Ping momentarily goes really high

[#1]

Hi, we upgraded to Fibre Broadband at the beginning of the week, but I've only noticed this issue happening today. Usually, the pings to other sites are around 20ms, but I've noticed them going up to over 1000ms, particularly when we've got the VPN enabled (but also without it). I've tried restarting the router, unplugging things and restarting my main laptop, but this keeps happening and it makes loading sites a bit slow every 20 seconds or so. Is there an issue with my line? Thanks in advance.

[#2]

Do the ping increases correspond with anything happening? Large uploads or usage happening etc?

[#3]

If this with a wireless connection, can you test again with it wired.

[#4]

Hi Chris - no, it appears to happen randomly.

npr, I'll try tomorrow with a wired connection and see how it goes.

[#5]

Have now tested over wired. It doesn't happen over ethernet, but it does happen over Wi-Fi, on both 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands and with various devices.

[#6]

It does appear as though you're getting a poor wireless signal from the router, I assume you've tested in the same room as the router.

Can't completely discount RF interference but as it's affecting both 2.4GHz and 5GHz it does seem unlikely.

Try moving the router away from any possible source of RF eg. DECT phone base, TV, sky box etc.

Just moving the router a few inches away from a walls may help signal strength.

Ensure the router is configured to have a different SSID for the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands.

Can't suggest anything else other than trying a different router. As a matter of interest which router are you using?

[#7]

Hi npr, it's a Plusnet Hub One. I've tested in the same room as the router (well, the hallway, where it is) and it seems to be the same. Interestingly I tried another router, connected to one of the Ethernet ports of the router, and had the same results, so I assume there must be some kind of interference in the hallway. I've also tried moving it around, but I'm mostly limited to that corner because that's where the phone socket is and I don't want wires trailing everywhere. It's so frustrating not knowing what it is, but it's probably not a Plusnet issue... I'm going to try some power line adaptors instead and see how I get on.

[#8]

Just a wild thought, is it possible you have a IP address conflict (two devices on the same IP) in your home network?

That's something I've seen before which gave ping issues, although it IIRC it did give more obvious problems.

IF you haven't changed the routers DHCP settings or haven't assigned a static IP address to any of your devices then ignore the above.

[#9]

There's an outside chance that it's the router power supply?  I had a similar problem with a Thomson 585: Ethernet a bit intermittent, Wireless no-go.  Changed power supply and everything sorted.

NOTE:  I recall that when I had the fault I could hear noise on the phone that went if I switched the router off / on.

As I say, a long shot but possibly quick to check

[#10 · Accepted solution]

OK, I think I've "fixed" it... I think I was conflating two different problems. It turns out the VPN software I was using was opening multiple connections at once, causing everything else to slow down if one process was trying to access the internet at one time. Now, I did say it was doing it without the VPN too - and there was a problem with pings dropping a bit over 2.4GHz, but that's probably because the band is extremely congested. The 5GHz band had the ping-dropping problem too, but only with the VPN on, and when I was in the spare bedroom, where the Wi-Fi signal is poor. I've made things work better by using the VPN provider's browser extension (essentially using it as a proxy server rather than a VPN) instead of tunnelling my entire connection through it. Sorry to have wasted your time!

[#11]

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@doonanleith wrote:

OK, I think I've "fixed" it... .... Sorry to have wasted your time!

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That's not a problem.  Thanks for letting us know that it's "fixed".