slow as well?

Also, I had a similar issue a while back, when you open a Source game server browser it easily gets to over 1000 servers, and this was flooding my router's NAT table. So, what I had to do at the time was the second I opened the server browser hit "Stop Refresh" before the router was flooded. I stopped experiencing lag when I did that.

Also, the problem isn't simply because you are using a wireless connection, I use a wireless connection and can be downloading files, on Ventrilo, on IRC, and in my game while my family is surfing the net and I experience no lag whatsoever. Granted, whether you are capable of doing this is based off the quality of your router and your Computer's Internet Card, but wireless routers have more than enough power and speed for gaming.

Although, just to troubleshoot I suggest moving your laptop to the router and plugging it straight in, then trying to game. I understand thats not how you would normally play, but try it for a few minutes to see if that resolves your issue before you decide to go out and buy the longer wire.

Also, is anyone else on the connection at the time? If so, could they be using a large amount of Bandwidth, and slowing you down?

 

[crackdaddy]

Kev,

What kind of wireless router do you have exactly?, because I've tried 2 different ones, and it's fine, perfectly fine, when its just running down halls or even shooting one guy down the hall, but run into a firefight and it will actually pause for a few secs. And he's getting a solid 85% signal and its not video lag.

We have a cable speed of 20 megs download speed.

Agree with that, get a short cable, plug it in the router and see if it replicates, if it does, then its not the wireless.

 

[microwolf96]

but run into a firefight and it will actually pause for a few secs.

Whenever I get into a firefight when I'm on wireless, the most that usually happens is my ping goes up by ~5-10 ms. It may not be the router in your case that's causing the delay, it's probably the wireless adapter you use on the computer.

Kev, I experience the lag spikes whenever I am on wireless, no matter what task it is that I'm doing online.

I normally can have uTorrent downloading something, streaming radio playing, and a resource-intensive online game running and experience little to no lag, usually depending on the server I'm playing on in the game.

I've recently done a lot of changes in the room where the router is, and it's helped the problem a bit, but it's still dropping like crazy.

The encryption method was changed from WEP to WPA and the channel the router used was changed to 6 as well, and that helped some, but theres still really bad lag spikes.

Also, I've already tried gaming on the laptop with it plugged in directly, and I experienced absolutely no lag. It's not the wireless adapter, either, since it's effecting all the wireless devices that connect to the router in the house.

We can have all other computers/devices in the house off except for the laptop or my dad's desktop in the garage and they'll still experience the lag spikes.

My dad called Bright House and tomorrow a tech is coming over to look at our router since changing the settings and removing any obstructions doesn't seem to be fixing the problem.

Not sure what else can be done at this point, so eh. Hopefully it gets fixed soon.

Thanks for trying to help, guys.

 

[crackdaddy]

Also, I've already tried gaming on the laptop with it plugged in directly, and I experienced absolutely no lag. It's not the wireless adapter, either, since it's effecting all the wireless devices that connect to the router in the house.

Well, I started to say its not the router then, but that's not necessarily so, as the wireless uses a different portion of the router than the wired one does, let me put it like this, its quite possible to it to work well on the wired side but the wireless side have problems. These can be tough problems to work out, sounds like a few pcs are in use in the house, are people frequently using them at the same time? it could be somethings as simple as that?
I'd run some traceroutes to some of your favorite servers i.p.'s and see if your seeing any hiccups along the way. I suspect your problem is packet loss, not so much ping. What games are you playing? if its CSS you can see your packet loss with net_graph 3 typed into the developers console. GL.

Brighthouse was not very helpful initially when I complained about my packet loss problems in games. But after about 10 calls and a few insistent emails. It got worked out.