Experiencing network latency/buffering issues

[amrogers3]

My Nighthawk 7800 went EoL so I replaced it with a Flint 2 (MT6000)(OpenWrt 25.12.4). After replacing it, I observed issues with network with web pages struggling to load and streaming video would buffer and I was get the rotating circle that shows it is loading. I did some basic troubleshooting and noticed I was getting a latency of about 100ms over wireless. I ran a wireless diagnostics on my Mac and the summary I got recommended different channels on 2.4 and 5GHz. I had my MT6000 channels set to "auto".

After doing changing to the recommended channels, my lag seemed to have dropped significantly but I am still getting "Low Responsiveness" of 500-1+s. Is this normal for a wireless connection? Also, is there anything else I may be missing in setting up or diagnosing my network for issues?

Any additional troubleshooting advice would be appreciated

 

[Nobu]

Latency looks normal, maybe a bit high but not extraordinary for wireless. Responsiveness is atrocious. Could be caused by poor connection quality resulting in dropped packets? Have you tried adjusting the transmit power on the AP up or down?

If that doesn't help, you could try installing and setting up sqm on your wrt box, but since it seems related to a device on your network I don't think that will help in this case.

You could check dns settings on the ap, the primary dns provider may be timing out. If it is advertising a different dns, that may explain it.

 

[toast0]

What's your channel width set to? Looks like 40 Mhz on 2.4 GHz ... Unless you're out in the forest, that's not a great idea. I am out in the forest and I still run 20 MHz on 2.4 Ghz because I run multiple APs myself.

If you've also got congestion on 5 GHz, you don't want to run excessively wide channels up there either.

Common wisdom is to use only channels 1/7/11 on 2.4 Ghz in the US; not channel 2.

For 5 GHz, I think the 20 Mhz channels are all non-overlapping, but if you don't have interference, you can try something bigger.

If responsiveness is ping time while downloading, you've got a little bufferbloat on wired and a shit ton on wireless. Definitely look for QoS/traffic shaping/SQM/whatever it's labeled. Otoh, your downlink speeds on wifi suck ... fix that and the buffer bloat will get a lot better. Reducing signal power a bit can sometimes result in better Signal to Noise ratios and better throughput; it's worth a try. Reducing signal power on 2.4 GHz will help your clients try 5 Ghz which might be better if you're in dense housing and 2.4 Ghz is a mess (like it usually is)

15 ms extra round trip at idle sounds fair though.

 

[amrogers3]

My current channel on 2.4Ghz is 11.
I checked bufferbloat and I have Codel set up limiting 550 at pfSense so since the Flint is not doing any routing, the speed I am seeing on the Flint 2 shouldn't be hitting anywhere near that if I understand the process correctly.
To make this even more bizarre, I did a speed test at the fiber coming in and at the pfsense interface.
709Mbps to 53Mbps is wild.

interfaces are gigabit

No errors or collisions

 

[pendragon1]

did you setup this "guest" mode or just flipped a switch? it may be auto limited...

 

[That_Sound_Guy]

You need to paint a full picture of your setup for any help with this. First post is all about wireless now you mention you have pfsense, codel and whatever else causing other issues. You mention plugging into a wireless AP, I didn't see that mentioned initially. May have missed it.

Process of elimination - wired only:
Speed test at ISP - Verify
Add router without pfsense, codel or any other traffic shapers. - Verify (you have no idea if the router is physically working until you do something like this)
Add pfsense - verify
etc.

I would recommend doing everything wired until that is true to speed. Your wifi screenshots show no real conflicts to suggest radios are the issue but until you know wired is good, its not worth the headache. Especially if you're trying to AP extenders or bridges.