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Forum Discussion
Having large lag spikes on WiFi every 10-15 seconds
Good day forums,
I finally made the jump to a mesh network last month with the RBK50, one additional satellite, and one plug in satellite. So far it has been great- I have a large old home with thick walls like a fortress, and many smart devices- camera door bell, 4 security cameras, smoke detectors, locks, 50+ smart lights, music system, Rachio, Apple TV, etc.
My home PC is about 12 feet from the router, and just the past few days my online gaming as well as internet browsing and streaming videos is interrupted by large bursts of lag to the tune of 2500ms. The rest of the time it is 22ms. I tried a hardwire Ethernet cable and the issue goes away (not an option though, cord was going from one room down hall to another). Tried my wife’s Apple laptop and similar issues. Comcast confirmed through a long service call that the ping is normal on their end with no spikes. I have an Arris surfboard SB8200. FW is latest version, updates just a week or two ago. Not sure where to begin, as I spent a decent chunk of change in this system and the lag spikes defeat the purpose of gigabit internet for gaming and streaming. Thanks in advance!
I finally made the jump to a mesh network last month with the RBK50, one additional satellite, and one plug in satellite. So far it has been great- I have a large old home with thick walls like a fortress, and many smart devices- camera door bell, 4 security cameras, smoke detectors, locks, 50+ smart lights, music system, Rachio, Apple TV, etc.
My home PC is about 12 feet from the router, and just the past few days my online gaming as well as internet browsing and streaming videos is interrupted by large bursts of lag to the tune of 2500ms. The rest of the time it is 22ms. I tried a hardwire Ethernet cable and the issue goes away (not an option though, cord was going from one room down hall to another). Tried my wife’s Apple laptop and similar issues. Comcast confirmed through a long service call that the ping is normal on their end with no spikes. I have an Arris surfboard SB8200. FW is latest version, updates just a week or two ago. Not sure where to begin, as I spent a decent chunk of change in this system and the lag spikes defeat the purpose of gigabit internet for gaming and streaming. Thanks in advance!
19 Replies
I would start with a complete cold reboot of modem, orbi and PCs to see if this was an anomaly.
What firmware are you running?
Have you examined your radio frequency (RF) spectrum for overlapping channels etc? Are you in an area that may have other people competing for same channel space?
I would get a Wifi analyzer app (free) and examine if you may have cochannel interference before anything else. The solution may be as simple as moving your channel into a clearer RF space.
What FW is currently loaded?
What is the Mfr and model# of the ISP modem the NG router is connected too?
Is the Orbi system operating in Router or AP mode?
What is the size of your home? Sq Ft?
What is the distance between the router and satellite(s)? 30 feet is recommended in between them to begin with depending upon building materials.What channels are you using? Auto? Try setting manual channel 1, 6 or 11 on 2.4Ghz and any unused channel on 5Ghz.
Any Wifi Neighbors near by? If so, how many?
What WPA security modes are you using?Try enabling Beamforming and MIMO.
Try disabling the following and see:
Daisy Chain, Fast Roaming, IPv6 and Set 20/40Mhz Coexistence to 40Mhz only. Save settings and reboot the router and satellite(s).
Destructormode wrote:
Good day forums,
I finally made the jump to a mesh network last month with the RBK50, one additional satellite, and one plug in satellite. So far it has been great- I have a large old home with thick walls like a fortress, and many smart devices- camera door bell, 4 security cameras, smoke detectors, locks, 50+ smart lights, music system, Rachio, Apple TV, etc.
My home PC is about 12 feet from the router, and just the past few days my online gaming as well as internet browsing and streaming videos is interrupted by large bursts of lag to the tune of 2500ms. The rest of the time it is 22ms. I tried a hardwire Ethernet cable and the issue goes away (not an option though, cord was going from one room down hall to another). Tried my wife’s Apple laptop and similar issues. Comcast confirmed through a long service call that the ping is normal on their end with no spikes. I have an Arris surfboard SB8200. FW is latest version, updates just a week or two ago. Not sure where to begin, as I spent a decent chunk of change in this system and the lag spikes defeat the purpose of gigabit internet for gaming and streaming. Thanks in advance!Sorry, was out of town for a few days for work. Back now forthe foreseeable future. I was hoping this would have resolved itself, but it is still here. Is it possible my Asus USB-AC68 wifi adapter is just on its way out? Maybed it is not compatible with some new W10 update or something?
