Like the previous posts you (thus we) really are flying in the blind here. All you've really offered is "latency, lag time". Everything? Or just the
interactive stuff like hopping from website to website or e-mail?
You've already a decent router, I think I'd like to know a little more before blindly throwing money at a new router. Kinda like a good mystery you need to start thinking about the who, what, when, where, why, etc. before shouting out, "Colonel Mustard, in the library, with a knife".
So, as Captain Renault said in Casablanca, "Round up the usual suspects". In general you're looking at
"shared resources" as that is where one user is most likely to impact another.
- Internet Up-link / Down-link. (What speeds are you supposed to get / what are you paying for?) If you're in a fiber city where $50 gets you 100 Mbps it's less likely a problem than if you're in a 3rd world city like me where it's a car payment for 10 by 1 Mbps. (Then it moves towards the top of the list.) If it does turn out to be the "pinch point" you don't always have to throw money at it as your router already supports bandwidth limiters and Quality of Service (kinda like Fast-path at Disney World).
- Wireless / wireless congestion. Also not the end of the world. You can cherry pick connections to hard wire and/or move a couple connections from 2.4Ghz to 5Ghz (or vice-versa). Worst case you might be looking at a wired AP or (dare I say?) a range extender.
- And let's add your security cameras to that list. I assume they're wireless and store their video clips in the cloud (a double whammy)?
Make a list of what you can test, make a chart, test, record. Add and remove stress (kids), remeasure and record. Load a Wi-Fi Analyzer onto your smart phone and walk around the house. Write down where signals are good and not so good. Does anyone work/play in the not so good areas? Are any of your (wireless?) security cameras on the fringe? Are any of your channels contesting with the neighbors' channels?
Tomorrow is Saturday, get up before the kids and start testing while everything is reasonably quiescent. Hardwire one of your laptops to your router. Run an Internet Speed Test. Bounce through a couple websites. Try e-mail. Record results and impressions.
- Now connect wireless at 5Ghz, do the same things and record results and impressions.
- Now connect wireless at 2.4Ghz and repeat as above.
Now disconnect your cameras, do it all again, record and analyze.
Feel free to reconnect your cameras and rerun tests (looking for consistency with your first set of tests).
Now as the kids start waking up involve them one by one in your new family mystery game. Record how they connect, what they're doing (on-line gaming, streaming a video) while you rerun your test suite.
Take guesses. Make it a family game. Add or subtract stress to prove or disprove emerging theories. Like if I was one of your kids I'd blame it on Dad's security cameras. I'd suspect they were taking Internet bandwidth and I'd suspect that at least one of the cameras was on the ragged edge of 2.4Ghz thus slowing all users on that wireless radio.
- So on our first test suite all three networks should show the same results from the Internet Speed Test (assuming all the kids were still in bed). If the 2.4 test is slower than the rest that tends to support that kid's hypothesis.
- Now the 2nd suite was with no cameras. All three connection types should not only show better performance, all three should now show similar performance (this assumes all the kids were still in bed) further supporting that kid's hypothesis.
- Confirm with Wifi Analyzer.
- Let the kids play, see who gets grumpy first. See if he's on the 2.4Ghz radio.
- Disconnect the suspect cameras. What happens?
Of course nothing is ever that simple. Expect to find 2 or 3 problems before everything is wonderful again.
Learn more, share more and all those SNB vets will be able to offer more. Best of Luck!