Wireless drops for ~3secs

[TheBlackOut]

My friend has been experiencing I guess "wireless drops". In game, (BF2, TF2, doesnt matter) his character will "freeze" for about 2-3 seconds before he resumes control of the character again. Another forum told him it might be something called "Wireless Zero Configuration" but even with it turned off, he still gets dropped.

They also told him to ping a game server, and if he got a spike, which he did, move on to pinging his router, which he did and got spikes there too. He still gets these drops with WZC turned off.

Any help out there? If you want more info, just request it and I'll ask it of him!

 

[jlazzaro]

its the nature of the beast...wireless is unpredictable and in most cases not suitable for online gaming.

 

[ChAoTiCpInOy]

Change channels. Go to channel 11 or 1.

 

[jlazzaro]

Originally posted by: ChAoTiCpInOy
Change channels. Go to channel 11 or 1.

1, 6, and 11 are the non-overlapping channnels.

 

[TheBlackOut]

Non-overlapping means what exactly? That they just don't mess with other channels?

 

[ImDonly1]

Wireless signals are present everywhere. Microwaves, cordless phones, etc. They all will interfere with a wireless router. A non-overlapping channel is one that is usually free of such things. It would also be a good idea to not have many of the things (cordless phones, microwaves) too close or else they will cause interference.

 

[ViRGE]

Originally posted by: TheBlackOut
Non-overlapping means what exactly? That they just don't mess with other channels?

The short answer is that WiFi uses 25mhz of bandwidth (roughly 12mhz in each direction) while each WiFi channel is only separated by only 5mhz(a poor decision, IMHO). As a result, transmissions on various channels bleed over in to near by channels. Given the width and channel separation, the ideal allocation to avoid bleeding is to only use channels 1, 6, and 11. These channels are far enough apart from each other that there will be no bleeding at all, and is the only configuration that allows for 3 fully isolated channels.

Wikipedia has a list of channels and frequencies if you're curious.

As for what ImDonly1 is talking about, I am afraid he is partially mistaken. Microwaves are noisy period and can't be avoided, while other telecommunication devices are free to use any channel as they see fit. 1/6/11 is not any more free from these devices than any other channel. The only advantage here is that switching channels may avoid interference from a local device that is only polluting one channel.

 

[TheBlackOut]

Thanks! That was very informative. One thing I'd like to know for myself... do separate computers use separate channels from the wireless router? Or do 3 computers hog one channel?

 

[ViRGE]

Originally posted by: TheBlackOut
Thanks! That was very informative. One thing I'd like to know for myself... do separate computers use separate channels from the wireless router? Or do 3 computers hog one channel?

All devices attached to the same wireless network will be on the same channel.

 

[TheBlackOut]

Originally posted by: ViRGE

Originally posted by: TheBlackOut
Thanks! That was very informative. One thing I'd like to know for myself... do separate computers use separate channels from the wireless router? Or do 3 computers hog one channel?

All devices attached to the same wireless network will be on the same channel.

Thank you for your response! I will have him try this later today!

 

[TheBlackOut]

Hello. The channel was already on 11, but I changed it to 1. I did "ping 192.168.1.1 -t" in the CMD... At least, it seemed like the spikes stopped. But 30 seconds into it, 50ms appeared. Not as bad as some, but it was still much more than the usual 1-5ms. Then 1153ms happened 30 seconds later.

Any more advise ya'll? Apparently he has a "Ralink Turbo Wireless LAN Card" (sounds generic) and a Netgear WGT624 v3 wireless router.

 

[spidey07]

Sounds like noise, nothing you can do about it except to move any sources of noise away from the antennas.

 

[TheBlackOut]

Weird though, this has only happened recently, not like it's always been this way. And it's almost always 30 seconds gap between the drops.... Interference shouldn't be timed like this.

 

[spidey07]

I've seen plenty of noise sources that occur at regular intervals, specifically phones.

 

[TheBlackOut]

But what would cause it to occur now? He has had his computer in the same area of his room for ages and it has never been a problem. For it to occur just now is pretty weird.

Quick question: Does wireless signal go through regular walls?

 

[spidey07]

Originally posted by: TheBlackOut
But what would cause it to occur now? He has had his computer in the same area of his room for ages and it has never been a problem. For it to occur just now is pretty weird.

Quick question: Does wireless signal go through regular walls?

Absolutely, you can't control your environment. Posters above me (thanks virge) have shown.

Wireless just isn't there yet, it's a convenience but it NOT a wired replacement.

Hell dude, I design this crap everyday and wireless just isn't good for gaming. Wireless sucks, it sucks on so many levels from a networking perspective.

I really don't know what else to say - your results are typical. You can't control your environment.

 

[TheBlackOut]

Bummer. He is far away from the router and it would be awkward running a cord through the house so wireless is his only option... Oh well, hopefully when he moves to Minnesota his new house will allow him to have cords and not rely on wireless signal.

 

[TheBlackOut]

Update: We disabled WZC and it seemed to work. But the problem is that once it is disabled forever (it is a service that starts on bootup) then he cannot find the network that he needs to connect on the bootup. It said we can use another program to handle this...

Is there a program to handle this without using WZC or is just recommended we start/stop ZWC every boot/disconnect?

 

[JackMDS]

http://www.ezlan.net/wireless.html