Help On Improving My Internet Performance Tips Post

[Savage117]

On a Minecraft server I used to play on I'm still active on the forums, and have a post I use for helping people out with improving their internet, mostly it's used to help people decrease their ping. I was wondering if there's any ways I could improve it. Is anything I say incorrect, should some things be stressed more than others (most of it goes in descending order of importance), or anything else that should be changed? If references to the server aren't allowed let me know and I'll remove anything specific.

 

 

Spoiler

Test The Latency Of Your Home Network

 

 

Credit to PureFallen for making me realize this is a thing you can do. If you have trouble understanding my explanation check her original post.

 

Open up CMD from the start/search menu, and run the command "ping 192.168.100.1", the ms value you see is how much your ping is from your computer to your modem, should be fairly low. If that IP  doesn't work, check this list of modems and see if yours is among them, and ping that IP instead.

 

If for whatever reason you can't ping the modem, ping the router instead, won't make much of a difference. Again in CMD, run the command "ipconfig", and look for whatever your internet connection is, and use the default gateway as the IP you're pinging. My default gateway is 192.168.1.1, so I do "ping 192.168.1.1".

 

 

 

General Internet Tips And Optimization

 

 

A lot of times ping just comes down to how far away you are from the server you're connecting to, but here's a few things you can try to improve your connection. I recommend you do these in order. Any performance testing should be done when nobody is using the internet other than you, and check things like Steam, Windows, and consoles to make sure they aren't updating anything.

 

You can use speedtest.net to test your internet performance, make sure you when you're checking this you eliminate any variables like Windows or Steam updating things, random downloads, other people using the internet. Also you may want to test your connection to the Hypixel server itself, as it will be different since online speedtests always choose the closest available server. You'll have to either test this in Minecraft by refreshing the server list around 10 times, or read tip 8 and look at the average ping. If speedtest.net isn't working either switch to Edge or use the HTML5 version.

 

Most of this can be done on Mac and Linux too, let me know if you want help with that, or if you have any questions.

 

1 - For Hypixel, try using direct connect, or using the server "Proxy.Hypixel.Net".

 

2 - Use a wired connection (ethernet) instead of WiFi (wireless) wherever possible. Check your ethernet cables, make sure they're not coming apart, and they should all be Cat 5e or higher. This article goes over the differences between ethernet cables.

 

3 - Unplug your modem and router for a couple minutes, this clears their cache and might make them fetch updated settings from your ISP.

 

4 - Flush your DNS cache, in command prompt run "ipconfig /flushdns", you don't need to do this all the time.

 

5 - Make sure nothing is being downloaded in the background, for example Windows/game updates. Glasswire is a great program that can tell you what your computer is doing in terms of networking, but remember that it only shows what your computer is doing, not your phone/Blu-ray player/game console/etc. Another handy network inspection tool is Wireshark, it's extremely powerful, but relatively difficult to understand if you don't know much about networking.

 

6 - Try using Google's Public DNS. This won't help all people and may even hurt some people's connection, if you're connection gets worse because of this you can disable it.

 

7 - Updating your router's firmware is a good idea, it's strongly recommended for security reasons, and it might improve your performance a bit. If you want help with this let me know what router you have.

 

8 - Download WinMTR and let it run for at least five minutes, you're main focus here will be the loss %, this should be either 100 or 0. If it isn't then you have some packet loss, if this is the case then check all your cables between your PC and wherever the internet is coming from, likely a coaxial outlet or a phone outlet, make sure they have a tight connection and if any look really old and banged up buy a new one. You'll want to have this prepared if you call your ISP.

 

9 - Open up CMD, and run the command "netsh int tcp set global autotuninglevel=normal", this should always be set to normal, but sometimes its not for whatever reason.

 

10 - And last but not least, call up your ISP, you may want to have your parent do this. Tell them that your ping is lower to a server than it is for others in your rough geographical region, and they'll look into the issue for you on their end. Having the information ready from your WinMTR results and your testing of the latency of your home network is a good idea.

 

 

 

Wi-Fi Specific Stuff

 

 

0 - If you haven't already, go back to the top and test the latency of your home network and make sure it's not super high.

 

1 - (This one might be a bit tricky, but it can be a huge help) Change the channel of your router's WiFi, I recommend using Acrylic WiFi for this, enable advanced mode, then go to 2.4GHz APs Channels and look for your router's color (displayed in the list above), look for a gap (1/6/11 are preferred if they are open) in the WiFi signals and change your router's channel to that. Wifi Analyzer for Android is also really good for this, not sure what's out there for iOS but I'm sure it's not hard to find something.

 

2 - Move closer to your router or try re-positioning it/messing with the orientation of the antennas. If you have multiple antennas they should all be oriented differently, usually optimal to have one vertical, one horizontal, and if you have three or more one of them should be at a roughly 45 degree angle.

 

 

 

About WTFast, Outfox, Haste, And Similar Programs

 

 

These programs claim to improve your connection, this doesn't always work though, and in many cases can make your connection worse. You'll have to do some testing of your own as your results will vary on your ISP. Watch the video below.
 

 

Edited April 15, 2018 by Savage_Titan117