Hello, I'm hoping someone could help figure out a solution to my very frustrating lag spikes on my XT8 mesh system. I've combed these forums for a couple of months and tried several things found here and elsewhere, as well as just experimenting.
TL;DR: I have lag spikes on my XT8 setup that make online gaming with my kids very frustrating. I've tried a lot of things, but would be grateful for any suggestions you can give.
Problem: Lag spikes every few minutes. In most cases, these are undetectable because they don't interfere with normal usage. They are very noticeable and unbearable when I am playing Fortnite with my children. Me on an Xbox One, them on two Nintendo Switch Lites in the same room as me. All are wireless (I know, wired is better...).Normal latency is around 40-50ms. My latency will spike to 300ms or higher, sometimes to 1000ms. These spikes almost always happen at the same moment on all 3 consoles.
I do not experience these spikes when I drag a long Cat5e cable across the house to the Xbox. The Switches cannot be wired without extra dongles. Even if I ran Cat5 to the Xbox, the Switch Lites cannot be reasonably wired, so I'm trying to solve this wirelessly. I have also run this same test by playing fortnite on a computer with wired vs wireless. I experience the lag spikes on wireless, but not wired.
Previously, I had the first Generation Orbi RBK53 kit. I do not remember any lag spikes like this, but I also did not play any online fast twitch games that would have made the problem obvious. It had fantastic bandwidth and coverage all over my house, but I ditched it after Netgear pushing out bad firmware a few times over the years and random device disconnects. After that, I had the Nest Wifi Router + 3 nodes. I returned it within 90 days, one of the reasons was because over those 90 days the bandwidth deteriorated to way less than the Orbi, the nodes showed "weak" connection even when mere feet away in direct line of sight, and I also started to play Fortnite with the kids and noticed lag spikes (though I did not measure them to the degree I'm troubleshooting with XT8). With the limited ability to troubleshoot these devices, I decided to go with my old trusty friend, Asus. I only mention my previous mesh networks as a consideration for environmental interference.
Setup: I started off with the XT8 router wired to my Arris modem (cable internet, 1g down, 50m up). House is a one story, about 2300 square feet. It's close enough to square shape, with the modem/router in my home office, roughly northwest corner of the house. This is the reason I've gone with mesh rather than I single good router. The garage with a few smart devices is in the direct opposite, southeast corner. The guest bedroom, which we use regularly, is at the front of the house with walls and a refrigerator dampening wifi.
The router is on the top shelf of a bookshelf with nothing else around it. The XT8 node is in the kitchen, about 40-50 feet away, 4.5 feet off the ground, with direct line of sight. The living room area is between the router and the node. This is where the Xbox and Switches are usually played.
I've tried troubleshooting so many things that my setup has changed in the past couple of months. I chased Bufferbloat as the issue for a while, so I have ended up with Modem > EdgeRouter 4 > TP-Link Smart Switch > XT8 Router. I also have a lot of clients, around 50.
I've been running a lot of PingPlotter tests where I can. I notice not a perfect overlap, but certainly an overlap, when running PingPlotter simultaneously on my Macbook in the office, a few feet from the XT8 Router, compared to a PC in a bedroom, connected to the XT8 node. I also hooked up an old RT-AC68U I have connected to it. I experienced some ping spikes, but less frequently and less severe than the XT8.
I've been running mostly on the 9/22 firmware. I am currently running the latest beta firmware (10/22?) with no improvement. The RT-AC68U I still have around for testing is in Merlin 384.19 (god I was disappointed when I bought the XT8 and realized Merlin isn't possible).
I've tried just about every solution to anything wireless related on these forums. At this point, I've lost track of what didn't help at all, or what has *seemed* to help a tiny bit, until it fell apart. I'd be grateful for any suggestions and can try them.
Example of latency today, tests run concurrently (didn't notice until after this that I accidentally ran the interval at 2.5 seconds on the windows machine). 10.0.0.1 is my EdgeRouter, so it goes client > [XT8 Node] XT8 Router > TP-Link Switch > EdgeRouter(10.0.0.1)
You'll see some of the overlapping ping spike events on both the Router and Node (I understand that some of the individual latency spikes could be for things like the client scanning for other wireless networks). There is a marked difference when connecting one of the PCs to the RT-AC68U.
Windows PC > XT8 Node 5GHz (through 3 walls/closets)
View attachment 27400
Macbook > XT8 Router (10 feet away, LOS)
View attachment 27401
Windows PC > XT8 Node 5GHz (walls, closets)
View attachment 27402
Macbook > RT-AC68U 5GHz (10 feet away LOS)
View attachment 27403
Thanks again for any help, sorry for such a long first post.
