Re: Having large lag spikes on WiFi every 10-15 seconds

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.