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Netgear XR500 Nighthawk - 5th router - please help

vervan
Tutor

Netgear XR500 Nighthawk - 5th router - please help

I've been trying to troubleshoot for months. I have a pc that is connected to the router via a Cat8 cable. This XR500 Nighthawk is the fifth router I've bought to try to help with the lag and high ping in Fortnite. With this latest router, I spent an hour-and-a-half on the phone with technical support. They took control of the settings and tried many things. None of them solved the high ping. In my research for my next steps, I read one lone person said they had luck with a Cat8 cable... so I ordered two. One to go from the modem (a non-Puma Intel 6) to the router, and one to go from the router to my pc. Volia! After months of frustration, I seemed to have finallly found the needle in the haystack.

 

So it's actually my son who plays. He has had ping ranging from 15-30... 90% of the time. Yay. Much better than the 50-70 ping before switching cables, but still not quite right. Last week I noticed the ethernet light on the port his pc is plugged into was orange. I discovered his network adapter's Speed & Duplex value was set to 100Mpbs Full Duplex. We should be getting 400Mbps so I switched it to Auto Negotiation and BAM. His ping is now back up to 50-70. I switched it back, but the damage is done. I can't figure out how it got changed in the first place, and why changing that made his ping shoot back up. I thought I was fixing the other 10% of the time, but instead it's like I'm back to square one. 

 

Can someone please help? I absolutely love PCs and troubleshooting, but I just don't know what my next step should be.

 

 

Message 1 of 17
Netduma-Fraser
NetDuma Partner

Re: Netgear XR500 Nighthawk - 5th router - please help

Could you explain your physical setup e.g. ISP hub (wifi with some devices connected) > XR500 > just sons PC? Also are you making use of the QoS/Geo-Filter on the router at all or are you just plugging and playing in that regard? What is your rough location and is the region in game settings reflective of your location also?
Message 2 of 17
vervan
Tutor

Re: Netgear XR500 Nighthawk - 5th router - please help

Sure. Modem to XR500 via Cat8. Cat8 to son's PC, and Cat6 to mine. I counted 23 WiFi devices - not all online, and no different, nor more than before I changed the speed on his network adapter. 

 

Midwest location. Geo-Filter radius set to 300 miles to try and only join Ohio servers vs Virgina. Yes, he picks closet game server location as well.

 

QOS - Anti-Bufferbloat  set to "When High Priority Traffic Detected. (Netgear customer service turned it to off). I had up and down set to 90%. I just read to set both at 70% but it hasn't made a difference since I changed his network adapter speed, I've also given him more bandwidth allocation for downloads, but prior to the change I made, everything was evenly set to 5s.

Message 3 of 17
Netduma-Fraser
NetDuma Partner

Re: Netgear XR500 Nighthawk - 5th router - please help

Have you got Traffic Prioritization enabled? I would suggest you disable DumaOS Classified Games and add the PC with the console service. If there is an issue caused by devices that should resolve it.
Message 4 of 17
vervan
Tutor

Re: Netgear XR500 Nighthawk - 5th router - please help

Yes, it was enabled. I just disbaled it. His PC was already added with Fortnite. I will respond shortly to see if that fixed his ping.

Message 5 of 17
vervan
Tutor

Re: Netgear XR500 Nighthawk - 5th router - please help

He just tested it out and the ping is still 50. I would say it’s impossible if it hadn’t finally lowered to 15-30 for the past 3 weeks.
Message 6 of 17
Netduma-Fraser
NetDuma Partner

Re: Netgear XR500 Nighthawk - 5th router - please help

When nothing is using the internet do a speedtest.net test, what does the ping show there? Are ANY devices at all being used while playing? When the ping is 50ms could you look at the network monitor and see what the usage is please? Is the 50ms shown in game or on the Geo-Filter?
Message 7 of 17
vervan
Tutor

Re: Netgear XR500 Nighthawk - 5th router - please help

I've tested his PC many, many times... with speedtest, fast.com, and dslreports. It ranges anywhere from 20-25. 

 

And yes, other devices are being used while he is playing. I have another son who sometimes plays Fortnite on his PC or games on his Xbox via WiFi, a daughter who plays Roblox via WiFi on her laptop, and a husband who wathces Netflix. 

 

On the Network Monitor/Snapshot, his usage ranges from .05-.1 while his ping is high.

 

I would be inlclined to say it's not doable to achieve decent ping if it hadn't been fine for the past three weeks. I wish I had let sleeping dogs lie and left it alone, but the orange light on his ethernet port was a new problem, and as mentioned before, I thought I could fix his ping completley. 

 

I would also like to point out that when he plugs directly into the modem, his ping is 15-30, so it has to be a router issue.  We started out with an ASUS TMAC1900, then tried the ASUS AC5300, the IQ Router, Netgear Orbi (as recommended by cable technician), the ASUS ROG AC2900, and now the Netgear Nighthawk XR500. The Netgear customer service has been the best. I had a guy from Best Buy come take a look. He was basically a salesman , not a consultant. He suggested I purchase the Netgear Nighthawk CM1150V Modem as it has 4 ethernet outputs. I bought it... but it doesn't work with Spectrum, and Spectrum is our only ISP option.

