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Forum Discussion
XR1000 ping spikes, poor connection and bufferbloat
I bought an XR1000 and I got a modem from my ISP rather than a router as it should logically be better.(?) My house has Fiber-Optic wired to the house but the modem is connected with a coax cable an...
I only see my ping spike in the Waveform Bufferbloat test, a calm undisturbed ping test to my ISP's server Lampert.at shows a ping of 6-8, their server is in Rankweil and I'm in Bludenz in Vorarlberg, same state. It's my ping spikes that increase my bufferbloat and I'm not sure what's normal and what's not.
My mate just changed his Router to a newer model from the ISP and he said that he's getting lag spikes that made him quit playing for now and he's now also trying to fix his issues, he's routerless and uses an ISP router unlike me.
My concern is the ping spikes in Waveform's bufferbloat test, not sure if it's normal but they asked for a ping plotter test to their server. Should that test be undisturbed or while under load i.e playing? I want to find an issue because I'm still being peeked with lightning speed in Counter Strike which isn't normal, I barely have time to react.
I imagine they want a standard ping test, play around with QoS now and see if you can get the spikes under control
The spikes are only present in Waveform's Bufferbloat test, else I can't recreate them, tried pinging their site while playing a game but it doesn't do much, at best it bumps up to 13 ping at times. But is there reason to be worried about the ping spikes in that case? Everyone I know with a router like this brings bufferbloat away and reduce ping easily and almost instantly, I've been struggling with it since I got it, could it really be the modem? My mate's net also turned to poo when he switched his router.
My ping spikes immensely when the download speed is active during the bufferbloat test, as far as I know that's the only thing I can try to change if I'd like a good connection, things online just move way too fast and weird in comparison to everyone elses and how it used to be.
- If it's only the website it may not represent what is actually happening. Use PingPlotter and saturate the connection with downloads, streams etc and see how much it spikes, then adjust Congestion Control until it stops spiking/is close to your base line
Wouldn't it be more realistic if I used a different server other than my ISP one? I'm not sure if the distance I stated earlier actually should be the 6-8 ping that it has.
I'm not quite sure where to start or if there's even an issue anymore, but I'm having issues reducing my ping under active load tests, including the router inbuilt one.
- Yes its best to use a local site, use PingPlotter as per the guide, saturate, Congestion Control on Always, start at 95% then work your way down in intervals of 10 and see how it reacts. Once you get a good result then try 5% either side of that to see if it can be fine tuned further.
Ping plotter already looks relatively fine, it's hard to create ping spikes. Could you perhaps provide me with some good results for referance? That way I don't build unrealistic expectations. I'll most likely do the router inbuilt one instead since it also has extreme spikes under use.
- One big download and a Twitch stream for example should give you the spikes. Good results will differ for each connection, for you a good result will be getting the results when under load to look as close as possible to what your results are like with barely anything using the internet
Little issue here, I'm not actually able to limit my download speed with Congestion Control, I've set my PC to 42% and my streaming PC to 42%, the rest on 5. Congestion Control is combined with the 42% equals 100mbps, my download is at 480+ as always. Fairly sure I should be having less than 100 for it to show that it's atleast working, that makes me wonder if QoS is even doing its thing as well.
- Can you provide a screenshot of your QoS page please?
I've attached it, nothing seems to change when I use the sliders, QoS is enabled as well as Goodput.
- Ahh I see, Bandwidth Allocation doesn't limit bandwidth unless you disable Share Excess in the Bandwidth Allocation menu.
So everything works as intended, including QoS? I've got no idea how to know if QoS works, other than that I'm assuming the sliders will now have the intended effect?
It's always misbehaving for me, now my download speed to Waveform's bufferbloat test is stuck to 200 and upload to 2, I can't seem to make it work no matter what I do, at the minute I have Congestion Control disabled to start from scratch but it doesn't change the speeds, nothing really takes effect.
- Yes as far as I can see, if you want to limit Bandwidth overall then use Congestion Control - this is the main tool to eliminate lag/bufferbloat. If you want to assign bandwidth as a hard limit you'll need to disable share excess but all devices will then be hard limited to the allocation of the available bandwidth. If QoS is working then you may not notice it at all as it will be keeping your connection stable, preventing lag should any devices download when gaming etc. If you want to learn more I'd recommend having a look at our optimal settings guides: https://support.netduma.com/en/support/solutions/folders/16000090646
I'll give that a go, ideally I'd want to be able to stream at the same time though.
Yeah I'm unable to control this router, my download speeds sometimes show above 500 which I don't have and sometimes it sits itself back at 200, bufferbloat is out of control, not really sure how to tackle this.
- What are your expected speeds? Most providers do give a little over the expected speed in some cases. If that is without QoS so completely disabled then your fluctuation in speeds is unlikely to be the router - where are you testing the speeds exactly?
I was messing around with the sliders and I did Waveform's Bufferbloat test and speedtest.net by Ookla to confirm that it works as intended and at one point my download speed was 800, and I can't really tell what went wrong. I saw Fr33thy had a video where he had bandwith share enabled, default settings basically and he managed to get +0 +0 on Waveform's test right after doing absolutely nothing, so I can't really tell what went wrong.
Speeds I pay for are 500 and 50, speeds in my old router were set to 512 and 51.2
- I would suggest following the guide to get maximum bandwidth speeds, then do some testing over the day and see what speeds you get, if it wildly fluctuates then take the average and set that as what you expect. Then from there follow the optimal settings guide for setting up QoS and see how you get on.
Speeds are consistent now, and they adjust accordingly to congestion control however not a single number from 100% to 1% provides me with a suitable bufferbloat result, it's always a horrible +15 at best, won't get lower than that.
After giving up for a minute I tested the connection in a game of Counter-Strike, no bullets hit for me, people kill me while sprinting in a straight line and most of the time I don't see them, playing from my neighbours house never provided this kind of gameplay, I'm hoping it's safe to assume that bufferbloat causes that kind of gameplay.
- Are you testing bufferbloat on Connection Benchmark? What is your ping to the game? Are you using the Geo-Filter?
No Geo Filter in particular, I've set my address and left it default, I tried the Connection Benchmark and Waveform's test, my ingame ping looks decent, quite low however the bufferbloat in tests is still present and it seems like it plagues my gameplay.
- Did you add your device to the Geo-Filter? Can you provide a screenshot of a completed Benchmark and waveform test please? What is the in game ping exactly? Bufferbloat only occurs when the connection is saturated, if not much is happening on the network at the time other than gaming it's unlikely to be impacting you.
I've attached a screenshot of my Waveform bufferbloat test and a few others along the way considering I can only add one at a time.
I've now defaulted everything and set up my router so that I can try to find the sweet-spot to hopefully lower bufferbloat, that way I plan to allocate that speed to my gaming PC, and the rest to my Streaming PC which I hope isn't an awful logical approach, regardless I'm still the only internet user in this house.
Here's my Geo-Filter for the games I play.
The benchmark in the router.
