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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 thi...
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%.
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.