 

The 50-70 ping shows in the game. He wants to play in tournaments. He has lightning fast reflexes, so when the ping is high, things happen too slow. I've witnessed it. The screen will freeze for a split second, or he builds a wall and it doesn't build as soon as you hit the keys. It's crazy annoying... like typing and then a beat later the letter appears on the screen.

 

Maybe what? I don't know. Another Cat8 cable from a different seller that will last more than 3 weeks. I didn't tweak the settings to make his PC finally get decent ping, I replaced the Cat6 cables with Cat8. No one in this household messes with settings or sets things up. It's me. I never even knew about the Network Adapter Speed settings until the orange light came on the router, a week ago. Why wasn't it orange from the get go? I'm so perplexed.

Message 8 of 17
Netduma-Fraser
NetDuma Partner

Re: Netgear XR500 Nighthawk - 5th router - please help

This is quite confusing as the fact that your base ping is 20-25 means I would expect the game ping to be at least 40-50ms unless you live directly on top of the server. So the fact you got even lower than what your base ping shows is perplexing. I'm wondering if your ISP routing isn't very good at the moment. I would keep QoS on given how many devices are being used in your house, I'd suggest you go with 'When High Priority Traffic Detected' with 70% for down/up and actually re-enable DumaOS Classified Games as well but leave the manual rule you added. What is the model of the spectrum modem you're using? In WAN Settings could you switch NAT from Secured to Open as well please?
Message 9 of 17
vervan
Tutor

Re: Netgear XR500 Nighthawk - 5th router - please help

I re-enabled DumaOS Classified Games, left the manual rule, and have  'When High Priority Traffic Detected' 70% for down/up .

 

In WAN Setting I switched NAT to Open.

 

I have the Spectrum Ubee E31U2V1 Modem.

 

I just logged onto Fortnite and Ping is always worse at the beginning of the game. It was jumping around from 85 to 35 back up to 70s then settled around 50.

Message 10 of 17
Netduma-Fraser
NetDuma Partner

Re: Netgear XR500 Nighthawk - 5th router - please help

I know you got that lower ping but I'm not seeing how it's possible to get back down to that given your location, where the server is and what your base ping is. All the settings on the router seem absolutely fine. The only thing I can think of is a potential fault so to test could you have a wired PC connected to the router and open a command prompt. Ping the XR router LAN IP and see what you get, then also do the same for the Ubee IP if possible.
Message 11 of 17
vervan
Tutor

Re: Netgear XR500 Nighthawk - 5th router - please help

Router Ping:

 

Pinging 192.168.1.1 with 32 bytes of data 
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Ping statistics for 192.168.1.1:
    Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
    Minimum = 0ms, Maximum = 0ms, Average = 0ms

 

I'm not sure how to do it for the modem. It looks like I have to plug into it directly. I will figure it out if this doesn't provide

Message 12 of 17
Netduma-Fraser
NetDuma Partner

Re: Netgear XR500 Nighthawk - 5th router - please help

That looks great so that rules out at least that LAN port being an issue, if you could do direct to the modem using the ethernet cable usually plugged into the XR from the modem that would be great.
Message 13 of 17
vervan
Tutor

Re: Netgear XR500 Nighthawk - 5th router - please help

I'm not sure if I did this correctly, but I did use same cable that goes from modem to XR. I made 192.168.1.10 as static IP and these are the results:

Pinging 192.168.1.10 with 32 bytes of data 
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.4
Ping statistics for 192.168.1.10:
    Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 0, Lost = 4 (100% loss),
Pinging 192.168.0.1 with 32 bytes of data 
Reply from 192.168.0.1: bytes=32 time<2ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.0.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.0.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.0.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Ping statistics for 192.168.0.1:
    Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
    Minimum = 1ms, Maximum = 2ms, Average = 1ms

 

Message 14 of 17
Netduma-Fraser
NetDuma Partner

Re: Netgear XR500 Nighthawk - 5th router - please help

What is the static IP for as that is timing out? 1.1 is the router, 0.1 is the modem. If 0.1 is the modem then that looks good, doesn't appear to be a fault.
Message 15 of 17
vervan
Tutor

Re: Netgear XR500 Nighthawk - 5th router - please help

I’m guessing that was the modem IP address. I wasn’t sure, but from googling the Uber Modem I just guessed.

I’ve been tweaking pc settings too. Maybe I just need to find that sweet spot again. I’m getting it down to 40-50 now. At one point it shot down to 7, but didn’t stay there.
Message 16 of 17
Netduma-Fraser
NetDuma Partner

Re: Netgear XR500 Nighthawk - 5th router - please help

If it was the modem you probably wouldn't have internet so I'm sure that is fine. 7 is unlikely given your base ping so that was probably an anomaly but 40 - 50 is definitely progress. Keep us posted and I'll post back if I can think of anything else.
Message 17 of 17
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