Very rare ping timeout on otherwise perfect 5ghz home network

[rpeters83]

I wrote a C#/.NET script to ping every second and log if a timeout happens. I'm pinging from a hardwired machine to 2 5ghz wireless laptops (MINE and HERS, the wife's). It's a home network so there's little to no traffic. There's no channel interference, and the laptops are only 20-30 feet away, separated by a room or two. Drywall walls. The AP is set to mostly defaults, but 40mhz, N-only 5ghz, on channel 36.

I can let this thing ping these laptops for hours and get consistent 1-2ms pings. It's very stable, have good connection, and consistent transfer speeds, but on a rare occasion, say after several thousand pings, I may get a single timeout, in a sea of 1-2ms ping times.

My router is an ASUS RT-N66U, so it's not a crappy router.

I'm really curious at this point. I hear people say that not a single packet should get dropped, and I hear others say that light packet loss is normal for wifi. It seems I get about one timeout per day and the rest of the day it's solid. Hard-wired connections seem just fine.

So, what is normal packet loss for a home 5ghz wifi network, with little traffic, and a good router? Thanks.

 

[klank]

A small amount of packet loss on any Wi-Fi network is normal. It has to do with numerous variables some of which include outside interference (i.e. radar, microwaves, etc.) and weather (i.e. air humidity levels,etc.).

I would classify a small amount of packet loss as anything under 3% per 1000 pings.

 

[rpeters83]

If there was interference, though, wouldn't I see more fluctuation in my ping times instead of consistent 1-2ms? Thanks.

 

[klank]

If there was interference, though, wouldn't I see more fluctuation in my ping times instead of consistent 1-2ms? Thanks.

Typically yes, however interference can be momentary and random.

 

[Soldier101]

I agree with klank. If your stuff Is doing that well you are pretty much in the optimum range.

 

[rpeters83]

I know Windows seems to scan for wireless networks every 60-70 seconds (I see the spikes). Perhaps for a brief fraction of a second that device is unreachable while scanning?

Thanks for the replies.

 

[stormy1]

fixed ip or dhcp? If dhcp what are the leases set to?
If dhcp change it to static and see if the dropped packet goes away.
But in all reality just don't worry about it.

 

[rpeters83]

fixed ip or dhcp? If dhcp what are the leases set to?
If dhcp change it to static and see if the dropped packet goes away.
But in all reality just don't worry about it.

Lease time was 8 hours, but I increased it to 24. The wireless laptops are DHCP.

Yeah, I know not to worry about it, it's just one of those things that got me curious as to how it's working. I have a habit of trying to fix things if they're not perfect.

I did have one timeout this morning, but it corresponds to when the windows client does a network scan, which seems to be every 70 seconds. I really am wondering if this might be it. I would be curious to find more info about this behavior.

 

[rpeters83]

Ok, so I'm off work and geeking out over my pinging here.

I set up my old 5ghz Linksys AP and connected one of the laptops to it. I downloaded PingPlotter, am running my script, and letting a ping.exe run all at the same time (crazy, right?).

I've noticed that even on a completely different wireless AP, I'm still getting these random timeouts. Also, the timeouts only happen when windows is scanning for networks every 60-70 seconds. It doesn't always happen every time, but sometimes, one of the three processes will pick it up right as the lag spikes. PingPlotter is reporting that every timeout so far is right on a ping spike when windows scans for APs. All three processes are indicating the same cause.

So, I'm coming to the conclusion that my timeouts were caused solely by windows scanning for networks periodically. So far, not a single timeout has happened outside of these 60-70 second intervals.

Thanks for the input. I learned a lot.