Streaming heavy stuff over WiFi (VNC, raw IQ data)

[Rob Q]

Hi,
When I connect to my laptop which is on the 5 GHz network from my desktop which is using Gigabit LAN, TeamViewer sometimes stutters, lags, or freezes with the laptop on WiFi, same with when I stream my SDR programs over the network. The client end always stutters. When I use the wired connection, I don't have this problem.

Is there a way that I can reduce latency / lag with the WiFi?
I've checked for interfering networks causing overlap and it's my router on the selected control channel. The channel width on the 5 GHz band is maxed out.

I'm using the RT-AC1900P router with Merlin 386.9 and yeah, I did do a factory reset after upgrading the firmware.

I could just use a wired connection, but it's not my first choice.

 

[ColinTaylor]

If you run a continuous ping from the desktop to the laptop (e.g. ping -t mylaptop) how consistent are the response times?

Is your SDR also WiFi connected?

Try disabling Airtime Fairness.

 

[drinkingbird]

Hi,
When I connect to my laptop which is on the 5 GHz network from my desktop which is using Gigabit LAN, TeamViewer sometimes stutters, lags, or freezes with the laptop on WiFi, same with when I stream my SDR programs over the network. The client end always stutters. When I use the wired connection, I don't have this problem.

Is there a way that I can reduce latency / lag with the WiFi?
I've checked for interfering networks causing overlap and it's my router on the selected control channel. The channel width on the 5 GHz band is maxed out.

I'm using the RT-AC1900P router with Merlin 386.9 and yeah, I did do a factory reset after upgrading the firmware.

I could just use a wired connection, but it's not my first choice.

There was one thread where someone noticed that all their IOT/streaming devices using MDNS were causing similar type issues, maybe something to look at if you have a lot of those type of devices.

Just because there are no overlapping networks doesn't mean there isn't interference, may still be worth trying another channel.

 

[Rob Q]

If you run a continuous ping from the desktop to the laptop (e.g. ping -t mylaptop) how consistent are the response times?

 Packets: Sent = 143, Received = 143, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
    Minimum = 1ms, Maximum = 58ms, Average = 3ms

Is your SDR also WiFi connected?

No, it connects through USB.

 

[Rob Q]

@drinkingbird Yes, we have a lot of streaming devices that connect to the 5 GHz network. My Roku TV, Tablo, 2 laptops, and 2 Roku Streaming Sticks. Also, what is "MDNS"? As for IOT devices, I do have a Raspberry Pi 3B but that connects to the 2.4 GHz network.

Would changing any of these help?

 

[drinkingbird]

@drinkingbird Yes, we have a lot of streaming devices that connect to the 5 GHz network. My Roku TV, Tablo, 2 laptops, and 2 Roku Streaming Sticks. Also, what is "MDNS"? As for IOT devices, I do have a Raspberry Pi 3B but that connects to the 2.4 GHz network.

Would changing any of these help?

MDNS is what lots of devices use to discover each other. "Multicast DNS". Unfortunately a lot of those messages can slow things down as home routers aren't really optimized for multicast, but the asus does seem to process and respond to every message. Doesn't necessarily matter whether it is 2.4, 5, or hardwired, if there are a lot of these packets it can slow the router down. I haven't seen widespread reports of that here but definitely a few.

There was a pretty lengthy discussion about it here https://www.snbforums.com/threads/d...sist-igmp-snooping-on-managed-switches.81417/ but you can also search for MDNS and find some others, one related to Homekit causing issues flooding out these messages.

I would try disabling universal beamforming, my experience has been that with a mix of N and AC devices it only interferes. Leave explicit enabled. I have TX bursting disabled, but I don't recall if there was a good reason for that. I also have wireless mode (on the standard settings) set to N/AC mixed. That should disable some of the older/slower speed rates, may or may not help.

You can try setting your control channel to one of the first 4 to see if that range gives you any better performance, but auto has always worked fine for me. Sometimes it grabs the lower range, sometimes the upper.

The ping output you pasted isn't all that helpful, that 58 could be a single ping or frequent. Does it seem pretty consistent or is it all over the place? My 5Ghz is pretty consistent in the 2-3 range, with occasional jump to 5 or 7.

You could try unplugging the streaming devices and see if you notice any improvement in pings etc.

One person's solution was to use VLANs to isolate some of the problematic devices. You could also use IPTABLES to filter MDNS from ever hitting the router CPU, assuming you don't need your devices to interact with the router for MDNS (you probably don't).

 

[Rob Q]

MDNS is what lots of devices use to discover each other. "Multicast DNS". Unfortunately a lot of those messages can slow things down as home routers aren't really optimized for multicast, but the asus does seem to process and respond to every message. Doesn't necessarily matter whether it is 2.4, 5, or hardwired, if there are a lot of these packets it can slow the router down. I haven't seen widespread reports of that here but definitely a few.

