More Internet Issues, yay!

[Spork829]

Warning: This will be lengthy and with my luck probably never be solved.

 

 

Okay, I really hope this will be my last post regarding my trashcan internet, but probably not. Anyways, I've tried to remedy the internet problems I've been having with my new (well new when I started the first thread anyways) build. Here's the first, second and third threads which I've already created. Taking a look at those might help you answer my question here. TL;DR: I bought a motherboard with no onboard wifi. Running at Ethernet cable to this room is NOT an option. I bought a $40 TP-Link powerline adapter. It worked terribly, with speeds much lower than what I get with wifi in the room and random blips and stutters of lag. Returned that, I then bought a $40 TP-Link PCIe wifi adapter, which I'm still using. It had the exact same issues. Someone told me to reinstall the drivers in Windows 8 compatibility mode because for some reason TP-Link has no driver support on this thing for Win10. I did that and everything was briefly working well. Speeds exceeded what I used to get when I used a machine with built-in wifi in the same spot, and the blips were very nearly gone. That was around two weeks ago. Now my upload speed remains consistent as it mysteriously always is, but my download speed has worsened significantly, and I'm getting more and more of the all too familiar blips of high ping for a few seconds at a time. It culminated tonight in a game of League of Legends which was rendered unplayable and extremely frustrating (because I thought JUST MAYBE I finally got this in somewhat decent working order), right after which I am writing this. Sometimes the blips are just a bit annoying, but other times (usually later at night) it becomes as bad as it just was, making games almost unplayable with constant fluctuations from "pretty decent" level ping numbers (35-70) to "I can't move and I can't hear you guys" level ping (hundreds, occasionally altogether disconnect). I have also noticed that again my upload speed literally never changes, but the download is also worse at night. My question: Should I return this wifi card and try something else? I really can't spend more than $50 here so I just don't think there's a better option, but please let me know if you have one. Also, do you think the problem could be my router? The sheer randomness and instability makes me think that maybe my router is dying? I don't have the specs on hand right now but I could get them if necessary, but I know it's pretty new and somewhat high end. Basically what does it sound like is the problem? I have no idea if this is enough info to actually diagnose anything so let me know if anything else might help. A special thanks to anyone who actually takes the time to go through this and help

[Samfisher]

It sounds like terrible wifi signal more than anything you have in your PC.  Get a WiFi extender.

[ShadowDeity]

Dude... I'm sorry but that's a horrible round of luck that's turned into a shatstorm.

 

1 minute ago, Samfisher said:

It sounds like terrible wifi signal more than anything you have in your PC.  Get a WiFi extender.

That's what it sounds like to me also.  It does not sound like anything in your PC. Try getting a WiFi extender like Sam said. 

[Spork829]

1 minute ago, Samfisher said:

It sounds like terrible wifi signal more than anything you have in your PC.  Get a WiFi extender.

See the thing is, I know that the wifi is acceptable in here. A. I'm not actually that far from the router. B. For the brief time when everything was working, speeds were quite good. C. I never had any of these problems with my old PC which had onboard wifi, which sat in literally the exact same spot.

[Samfisher]

Just now, Spork829 said:

See the thing is, I know that the wifi is acceptable in here. A. I'm not actually that far from the router. B. For the brief time when everything was working, speeds were quite good. C. I never had any of these problems with my old PC which had onboard wifi, which sat in literally the exact same spot.

Was anyone using the internet at the times you get the drops?  What's the surrounding WiFi situation with your neighbours and competing signals?

[Spork829]

 

Just now, Samfisher said:

Was anyone using the internet at the times you get the drops?  What's the surrounding WiFi situation with your neighbours and competing signals?

Seems like there's little correlation between other people in the house using it and the internet being good for me; I don't think bandwidth is the problem. When I'm home alone during the day it's good, but then it's also bad in the middle of the night, (such as just now) when everyone else is asleep. I'm in a suburban neighborhood, and I can usually see anywhere from 5-10 connections besides mine on my PC.

[Samfisher]

Do you have a 2nd device?  Run a ping to the router from both and when the desktop gets kicked off/drops, check the 2nd device if the ping results are the same.  At least you can narrow it down by device then go from there.

[Spork829]

1 minute ago, Samfisher said:

Do you have a 2nd device?  Run a ping to the router from both and when the desktop gets kicked off/drops, check the 2nd device if the ping results are the same.  At least you can narrow it down by device then go from there.

I've thought of that. I have my old laptop which is barely capable of running anything, but I can try. Is there any kind of service you know about to straight up test ping over a long period of time? Because that laptop can barely launch Word, let alone games.

[Samfisher]

Eh, just command prompt is more than enough.

 

Run CMD

 

ping xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx -t

whatever your modem IP is.  It will ping non stop until you you press Ctrl + C

[Spork829]

1 minute ago, Samfisher said:

Eh, just command prompt is more than enough.

