Router/Wired Connection advice

ro55o · 7 Sep 2017 at 09:26

Really looking for some advice on my home network setup, make sure I'm getting the most out of it.

I currently have 76mb broadband and given the fact I'm right next to the cabinet, I pretty much get this speed. So no issues here. I currently have 2 gaming PC's setup upstairs, with the router downstairs. The wifi was proving to be inconsistent when we were gaming on both PC's. So I bought a longer CAT 6 network cable and plugged it directly in to the router. This runs to a gigabit network switch near my PC, which then feeds both of the computers. This seems to solve any latency and ping when we're both gaming (around 20-30ms), though there can be the odd occasion it drops. I've then found when a third PC is connected to the network, whether it is to the router or gigabit switch, the lag is more noticeable, with the ping nearly tripling at around 100ms with the rtt also increasing, making gaming online difficult.

Is this an issue with my setup? There aren't too many devices using the wifi at the same time, a couple of mobiles, which I imagine won't be using much of the bandwidth. Is there anything I can do to improve this, or is it a case of three or more PC's gaming at the same time is just too much for my network to handle?

Another question I have, would a faster/better router help? With our PC's being hard wired would it actually make a difference, or would it purely just improve the wireless network. Given that my current ISP router has gigabit ports, I doubt a better router would make a huge difference, but I may be wrong.

So in short, download speeds are excellent, but with gaming online with 3 or more PC's, latency tends to suffer. Is there anything I can do to improve this. I do realise that with with more computers connected to the network, it will inevitably slow down.

BigT · 7 Sep 2017 at 10:51

This is a tough one and those with better network knowledge will probably be along with great ideas on how to diagnose the root of the problem. There's nothing inherently wrong with the router, cabling or choice of switch that would suggest a pain point.

I can offer some observations that might help.

Gaming isn't very bandwidth intensive, but of course as you know is impacted greatly by latency. Latency I've found suffers when bandwidth is saturated, including upstream bandwidth used. When you have a slow internet connection like I do then it is more noticeable. For example, when my wife has been out walking the dog and taken lots of photos on her phone and she comes back home, my latency goes through the roof as iCloud uploads photos form her phone to the cloud, saturating my poor 1mbit upload.

So is there anything connecting on the network saturating up or downstream bandwidth? I also find apps constantly auto updating on Windows, phones, iPads etc. consuming bandwidth in the background. Could it be Windows Update when you attach more PCs and you've been unlucky perhaps?

I'll tell you how I addressed this. I replaced my router with pfSense - not specifically for this but doing so helped me fix my problem as an aside. This has an app called ntopng which lets me see what apps on what IP addresses are consuming whatbandwidth in realtime. When things were crap I looked what was going on. My problem became apparent that wireless devices which I only really thought were used for web browsing were consuming stuff behind the scenes like the situations I described above. So my solution was to rate limit the bandwidth wireless device could consume. I did that on my wireless access points (Ubiquiti) but equally could have configured something on the pfSense router.

I think diagnosing the cause is the proper next step and the reason why hopefuly others have a better way of doing that than replacing your router with pfSense and the expense incurred with that! I'm guessing there must be something you can install on a PC to do the job ntopng did for me in diagnosing what was going on - I just don't know what that might be.

bledd · 7 Sep 2017 at 11:13

Even a bog standard router should be able to handle about 40 devices if they're all idling.

If adding a device increases your ping, I would test the following..

-Disconnect the problematic PC.
-Ping your router IP on all machines. if your router is 192.168.1.1, then open cmd and type..
ping 192.168.1.1 -t
This will keep pinging forever until you CTRL +C
The ping should be <1ms
-Add the problematic PC to the network

If the router ping flies up, then it's likely to be a dodgy cable to that PC.

Otherwise, it's likely to be something uploading heavily from that machine if it only affects pings to say 8.8.8.8 (google)

ro55o · 7 Sep 2017 at 11:34

Thanks guys. I'll try and diagnose the problem as you've mentioned Bledd, hopefully it will be as easy as a dodgy cable. I'll see if any of the machines are carrying out updates or any sort of uploads in the background. Something is potentially taking up the bandwidth without me realising.

I'll probably disconnect the phones and tablets from the network when gaming anyway, no real need for them to be on it.

Just as a question though, would a gaming router, something similar to the Nighthawk for example, improve the performance while being connected via a network cable?

pcfarrar · 7 Sep 2017 at 11:48

ro55o said:
Just as a question though, would a gaming router, something similar to the Nighthawk for example, improve the performance while being connected via a network cable?

A decent router with good QoS makes a huge difference.

bledd · 7 Sep 2017 at 12:05

http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/network_traffic_view.html

Use this to find out what's eating bandwidth.

ro55o · 7 Sep 2017 at 12:58

pcfarrar said:
A decent router with good QoS makes a huge difference.

Good to hear. have you got any recommendations? Currently looking at TP Link 3200, Netgear R7000 Nighthawk (1900)and D Link AC3200.

bledd said:
http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/network_traffic_view.html

Use this to find out what's eating bandwidth.

Cheers Bledd, will try it out when I get home.

pcfarrar · 7 Sep 2017 at 17:28

ro55o said:
Good to hear. have you got any recommendations? Currently looking at TP Link 3200, Netgear R7000 Nighthawk (1900)and D Link AC3200.

Ubiquiti Edgerouter x with a UniFi AP AC LR access point. The "fq_codel" smart queue QoS on the edgerouter works really well.

The R7000 can do fq_codel QoS but you have to install Kong's dd-wrt firmware on it, the stock firmware QoS is junk. The Asus routers can also do "fq_codel" but you need to use the Merlin firmware's.