What FW is currently loaded? 2.2.1.210
What is the Mfr and model# of the ISP modem the NG router is connected too? Arris Surfboard SB8200
Is the Orbi system operating in Router or AP mode? router mpode
What is the size of your home? Sq Ft? 4200
What is the distance between the router and satellite(s)? 30 feet is recommended in between them to begin with depending upon building materials. ~15 feetWhat channels are you using? Auto? Try setting manual channel 1, 6 or 11 on 2.4Ghz and any unused channel on 5Ghz. swtiched from auto to manual 2.4ghz 11 and 5ghz 58
Any Wifi Neighbors near by? If so, how many? 4-5 depending on day
What WPA security modes are you using? WEP-PSKTry enabling Beamforming and MIMO.
Try disabling the following and see:
Daisy Chain, Fast Roaming, IPv6 and Set 20/40Mhz Coexistence to 40Mhz only. Save settings and reboot the router and satellite(s).Often we start chasing complex problems when the answer may be simple and right in front of you.
Have you rebooted the cable modem from a totally power off condition (after letting it sit for about 1 minute)?
Want to make sure it isnt the cable system acting wonky before we start tearing into the router.
Do wired devices have the same lag spikes?
Can you describe also your environment? (urban, highrise, etc) -- it may be that you have RF competition.
When the PC is wired directly to the Orbi router, gaming operates as you expect, but when using WiFi, there are regular interruptions about every 15 seconds. And, both the PC and a Mac have the same problem on WiFi. How did you arrive at the measurements of 22ms vs. 2500ms?
The obvious conclusion is that something is affecting your WiFi signal every 15 seconds. Many WiFi analyzer apps are set to sweep once per second. When you watch the "moving graph" of the signal levels of access points (yours and others nearby), does your router signal drop every 15 seconds. (The analyzer on my Android phone app calls it "Time Graph".) It is normal for WiFi signals to "appear and disappear", but a regular pattern may indicate that some neighbor's system is affecting yours.
With a house full of devices, there is a chance that you have inadverdantly created a network loop that is allowing broadcast packets to create a "storm" that overwhelms the WiFi signal. Some networked sound systems have been reported to have issues when connected to the home WiFi network and their own private WiFi network at the same time.
When you connect to the Orbi "debug page" (usually 192.168.1.1/debug.htm), what does it show for CPU load? (i.e. every time the screen pops up, immediately refresh the screen. For example, my Orbi reports values from 6% to 45%, but is typically between 10% and 20%.
Ugh, man this is killing me, these 2500 spikes are destroying my expereince.
Connected Devices -
2 Nest Thermostats
5 Nest smoke detectors
1 Ring Doorbell and 3 Ring cameras
1 Smartlock
4 Google Home speakers
1 Apple TV
50+ Smartlights
Important to note, nothing is actually running through a direct connection to the router or satellits, everything is wi-fi enabled. I moved my channel to one that was not occupied by my neighboorhood as well.
Sorry, I got in a hurry and didn't finish. I would refresh the Orbi debug screen for at least a full minute (maybe two), hoping to catch at least a couple of those 15 second spikes. (Sounds like a long time, but my screen takes six seconds to refresh. I also have no idea what Orbi is reporting for CPU Load. Is it since the last report? The last six seconds? No idea.) If the CPU hits over 90% about every 15 seconds, that might be part of the problem. On the other hand, if the CPU never goes over 50%, whatever is happening is not affecting the Orbi.
Back in my networking days, we would occasionally get ourselves into a "spanning tree" problem where there multiple paths through the network to the same device. If the device decided to repeat a broadcast, that same broadcast would come back around and it would repeat it again, faster and faster until the network would just die. Sophisticated network switches employ a "spanning tree algorithm" to detect and prevent that. (Here my memory has gone blank.) The "bottom line" is that Ethernet networks although surprisingly robust, have distinct vulnerabilities.
I am tempted to suggest capturing some traffic, but I am not convinced that would be productive. (There is another option on the debug screen to "Enable LAN/WAN Packet Capture." Let it run for two minutes, save the file to the PC, and look at it using Wireshark. (1) This may be more technical than you are comfortable with, and (2) I am not confident that it would show anything. The LAN interface does not seem to be affected by whatever is happening.
Another suggestion is to turn some things off and see if the problem goes away. Using a binary search, for example, you could turn off half of the WiFi devices in the house and see if the problem goes away. If not, probably none of them are the cause. If so, then restore half of the devices and check again. I would start by powering off the sound systems.
I refreshed the debug screen a number of times in a row, and here are my values:
17
25
17
14
43
12
48
19
47
14
14
43
28
19
37
15
This was done after I confirmed the spikes were actively happeneing.
When the spikes occur, what network are you on? 5G or 2.4?
If you can test to see if the spikes are on only one band that would be useful. If it is on both bands, it would indicate either the backhaul is having issues or the Orbi itself is problematic.
There is a new version of firmware in beta testing that has resolved some backhaul issues as well as some others... perhaps it would be faster for you to join the beta, update your firmware and see if that resolves the issue.
The beta test link is here if you want to try that approach