 

Run CMD

 

ping xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx -t

whatever your modem IP is.  It will ping non stop until you you press Ctrl + C

Ah, okay. Could I just run them side-by-side (literally) and see if the numbers jump up at the same times?

[Spork829]

 

3 minutes ago, Samfisher said:

Eh, just command prompt is more than enough.

 

Run CMD

 

ping xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx -t

whatever your modem IP is.  It will ping non stop until you you press Ctrl + C

Also, is my modem IP the same as my public IP (what you get from googling "IP")?

[Samfisher]

Just now, Spork829 said:

Ah, okay. Could I just run them side-by-side (literally) and see if the numbers jump up at the same times?

Run the laptop side by side your desktop monitor? Sure.  Don't see a reason why not.  Just FYI, 1 line of ping results = 2 seconds, so if you get no response for 4 lines that's 8 seconds of no connectivity.

[Samfisher]

1 minute ago, Spork829 said:

 

Also, is my modem IP the same as my public IP (what you get from googling "IP")?

That would be impossible.  That's your internet IP, your router is a gateway.  Right click on your connection at the bottom right of Windows, Open Network Sharing Center.

 

Then click on your connection you should see something similar to this :

 

 

Then click Details.  Your router IP is IPv4 Default Gateway.

[Spork829]

1 minute ago, Samfisher said:

That would be impossible.  That's your internet IP, your router is a gateway.  Right click on your connection at the bottom right of Windows, Open Network Sharing Center.

 

Then click on your connection you should see something similar to this :

 

 

Then click Details.  Your router IP is IPv4 Default Gateway.

Okay, thanks. I'm a bit clueless on networking.

[Spork829]

10 minutes ago, Samfisher said:

10 minutes ago, Samfisher said:

That would be impossible.  That's your internet IP, your router is a gateway.  Right click on your connection at the bottom right of Windows, Open Network Sharing Center.

 

Then click on your connection you should see something similar to this :

 

 

Then click Details.  Your router IP is IPv4 Default Gateway.

That would be impossible.  That's your internet IP, your router is a gateway.  Right click on your connection at the bottom right of Windows, Open Network Sharing Center.

 

Then click on your connection you should see something similar to this :

 

 

Then click Details.  Your router IP is IPv4 Default Gateway.

Alright, results are in, and they appear pretty similar. They both spiked at similar times and were overall very close. (This ran for about 4 minutes).

 

Desktop: No packet loss. Min: 0 ms, Max 386 ms, average 16 ms.

 

Laptop: No packet loss. Min 0 ms, Max 326 ms, average 17 ms.

 

Pretty little difference, I'm thinking router and/or Comcast issues. Hopefully the former.

[Samfisher]

1 minute ago, Spork829 said:

Alright, results are in, and they appear pretty similar. They both spiked at similar times and were overall very close. (This ran for about 4 minutes).

 

Desktop: No packet loss. Min: 0 ms, Max 386 ms, average 16 ms.

 

Laptop: No packet loss. Min 0 ms, Max 326 ms, average 17 ms.

 

Pretty little difference, I'm thinking router and/or Comcast issues. Hopefully the former.

Sounds like a router issue.  How long does it stay at 300+ or it's a one off spike?  16-17ms average is very very high for a local network.  You want something 3-4ms at most.

[Spork829]

Just now, Samfisher said:

Sounds like a router issue.  How long does it stay at 300+ or it's a one off spike?  16-17ms average is very very high for a local network.  You want something 3-4ms at most.

Yup, seems to confirm my R.I.P. router suspicions. There was one big 300+ spike that showed up on both as lasting about 8 lines, and a couple other 1 or 2 line spikes.

[Samfisher]

Just now, Spork829 said:

Yup, seems to confirm my R.I.P. router suspicions. There was one big 300+ spike that showed up on both as lasting about 8 lines, and a couple other 1 or 2 line spikes.

That's a realllly long ass spike.  Yeah get the router changed by your ISP if you can.  Save the ping results and show it to the tech that shows up to check on it.

[Spork829]

Just now, Samfisher said:

That's a realllly long ass spike.  Yeah get the router changed by your ISP if you can.  Save the ping results and show it to the tech that shows up to check on it.

I don't think it's from my ISP unfortunately. Or wait, would my ISP give me a modem or a router? Because one of those two things is from Comcast and the other isn't.

[Samfisher]

2 minutes ago, Spork829 said:

I don't think it's from my ISP unfortunately. Or wait, would my ISP give me a modem or a router? Because one of those two things is from Comcast and the other isn't.

They would give you the modem.  Funny they don't provide a router?  Did they expect everyone to connect through ethernet throughout the house

[Spork829]

Just now, Samfisher said:

They would give you the modem.  Funny they don't provide a router?  Did they expect everyone to connect through ethernet throughout the house

No, they're modem acts as both, but we don't use the router part of that one because we already have our own router, because...well... long story from the dark ages when we still had CenturyLink. But I'm a bit surprised as the router's supposed to be pretty high end according to our IT guy. I guess no longer.