There was a pretty lengthy discussion about it here https://www.snbforums.com/threads/d...sist-igmp-snooping-on-managed-switches.81417/ but you can also search for MDNS and find some others, one related to Homekit causing issues flooding out these messages.

I would try disabling universal beamforming, my experience has been that with a mix of N and AC devices it only interferes. Leave explicit enabled. I have TX bursting disabled, but I don't recall if there was a good reason for that. I also have wireless mode (on the standard settings) set to N/AC mixed. That should disable some of the older/slower speed rates, may or may not help.

You can try setting your control channel to one of the first 4 to see if that range gives you any better performance, but auto has always worked fine for me. Sometimes it grabs the lower range, sometimes the upper.

The ping output you pasted isn't all that helpful, that 58 could be a single ping or frequent. Does it seem pretty consistent or is it all over the place? My 5Ghz is pretty consistent in the 2-3 range, with occasional jump to 5 or 7.

You could try unplugging the streaming devices and see if you notice any improvement in pings etc.

One person's solution was to use VLANs to isolate some of the problematic devices. You could also use IPTABLES to filter MDNS from ever hitting the router CPU, assuming you don't need your devices to interact with the router for MDNS (you probably don't).

I found something called "Enable multicast routing" which is disabled by default.
I'm not sure where to find that MDNS stuff.
Ping is also 2-3ms.
I turned off the universal beamforming and set the wireless mode to N/AC mixed.

 

[ColinTaylor]

I turned off the universal beamforming and set the wireless mode to N/AC mixed.

I would leave wireless mode as Auto. Did you turn off airtime fairness as I suggested?

 

[Rob Q]

I would leave wireless mode as Auto. Did you turn off airtime fairness as I suggested?

Yes. Airtime fairness is turned off on both the 2.4 and 5 GHz pages.

 

[Rob Q]

This is what I'm dealing with for the channels. ("Me_5G" and "Me" is really my network, not actually called "Me". Edited for privacy)

 

[Rob Q]

Would changing any of these help?

 

[drinkingbird]

I found something called "Enable multicast routing" which is disabled by default.
I'm not sure where to find that MDNS stuff.
Ping is also 2-3ms.
I turned off the universal beamforming and set the wireless mode to N/AC mixed.

If your ping is 2-3msec your wifi seems fine. See if things improve with those two settings changed. If not then it may not be related to the router.

 

[ColinTaylor]

This is what I'm dealing with for the channels. ("Me_5G" and "Me" is really my network, not actually called "Me". Edited for privacy)

Your 5GHz settings look wrong (maybe I'm reading your screenshot incorrectly). It looks like you have disabled ac support (leaving only a and n). This will severely reduce the throughput of the clients on that band. Check the link rate of your client. Change the 5GHz Wireless Mode back to Auto.

 

[Rob Q]

The laptop and my phone are both reporting the link is at 433 Mbps. Also, everything according to the router is using AC. I think what you are seeing on channel 157 which is reporting AN is the access point on my Roku Streaming Stick. That uses a WiFi remote. I had to check the MAC address to see what device it was.

 

[Rob Q]

If your ping is 2-3msec your wifi seems fine. See if things improve with those two settings changed. If not then it may not be related to the router.

I've got AiProtection enabled and I'm also using the Diversion ad-blocker.

 

[Rob Q]

If your ping is 2-3msec your wifi seems fine. See if things improve with those two settings changed. If not then it may not be related to the router.

It did improve.

Packets: Sent = 355, Received = 355, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 2ms, Maximum = 3ms, Average = 2ms

 

[Rob Q]

I think I might have done something right. Before SDR-Console (client side) would freeze when I try to connect to the laptop running the programs server application. Now since I've changed a few settings in the router, it connected with the max 10 MHz bandwidth right away. Doesn't seem to be stuttering. Might need to tweak Windows 10 a bit to lower the footprint on the system though.

 

[ColinTaylor]

I think that's the best you're going to get. Running TeamViewer with so much changing video information is really going to consume bandwidth. That's not going to be helped by your laptop only having a single stream WiFi card which limits it to 433Mbps as a maximum link rate. If you don't need to see the waterfall just minimise it to try and reduce the bandwidth being used.

 

[Rob Q]

I think that's the best you're going to get. Running TeamViewer with so much changing video information is really going to consume bandwidth. That's not going to be helped by your laptop only having a single stream WiFi card which limits it to 433Mbps as a maximum link rate. If you don't need to see the waterfall just minimise it to try and reduce the bandwidth being used.

If running a wire isn't an option, would you suggest that I get a USB WiFi adapter that can connect at the full speed of the router? My desktop's 802.11ax adapter can connect at 526/866 (Mbps) but the antenna is against a wall and in the corner of a room on the other side of the house. To get the full speed of the router's WiFi, I would need an external antenna for my motherboard and maybe a 5 GHz repeater.

 

[ColinTaylor]

Sorry, you've lost me. You said in post #1 that your desktop is connected by gigabit Ethernet. That's going to be better than any WiFi solution.