Ping response via wi-fi - Is this normal?

[ionblue]

I was having some trouble yesterday with my N66U which ended up needing a reboot to get the wireless back up. Afterwards I did a ping test on one of my boxes on wi-fi and noticed the ping responses were crazy long. I have no idea if this is normal or not. I don't see any perceptible lags on this machine (a Mac Mini connected to 5Ghz), but was wondering if anyone can shed some insight on this.

Here's what the ping looks like from a machine on Ethernet (looks the same when run from the router):

---
Ionblue-MBP:~ anthony$ ping 192.168.1.100
PING 192.168.1.100 (192.168.1.100): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 192.168.1.100: icmp_seq=0 ttl=64 time=205.692 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.100: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=1.559 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.100: icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=1.650 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.100: icmp_seq=3 ttl=64 time=275.927 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.100: icmp_seq=4 ttl=64 time=196.305 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.100: icmp_seq=5 ttl=64 time=117.025 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.100: icmp_seq=6 ttl=64 time=37.962 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.100: icmp_seq=7 ttl=64 time=265.581 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.100: icmp_seq=8 ttl=64 time=186.494 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.100: icmp_seq=9 ttl=64 time=107.656 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.100: icmp_seq=10 ttl=64 time=27.791 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.100: icmp_seq=11 ttl=64 time=255.586 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.100: icmp_seq=12 ttl=64 time=134.840 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.100: icmp_seq=13 ttl=64 time=96.875 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.100: icmp_seq=14 ttl=64 time=17.936 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.100: icmp_seq=15 ttl=64 time=245.581 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.100: icmp_seq=16 ttl=64 time=1.750 ms
^C
--- 192.168.1.100 ping statistics ---
17 packets transmitted, 17 packets received, 0.0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 1.559/128.012/275.927/98.441 ms
---

And this is what my Mac Mini has for signal on this setup:

---
ionblue_5G:
PHY Mode: 802.11n
BSSID: 30:85:a9:6b:c0:9c
Channel: 157,1
Country Code: US
Network Type: Infrastructure
Security: WPA2 Personal
Signal / Noise: -65 dBm / -85 dBm
Transmit Rate: 216
MCS Index: 13
---

The current firmware of the router is 3.0.0.4.374.39_0-em.

Thanks.

 

[Builder71]

Not normal, should be close to 1ms.

Try Merlins latest and reset to factory default.
"Forget" the WiFi network on your mobile devices and reconnect.

Any better after that?

 

[ionblue]

This is looking stranger. Pining the opposite direction to my MacBook Pro on Ethernet where I ran it before, the response is all under 3ms from multiple sources. It's only the other direction that I'm seeing this. I don't understand that one at all.

I'll update to the latest to see if that does anything, but it won't be till tomorrow morning. I have a couple terminal sessions running to a new box that's running some pre-clear operations on a new disk array. That's going to take many more hours to complete and I can't interrupt the term sessions unless I want to start over.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[Asmodian]

It sounds like your Mac Mini is sleeping the wireless as a power saving feature. The long pings are when it has to wake up before responding.

 

[ionblue]

It sounds like your Mac Mini is sleeping the wireless as a power saving feature. The long pings are when it has to wake up before responding.

That's an interesting thought. I actually have it set to never sleep since it's currently our media server and it's it's pretty constantly doing something. I poked around the preferences and there certainly isn't anything that's obviously turned on for this. I'll need to do some research to see if it's that happens and if there's a way to disable.


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[ionblue]

It sounds like your Mac Mini is sleeping the wireless as a power saving feature. The long pings are when it has to wake up before responding.

Did some research and you may be right. What I found was for MBPs using wifi and the OS will sleep wifi in between packets if there isn't any continuous net activity going on. My MBP isn't using wifi, but everything else in my house is. Even though the Mini doesn't need to conserve power for a battery, it's totally possible the OS does the same thing.

In any case it doesn't look like an issue with the router. I appreciate you bringing that up!


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[geops]

Did some research and you may be right. What I found was for MBPs using wifi and the OS will sleep wifi in between packets if there isn't any continuous net activity going on. My MBP isn't using wifi, but everything else in my house is. Even though the Mini doesn't need to conserve power for a battery, it's totally possible the OS does the same thing.

In any case it doesn't look like an issue with the router. I appreciate you bringing that up!


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

It's some kind of incompatibility I'm guessing. I have the exact same problem with my macbook pro (latest generation) and AC68U. It also used to drop a lot of packets but after I turned off beamforming on the router it mostly spikes RTT to 100-200ms and goes back down to under 1ms.