Insanely High Ping and Disconnects in World of Warcraft

[Prepostasaurus]

Hello,

I wanted to make a post here to see if there's anything I can do to troubleshoot and (hopefully) address some issues I'm running into when playing World of Warcraft. I will preface this by saying that I play on my gaming laptop and I'm not able to connect an ethernet cable. I know that would be ideal, but it's not really an option for me.

The problems I am running into include very high ping and disconnects. When I say high ping, I mean 3000+ ms. This happens weekly, usually when I am raiding, but sometimes in smaller activities like dungeons and very rarely in open world content. I don't know for sure if the problem is entirely on my end, disconnects sometimes happen to my guild members, but nowhere near as regularly as they do for me. Typically, when I do disconnect, other apps like Discord are affected as well; leading me to believe it's an internet issue and not like a WoW server issue. I'm hoping someone may know some settings or router traffic configurations I can try to help this problem. I don't know a whole lot about routers and networking, so some patience would be really appreciated.

Thank you for your time.

[Netduma Fraser]

1. What is the model of the modem/router the R3 is connected to and how have you set that to ensure all traffic flows to the R3? E.g. R3 in its DMZ, modem/bridge mode
2. Are ALL devices connected to the R3?
3. What are the speeds you pay for/receive? 
4. Have you entered those speeds into the router?
5. How have you setup Congestion Control?
6. How have you setup SmartBOOST?

[Prepostasaurus]

1. Motorola MB8611

2. The R3 is the only router in the house. So, yea, I guess everything that connects to the internet is connected to it.

3. I pay for 1200 Mbps down / 35 Mbps up. I just did an Ookla speed test on my gaming laptop and got 483.85 Mbps down / 39.10 Mbps up. Xfinity is the only provider in my area that isn't satellite, no fiber unfortunately.

4. I've done a speed test through DumaOS. Pretty sure that's what you mean here? I just did another one and got 660.6 down and 42.2 up. I updated the network speed after doing this test. It did have numbers from before this test.

5. I am not sure. I haven't heard of this.

6. Yes. I currently have gaming prioritized and this laptop as the top device priority.

[Netduma Fraser]

Change your speeds to 1000 down / 35 up in Speedtest > Advanced, don't let the speedtest dictate it. Go to Ping Optimizer > Advanced then set Congestion Control to 70% for both download and upload then see if your experience is any better please.

[Prepostasaurus]

Ok. I'll give this a try. For the Ping Optimizer, it was set to 95% down and 100% up before I changed it to 70. Thanks for the advice! No news is good news. 😄

[Netduma Fraser]

Given your upload speed is the slowest you should definitely benefit from lowering the percentage on that one. Let us know how you get on!

[Prepostasaurus]

Unfortunately, this doesn't seem to have helped. I'm getting high ping right now, about 350 ms. It's also not just affecting WoW. Opening my email and making this reply also showed some lag on button presses and the like.

 

Edit: I actually completely disconnected, rather than just 300+ ping. Happening right now.

Edited November 30 by Prepostasaurus
Additional information

[Netduma Fraser]

It could actually be the Adblocker potentially, disable that then try again.

Was it just on the one device you disconnected on?

I've given you Early Access as well just in case you want to try that one if the disconnects continue https://forum.netduma.com/forum/151-netduma-r3-early-access/

[Prepostasaurus]

Do you mean my Adblocker for Firefox?

Interruptions do seem to only happen on my laptop; I can't recall disruptions like this happening on my other devices.

[Netduma Fraser]

No the Adblocker on the router itself, disable that then see how you get on

[Prepostasaurus]

I don't think I ever had it on. I clicked on it in DumaOS and I got the dialog box for the tour. I see where I can enable it. It doesn't look like I've had it on.

[Netduma Fraser]

I believe it's enabled by default so still could be enabled even if you see the tour if it says enable then no that won't be it. Where are you seeing the ping, in game or on the Geo-Filter? Are you trying to use the Geo-Filter with the game?

[Prepostasaurus]

I see the high ping in-game. The highest I've seen is over 7000 ms. I tried messing with the smartboost settings again. Instead of just "Gaming" I specifically set WoW and Discord as the two applications that should be prioritized, there were no other activities on the priority list and my laptop is the only device on the device priority list. I also double checked that the ip address of my laptop is the device being prioritized. I still experienced some severe lag spikes tonight after trying those settings. I also turned off a setting tonight in-game that is supposed to lower bandwidth usage, but I still had high latency after turning it off.

I do not have the Geo-Filter enabled.

[Netduma Fraser]

Are you able to connect to and play from your ISP modem at any point to see if you get the same issue? Was this an issue you had before getting the router?

[Prepostasaurus]

My laptop doesn't have an ethernet port, unfortunately. Although I think they make adapters. I have USB-A and USB-C ports on my laptop, as well as an HDMI port. I'm guessing an ethernet to USB-C adapter would be the best option if I wanted to try a wired connection?

I did not have any of these issues before getting the R3. I had an ASUS router for about 5 years before getting the R3, didn't experience any issues with that router.

[Prepostasaurus]

I did notice something interesting tonight. I was having connection issues again, lagging and disconnecting from the server, as well as disconnecting in Discord. I had to Alt+F4 out of WoW because the button inputs in-game were not working. When WoW closed, I still had router configuration page open in my browser, the DumaOS web client. It said that it was trying to reconnect to my router. This would lead me to think that my signal strength is not very high. However, I am physically about 20 ft from the router, maybe 25 ft, with one wall in between. The tv (and my Xbox) are also physically between my laptop and the router, although I don't know if that's relevant or not. When I look at the device manager, it says my laptop's connection to the router signal is Very Good. Is it possible the connection is dropping from interference?

I'm going to try unplugging my Xbox from the router and from power to see if I notice any difference. The connection issues I'm experiencing are getting significantly worse. It used to be once a week, it's now daily. I can barely play at all. Very scary in Hardcore Classic WoW too.

Been sitting and looking at the Device Manager screen in DumaOS for a little bit. I notice my Xbox, which is connected to the router with an ethernet cable, appears and disappears from the device web. I'm not sure why it would not just stay connected. Could have something to do with it?

[Netduma Fraser]

Yes that would probably work just fine. It's always possible but I wouldn't have thought so, however:

• Split the bands, give 2.4/5GHz different names and apply - you'll want to connect to 2.4GHz specifically for stability, 5GHz for speeds
• Use a WiFi analyzer to find the least congested channel and change to that
• Experiment with the widths to see what gives better results
• Ensure it's in an elevated position - not on a metal surface
• Ensure there aren't any electrical / wireless devices e.g headphones etc within close proximity ~3 feet if possible
• Set the antennae to this position _ | | _

See if that helps at all. Also sounds like you're leaving the router interface open, close it once you've made any necessary changes then see how you get on. 

The appearing/disappearing is because although the device is connected, if the internet isn't being used actively it's very sensitive and will then show offline, as soon as activity is detected it'll switch back.