topic Re: No firmware updates? in My Router

No firmware updates?

supernoodles — Sun, 23 Jul 2023 14:20:43 GMT

Hello i have a plusnet hub two and i haven't received a firmware update since 22nd may 2022 i'm currently running v0.06.00.12134-PN i've been having some issues with my wifi and i'm wondering if maybe a newer firmware might be able to resolve the issue?

Re: No firmware updates?

jab1 — Sun, 23 Jul 2023 14:39:43 GMT

That looks like old f/w. Maybe @bobpullen can check if your Hub is still on the platform? AFAIK, current firmware is v10.

Re: No firmware updates?

Baldrick1 — Sun, 23 Jul 2023 15:22:17 GMT

@supernoodles

As @jab1 states, that is old firmware and needs updating. However this is very unlikely to be the cause of your wireless problem.

If you give us more details of your problem then maybe we can help with more specific advice.

Re: No firmware updates?

supernoodles — Sun, 23 Jul 2023 15:45:38 GMT

It seems to be an issue with the 5Ghz band basically when i have fornite open on my PS5 i can see the ping in the top left and as soon as a device that is also on the 5Ghz band loads something even just flicking through say tiktok video's or loading something on youtube kids there's a massive ping spike that doesn't happen on the 2.4Ghz band.

I have confirmed it's a 5Ghz issue by disabling the 5Ghz to force all devices onto the 2.4Ghz and the issue is not present at all.

Unfortunatly i can't just force devices to use the 2.4Ghz as you can't split the bands.

I had a similar issue on my old plusnet hub one and it turned out to be faulty Wifi which was fixed by a firmware update.

Re: No firmware updates?

jab1 — Sun, 23 Jul 2023 15:54:05 GMT

@Baldrick1 Any thoughts - my mind says the band in use shouldn't cause ping spikes as they aren't related, bit ICBW?

Re: No firmware updates?

supernoodles — Sun, 23 Jul 2023 16:08:12 GMT

Just to add right now all devices in my flat are forced to 2.4 because the 5 is disabled so that's 15 devices and ping on Fortnite is a solid 20/30.

For comparison with 5ghz enabled and my PS5 on that band the only other devices are both of my kids Amazon fire tablets my phone and my partner's phone and again as soon as someone loads something ping spikes to 300/400 sometimes even as high as 1000

I have also tried all the different channels that the 5ghz band can do

Re: No firmware updates?

supernoodles — Sun, 23 Jul 2023 20:24:03 GMT

some further updates i've been doing testing most of the evening and i can get the ping to spike when doing a speedtest on another device during the upload test which i expect it is supposed to do.

One thing i have noticed is on the 2.4Ghz my speed is fairly bad instead of the 80/20 i get on 5Ghz most devices are getting 50-60 down and 5-10 up and my chromecast is just flat out refusing to work correctly with speeds as low as 30 down so i'm not sure if the wifi as a whole is just faulty.

Still very puzzled as to why tiktok causes ping spikes when my partner opens it but nothing happens when i open it on my device lol

Re: No firmware updates?

Anonymous — Sun, 23 Jul 2023 21:53:51 GMT

@jab1 wrote:

... my mind says the band in use shouldn't cause ping spikes as they aren't related

That would be true if the Hub 2 had upload QoS ! - but being a useless pile of junk it doesn't.

Ping spikes most often occur when a whole load of upload packets arrive at the router's modem outgoing buffer, at a rate that is faster than the broadband upload bandwidth, so it takes a while for all the packets to take their turn to be sent, and delaying/blocking outgoing packets from other sources - hence causing a ping spike.

When you have a router that implements QoS, the upload path can be managed by sharing and prioritising packets to minimise delaying/blocking, but also managing packet flow by having LAN side handshaking to better manage the rate that various packet sources send their data.

Why might there be a difference between using 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz bands ?

Often 2.4Ghz WiFi has a default bandwidth of 20MHz, whereas 5GHz WiFi usually has a default bandwidth of 80MHz.

Therefore because 5GHz has a much greater bandwidth, so it is possible for 5GHz devices to send much more data in a burst, to arrive at the outgoing modem's buffer - hence causing greater pings than from 2.4GHz sources.

My guess is that @supernoodles 's partner's device has a better network implementation, possibly doing multithreaded packet transmission to make the best use of the bandwidth (which is fine on a router with QoS, but will cause pings on 'toy' routers - especially if the broadband upload speed is significantly lower than the WiFi bandwidth)

It would be interesting to see if @supernoodles 's partners device gives a WORSE bufferbloat score than @supernoodles 's device - even though the partner's device probably achieves better overall performance

Re: No firmware updates?

supernoodles — Sun, 23 Jul 2023 22:47:40 GMT

My partners phone is a Samsung A71 mine is a Poco F1 so yeah there is a pretty big difference there in terms of age just frustrating that her device seems to be the only one causing most of the issues

Left image is my Poco F1 right image is my partners A71

Poco F1Samsung A71

Re: No firmware updates?

Anonymous — Sun, 23 Jul 2023 22:48:54 GMT

@supernoodles wrote:

I had a similar issue on my old plusnet hub one and it turned out to be faulty Wifi which was fixed by a firmware update.

Is there any reason you couldn't go back to the Hub 1 ? (if that was fixed)

Re: No firmware updates?

supernoodles — Sun, 23 Jul 2023 22:56:17 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:

@supernoodles wrote:

I had a similar issue on my old plusnet hub one and it turned out to be faulty Wifi which was fixed by a firmware update.

Is there any reason you couldn't go back to the Hub 1 ? (if that was fixed)

I think i still have my Hub 1 in my storage cupboard i actually thought about this earlier i plan to try and dig it out tomorrow and see if its an issue on that one too.

