Periodic Lag on WIFI....

[jespersp]

I'm connecting my Dell Vostro 1500 to a Linksys WRT160N WIFI router. When I play Counter-Strike, there is a periodic lag of about every minute or so: My ping goes out of the scale >1600ms - and of cause I get shot if enemies are around

I'm suspecting that my router might need a FW upgrade - but could the problem be elsewhere? Any thoughts?

Cheers,
Jesper

 

[lyleb]

What version of Windows?
I remember reading something similar in the forums.
Try the search box or Google.

 

[jespersp]

I knew I gave too little information - sorry

I'm using windows XP - I had the same kind of problem (but to a much minor degree) due to the WirelessZeroConfiguration (WZC) probing for better access points every minute (the problem is described here : http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/20820-43-wireless-gaming-help) . So I'm using the Intel PROSet/Wireless WiFi Connection utility instead of the WZC. The utility says that I'm connected with 130Mbits speed and Excellent Signal Quality (5 of 5 bars). This method of connecting has been working fine before..

Regardless of these precautions I'm still suffering enormous periodic lag. Below you can see bit of a continuous ping-test I made, where you see long ping times and time-outs. I have WiFi on my phone (N82) and if I'm monitoring my download speed on the phone (just scrolling on google maps to continuously download new map tiles) it does not seem to show a similar pattern: The map tiles appears to download fast and without any problems..

I have ubuntu on my laptop - I'm going to test my pings while running ubuntu - If the problem appears here and not on my n82, it could be the wifi card in my laptop that is causing the problem. If there is no problem in ubuntu it must be the windows driver (which I've re-installed several times by now already) - maybe I should upgrade to win7 at this point..

Any fresh (unbiased) opinions as to what I should do?


Pinging www.l.google.com [74.125.95.106] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 74.125.95.106: bytes=32 time=26ms TTL=53
Reply from 74.125.95.106: bytes=32 time=25ms TTL=53
Reply from 74.125.95.106: bytes=32 time=23ms TTL=53
Reply from 74.125.95.106: bytes=32 time=1019ms TTL=53
Reply from 74.125.95.106: bytes=32 time=1652ms TTL=53
Reply from 74.125.95.106: bytes=32 time=1684ms TTL=53
Reply from 74.125.95.106: bytes=32 time=26ms TTL=53
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Request timed out.
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Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Reply from 74.125.95.106: bytes=32 time=24ms TTL=53
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Request timed out.
Reply from 74.125.95.106: bytes=32 time=37ms TTL=53
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Request timed out.
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Request timed out.
Reply from 74.125.95.106: bytes=32 time=22ms TTL=53
Reply from 74.125.95.106: bytes=32 time=1411ms TTL=53

 

[jespersp]

I tested the wifi performance under ubuntu - the overall throughput (according to speedtest.net) was lower than under windows XP (Ubuntu 2MBit/s, XP 10MBit/s). But the speed was constant - no dropped packages when doing pings ect. I'm getting convinced that the problem is in my XP installation. I have too many documents that I'm currently working on to have down time on my XP installation. Under the Advanced tab of my wireless Network Connection Properties, I see the following message:

"Windows cannot display the properties of this connection. The Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) information might be corrupted. To correct this, use System Restore to restore Windows to an earlier time (called a restore point). System Restore is located in the System Tools folder in Accessories."

I'm not sure that system restore is the best path for me, as I have no idea how long my computer has had this problem. Any other suggestions how to deal with this problem ?

Cheers,
Jesper

 

[jespersp]

Just did another quick test of my hypothesis. I swapped my old hard disk containing the old XP installation (which I cloned on the new harddrive when I upgraded) into the laptop. This old XP installation runs much better and there is no periodic lag on the wifi. CONCLUSION: All hardware is working fine, but my XP needs to be re-installed (doooh!)

/Jesper

 

[jespersp]

I fixed the WMI problem without a re-install using this method:
http://www.softwaretipsandtricks.com/forum/windows-xp/9080-windows-management-instrumentation-corrupt-how-do-i-fix.html

This did not solve the lag-problem. However, disabling the N bands and only allowing G bands on the network Card removed the issue.. It's a good workaround for now, and I'm still getting the 18Mbit/s comcast download throughput so everything is good..

/Jesper