Please help me identify the cause of my wireless lag spikes. (AC68)

[Bishi]

Hi all, i hope you can assist me!

I am a proud new owner of a AC68U router and a PCE-AC68 NICS, my normal sync speed between them is 702mbps with default settings and my latency to the closest point on the internet is ~10ms so i know the connection is reliable (BT UK ADSL). I use the 5ghz band and there are no other networks nearby reported by inSSIDer.

My issue is that at relatively regular intervals every 5-10 minutes I get a second or two where the wireless seems to stop responding and if I leave a ping running to this closest internet point (a BT IP) in another window I can see one ping of 500-1000ms and another immediately after of 1000-2000ms. If i leave a ping running in the router interface in a browser window, I don't see this lag spike (so I know the connection from the router -> internet is stable)

The spike is annoying when playing online games as you might imagine as it leaves me helpless for a few seconds while the game/server catches up and sometimes results in my client desyncing depending on what game it is.

Disabling TurboQAM from the NIC software or enabling performance mitigation doesn't seem to help. Its hard to tell if there is any difference on the 2.4ghz since there are a lot of networks nearby and there tends to be a lot of overlap anyway.
Turning off all other devices using the network and all background services doesn't seem to help.
I've also tried the 3.0.0.4.374.371 official firmware, the .443 beta firmware provided by ASUSNET (thanks!) and currently the 3.0.0.4.374.35_4 (Merlin build, great firmware!) but they all seem to have this same issue.
I've also tried this using two different ADSL modems to connect the AC68 to the internet - a BT Homehub 4 router and a TP Link 8960, same issue on both :|

Can anyone advise me or point me in the right direction to try and fix this? Thanks!

EDIT: Here's an excerpt from the ping log (pinging the router itself)
Reply from 192.168.2.1: bytes=32 time=2ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.2.1: bytes=32 time=2ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.2.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.2.1: bytes=32 time=2ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.2.1: bytes=32 time=2ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.2.1: bytes=32 time=2ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.2.1: bytes=32 time=785ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.2.1: bytes=32 time=1750ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.2.1: bytes=32 time=5ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.2.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.2.1: bytes=32 time=2ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.2.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.2.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.2.1: bytes=32 time=2ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.2.1: bytes=32 time=2ms TTL=64

 

[Bishi]

Unfortunately the wired connection in my PC is faulty :|

 

[sinshiva]

sorry, i deleted the post; i was about to go on a dsl mtu tirade (and yours probably still desperately needs to be tweaked, i'll lnk my posts on the subject if you wish), but if your problem really is verifably strictly between the client and the ap like your ping results suggest, it may not help with your immediate problem. i'm all for helping you give my idea a shot, though.

 

[Bishi]

MTU is set at 1500 on the AC68, which I think is optimal for BT. Any ideas you can give are appreciated.

 

[sinshiva]

Well, this post is where i talk about how i found my 'perfect' MTU. lower the WAN MTU on the router to this after you have found yours.
http://forums.smallnetbuilder.com/showpost.php?p=92591&postcount=5

and this is how i solved some inner lan issues as a result of the reduced MTU. This requires using asuswrt-merlin with JFFS enabled.
http://forums.smallnetbuilder.com/showpost.php?p=93163&postcount=2

i'd love to see your network performance after. thing is, you really need to be finding your MTU by connecting a computer with a gigabit interface to ensure the accuracy of speedtest results for each MTU. you lower the MTU on the computer's gigabit interface and speedtest to find it

This got rid of pretty much any amount of choking i previously experienced on my network, though i am currently using attached WAPs instead of the n66r's built-in.

good luck. an aside, just updating your router's firmware may help significantly with wireless performance. it's constantly being worked on lately afaik.

 

[Bishi]

Thanks for the hints, i'll definitely give it a go

 

[Asusnet]

Hi Bishi,

A new wireless driver is now available for the PCE-AC68. Check it out when you get the chance:

http://www.asus.com/Networking/PCEAC68/#support_Download

Select Windows 8 64bit, as it may not be showing up in the other OSes yet.

 

[Bishi]

Thanks Asusnet, I will try this

 

[Bishi]

Okay so installing that driver on the fresh install of Windows 8.1 that I installed today ends up with the Asus NIC software endlessly looping on 'initializing' and disconnects my wireless connection. This doesn't stop until I close the Asus software, at which point the windows wirelesss software takes over and uses the default driver and the connection works again.

Built in driver is 6.30.223.75 / 26/04/2013

EDIT: The driver does say 'press install when the windows security message pops up' or something similar but that message doesn't ever actually appear so I assume the driver installation failed but the software takes over anyway and causes trouble.

 

[ikoul]

Which driver is used shouldn't be determined by whether you're using the Asus tool or the built in windows networking stuff. Both just use the driver that's installed (though the Asus utility probably expects a particular one to work properly).

Try running the installer as an administrator and see if that works.

 

[sijuthomas98]

Hi Bishi,

A new wireless driver is now available for the PCE-AC68. Check it out when you get the chance:

http://www.asus.com/Networking/PCEAC68/#support_Download

Select Windows 8 64bit, as it may not be showing up in the other OSes yet.

Will the PCE-AC66 be getting any updates in the near future?

 

[Bishi]

Yeah tried that... also enabling test driver signing etc.. no dice! :|

 

[ikoul]

Are you installing over the previous version or uninstalling everything and trying it fresh?

 

[Bishi]

Okay thanks for the help guys, something was off with my new install. I restored the first system restore image and its all installed now. I'll post back with my findings!

 

[Bishi]

Early indications are that the new drivers have solved the lag issue. Thanks!

 

[asutton]

I know there hasn't been much activity in this thread in a while, but was anyone able to fix the issue the OP had with the Asus Wlan Control Center software opening and getting stuck in an "initializing" loop? I just installed the card and software today on Windows 8.1, Asus utility version 2.0.8.4, driver version 6.30.223.228. The application opens and says, "initializing, please wait", it flashes the available wireless networks for a second and then says initializing again. My work around for the time being was to install software, copy the resulting driver directory from the Asus folder, uninstall the software, then install the wireless driver from the copied directory and use windows to manage the interface. This works nicely, but doesn't give me any of the options, like beam forming, etc.

 

[kemeras]

I know there hasn't been much activity in this thread in a while, but was anyone able to fix the issue the OP had with the Asus Wlan Control Center software opening and getting stuck in an "initializing" loop? I just installed the card and software today on Windows 8.1, Asus utility version 2.0.8.4, driver version 6.30.223.228. The application opens and says, "initializing, please wait", it flashes the available wireless networks for a second and then says initializing again. My work around for the time being was to install software, copy the resulting driver directory from the Asus folder, uninstall the software, then install the wireless driver from the copied directory and use windows to manage the interface. This works nicely, but doesn't give me any of the options, like beam forming, etc.

I made an account specifically to answer this question (Somewhat relevant xkcd).

I'm running 8.1 atm and wanted to see if the drivers were fixed, they weren't (The loop broke sometime 8.1 was released I think). You can go about preventing the initializing loop by running it in windows 7 compatibility mode.

I did install the program in windows 7 compatibility mode, but if I turn it to windows 8 or off it still looped.

Go to the ASUS utilities root folder i.e C:\Program Files (x86)\ASUS\PCE-AC68 WLAN Card Utilities
go the properties of WlanMgr.exe and run it in windows 7 compatability mode