Connection dropping in online gaming

[fustercluck]

Welp I'm going through a back and forth with a Cox rep on this, but they'll be closed for a while so I thought maybe you guys could help.

The past 3 days or so, when playing any online games the following happens: Every 2-3 minutes the connection drops for 3-7 seconds. So everything in the game stops moving basically and when I come out of the lag out, I'm usually dead

Probably happens when browsing the net but it's not as noticeable. I haven't purposefully changed any internet settings in the past few days. Not downloading any torrents or anything. What might make the connection drop out every 2-3 minutes for a few seconds (or more) each time? Anything I should look into?

Using Vista 64
Using a Zyxel router
Using a Motorola Modem SB5101 (or something close to that)

Been on this setup for a long time though with no problems. It's just in the last few days this has started to happen.

 

[Fardringle]

Do you have the same problem if you connect your computer directly to the Motorola modem? (If you try this, make sure you have a software firewall enabled.)

 

[fustercluck]

I can't do that, but I started to log my router activities and noticed a lot of this stuff:

Thu Dec 11 00:56:33 2008 Wireless system with MAC address (my mac address here) disconnected for reason: Received Deauthentication.

Thinking that might be the prob...wonder what to do.

 

[fustercluck]

Well I turned off WiiConnect24 and the problem seems to have halted :x - Just enabled it recently so it makes sense. Wonder why Wii would be doing that...ah well, glad I found the problem anyways.

 

[spidey07]

oh, you're using wireless. Wireless not good for gaming. Change channels to 1, 6, 11 to see what works best.

 

[fustercluck]

Wireless can't be too much worse. It seems to be the standard these days. It would be a big pain to have to wire up all 3 family computers (in 3 diff rooms).

But, turning off Wiiconnect24 definitely stopped the errors/constant dropouts. Too bad too, cause I wanted to keep WiiConnect24 on

I doubt all people who use Wiiconnect24 see constant dropouts with their internet connection. I think this is a specific problem to me.

 

[spidey07]

Originally posted by: wankawitz
Wireless can't be too much worse. It seems to be the standard these days. It would be a big pain to have to wire up all 3 family computers (in 3 diff rooms).

But, turning off Wiiconnect24 definitely stopped the errors/constant dropouts. Too bad too, cause I wanted to keep WiiConnect24 on

I doubt all people who use Wiiconnect24 see constant dropouts with their internet connection. I think this is a specific problem to me.

To put it simply, I do this shit for a living. I am paid very well to recognize symptoms and understand what is going on.

This is not specific to you. This is the world of wireless.

You lowered your client count and if your Wii was at the edge of your wireless coverage it was consuming most of your bandwidth even if it wasn't doing much of anything other than sending and receiving broadasts and wireless management frames. Your symptoms are very common and expected with a client with a poor signal/noise ratio.

Your problems were most likely layer1 - wireless and the carrier - and my guess is your wii is not in the same room as your access point and you probably have interference as well.

It's not just you, wireless sucks.

 

[fustercluck]

Yeah I'd still be using wired internet if I could, but the rest of the fam dislikes all the wires.

The Wii and the Router are only about 10 ft apart, but there's a couple things in the way. Stuck with wireless for a while though...until maybe FIOS or something *shrug*.

Seeing as the Wii and Router are press close though, I could run a direct connection from the router to the wii. Would like likely solve the problem or would it keep causing wireless to drop out?