I'm considering either just buying a double powerline adapter (currently have a single on for my pc) either that or a new router that is more reliable

Re: No firmware updates?

Anonymous — Sun, 23 Jul 2023 23:03:08 GMT

Those bufferboat results are interesting.

There is almost no difference between the phones,

your broadband is working well,

and the large latency on the upload shows that you need a QoS capable router to eliminate the ping spikes

For comparison, here's mine (with QoS) -

Re: No firmware updates?

supernoodles — Sun, 23 Jul 2023 23:07:09 GMT

its sad if this is all because of no QoS because this router has been great for me in terms of wifi range i can use it super far outside my flat compared to my old hub 1 😕

Re: No firmware updates?

Anonymous — Sun, 23 Jul 2023 23:27:35 GMT

It shouldn't be too hard to reconfigure the Hub 2 to become an extension wireless access point, using an ethernet cable from the Hub 1.

Just configure it on a different WiFi channel, and a separate SSID for 'outdoor WiFi'

Re: No firmware updates?

supernoodles — Sun, 23 Jul 2023 23:31:55 GMT

So to further add to the confusion of [-Censored-] is going on both me and my partner just joined the exact same lobby on Fortnite both connected to the 5Ghz WiFi and both on PS5's only difference is mine is about 3 meters from the router hers is basically right next to it and bam mine has ping spikes hers doesn't lol pulling my hair out at this rate.

Think it's bed time and try the hub 1 tomorrow will report back after

Re: No firmware updates?

jab1 — Mon, 24 Jul 2023 06:20:15 GMT

@Anonymous Thanks for the explanation in post #8 - a bit more information to add to my data bank, although I probably will never use it 😉 - this isn't an area I intend to spend much time in.

Re: No firmware updates?

supernoodles — Mon, 24 Jul 2023 11:13:38 GMT

Done some more testing today haven't got round to getting the hub one out yet that's being done after this post is made.

Both PS5's on 5Ghz - Phone on 5Ghz - both consoles ping spikes randomly not always at the same time but sometimes at the same time
Both PS5's on 2.4Ghz - Phone on 2.4Ghz (5Ghz disabled completely) - Disc console no lag Digital no lag
Both PS5's on 2.4Ghz - Phone on 5Ghz - Disc console no lag Digital no lag
Disc console on 2.4Ghz - Digital on 5Ghz - Phone on 5Ghz = both consoles spike at different intervals

PS5 near pc had bad ping spikes for about 5 mins after re-enabling 5Ghz network (consoles were still on 2.4Ghz)

Also worth noting that now my phone has been causing spikes when on 5Ghz and both consoles are on 2.4Ghz

Sadly no matter how many tests i do something different happens every single time so i really do feel that maybe the Wifi on the router is faulty I'll report back in a little while after i've had chance to test the hub one again.

Also i think at this point the title might as well be changed to "Wifi problems" lol

Re: No firmware updates?

Anonymous — Mon, 24 Jul 2023 11:26:53 GMT

@supernoodles wrote:

... ... both me and my partner just joined the exact same lobby on Fortnite both connected to the 5Ghz WiFi and both on PS5's only difference is mine is about 3 meters from the router hers is basically right next to it and bam mine has ping spikes hers doesn't

Given that your PS5's are next to the router, why don't you connect them directly with ethernet cables ?

Doing low latency gaming over WiFi is never going to be as good as directly connected ethernet !

Re: No firmware updates?

Dan_the_Van — Mon, 24 Jul 2023 11:32:31 GMT

It is worth noting that ping will not give constant results, as many external devices within the route cannot be relied upon to respond quickly, they could be doing something else. so not really the best test tool

C:\>ping www.bbc.co.uk -t

Reply from 212.58.236.1: bytes=32 time=10ms TTL=57
Reply from 212.58.236.1: bytes=32 time=110ms TTL=57
Reply from 212.58.236.1: bytes=32 time=10ms TTL=57
Reply from 212.58.236.1: bytes=32 time=62ms TTL=57
Reply from 212.58.236.1: bytes=32 time=126ms TTL=57
Reply from 212.58.236.1: bytes=32 time=37ms TTL=57
Reply from 212.58.236.1: bytes=32 time=134ms TTL=57
Reply from 212.58.236.1: bytes=32 time=11ms TTL=57
Reply from 212.58.236.1: bytes=32 time=45ms TTL=57
Reply from 212.58.236.1: bytes=32 time=11ms TTL=57
Reply from 212.58.236.1: bytes=32 time=16ms TTL=57
Reply from 212.58.236.1: bytes=32 time=60ms TTL=57
Reply from 212.58.236.1: bytes=32 time=98ms TTL=57
Reply from 212.58.236.1: bytes=32 time=10ms TTL=57
Reply from 212.58.236.1: bytes=32 time=92ms TTL=57
Reply from 212.58.236.1: bytes=32 time=117ms TTL=57

Re: No firmware updates?

supernoodles — Mon, 24 Jul 2023 11:37:27 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:

@supernoodles wrote:

... ... both me and my partner just joined the exact same lobby on Fortnite both connected to the 5Ghz WiFi and both on PS5's only difference is mine is about 3 meters from the router hers is basically right next to it and bam mine has ping spikes hers doesn't

Given that your PS5's are next to the router, why don't you connect them directly with ethernet cables ?

Doing low latency gaming over WiFi is never going to be as good as directly connected ethernet !

Both PS5's were under our TV both hardwired but i recently moved mine across the room to where my pc is and there is no suitable way to run a cable across the room (same reason my pc is on powerline adapters)

Only reason both PS5's are on Wifi right now is because i wanted to run the same tests on both consoles just in case the Wifi on my PS5 was faulty.

I've now managed to get the hub one out of the cupboard turns out i actually have two of them in storage