# True when gaming it kills bandwidth for others



## theFOoL (Jul 28, 2018)

Hi guys,

As title says. The kids play games on the Xbox and it kills my internet to a crawl 

We said no gaming at 9 cause I told them it's killing our bandwidth here for us. Are killing our bandwidth? Both all of us are on Wi-Fi and yes I know getting a access point thing would help?


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## qubit (Jul 28, 2018)

Gaming shouldn't kill your bandwidth. Something's wrong there. How fast is your download speed for a start?

The only time it will put a heavy load is when you're downloading a game or patches.


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## Kursah (Jul 28, 2018)

What is your tested bandwidth? 

What router do you have? Can you check its CPU load during the kids' gaming sessions?

Can you test Ethernet during that time?


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## theFOoL (Jul 28, 2018)

Our DL max at 2.5MB


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## Jetster (Jul 28, 2018)

Get your PC on Ethernet or get a better router


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## AlienIsGOD (Jul 28, 2018)

rk3066 said:


> Our DL max at 2.5MB


2.5 down isn't much to use nevermind sharing.

I have 120 down with 3 pc's, 2 xbox one and 3 phones and notice no slowdown. I couldn't imagine only 2.5 down in 2028


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## theFOoL (Jul 28, 2018)

Our modem is from ARRIS but the model I can't look at but the Firmware version is 9.1.103S


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## ShiBDiB (Jul 28, 2018)

Who is your ISP? What speeds are they advertising you should be getting?


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## theFOoL (Jul 29, 2018)

Our ISP is Gigamonster and the speeds are laughable for ya's eyes at 30mbs but we are not even getting that. I assume since we're in a apartment complex all people here have the same ISP so that's why we are having slow speeds


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## hat (Jul 29, 2018)

2.5MB (megabytes) isn't too bad, but if it's 2.5Mb (megabits) then... that's pretty poor. I wouldn't be surprised if gaming really does eat up a decent portion of that bandwidth. That said, it could also be the router bogging down, especially if there's a lot of activity over WiFi and you don't have a good router. If you could minimize WiFi usage and run Ethernet to everything, it might help.


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## ShiBDiB (Jul 29, 2018)

rk3066 said:


> Our ISP is Gigamonster and the speeds are laughable for ya's eyes at 30mbs but we are not even getting that. I assume since we're in a apartment complex all people here have the same ISP so that's why we are having slow speeds



30Mbs is fairly close to 2.5MBs. Typically most ISP's (especially slower ones) advertise in Mbs as most people don't realize that Mbs and MBs are different things.

Long story short, unless you get a better ISP than yes doing basically anything is going to bottleneck that connection.


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## theFOoL (Jul 29, 2018)

Yea lol that's not happening to the kids. Kids these days... 

Most importantly I forgot we were living in a complex and everyone else uses the same internet


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## hat (Jul 29, 2018)

That shouldn't really be an issue. I used to live in a big apartment complex like that where everybody had the same ISP with no issues.


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## theFOoL (Jul 29, 2018)

Well hmm it seems when the Xbox is not in use are speeds are back to normal. Wonder why when playing the Xbox has this effect on our computers or TVs. The router is in the center room of the apartment


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## hat (Jul 29, 2018)

Internet speed is not all. If the router isn't up to par, all that WiFi activity from the Xbox, your computer(s), TVs and whatever else is going on... could be bogging it down. Hell, even if everything was ethernet, the router could still be getting bogged down by the sheer number of connections because it's not powerful enough to keep track of all that. Learned that with bittorrent back in the way with a Linksys BEFSX41 router. Another possibility is the hardware may be able to cope, but the router is overheating. I recently stuck a fan on my RT-N66R, an otherwise great router, to solve some issues I suspected were related to overheating.


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## ShiBDiB (Jul 29, 2018)

He has a 30 Megabit connection (advertised, so realistically a bit less than that).. that is 95% the issue if not the entire issue.


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## theFOoL (Jul 29, 2018)

Oh I see. Hmm going to check how hot the router is getting and still I'd suspect it's all the phones that are connected that's having a effect on the router as well. Not much one can do. We are struggling to have ends meet with everything right now so. Sucks but that is the way life is for now


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## ShiBDiB (Jul 29, 2018)

rk3066 said:


> Oh I see. Hmm going to check how hot the router is getting and still I'd suspect it's all the phones that are connected that's having a effect on the router as well. Not much one can do. We are struggling to have ends meet with everything right now so. Sucks but that is the way life is for now



Sell the Xbox?


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## FordGT90Concept (Jul 29, 2018)

It's probably silently downloading stuff like game updates.  Actual game networking uses very, very little bandwidth.  Until it finishes downloading what it is downloading, it's going to be a hog.


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## theFOoL (Jul 29, 2018)

Lol LMAO that is not happening sir  it was a gift from there dad who no longer married to there mom AKA my sister


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## Bill_Bright (Jul 29, 2018)

rk3066 said:


> Our modem is from ARRIS


Doesn't matter - assuming DOCSIS 3.x. 

What matters is the bandwidth your ISP is providing. Also, you should be able to set the priority of your connected devices in your router (that's router, not modem). So you tell your router (even if integrated into the same "gateway" device as your modem) to give your PC, for example, priority over the XBOX.


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## theFOoL (Jul 29, 2018)

When it comes to networking it's not my first knowing of technology. Well we limited them to only 9pm and Xbox off


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## FordGT90Concept (Jul 29, 2018)

Your router might have family settings where you can cut a MAC address (e.g. the Xbox) off WAN on a specific schedule.  You should really make sure the Xbox has WAN access in the middle of the night when no one is up.

Alternatively, assign a QoS rule so Xbox doesn't get priority.


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## theFOoL (Jul 29, 2018)

As I mentioned I'm not into networking only to fixing computers and building them. For now we are fine as they have friends to play with at times


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## hat (Jul 29, 2018)

rk3066 said:


> Oh I see. Hmm going to check how hot the router is getting and still I'd suspect it's all the phones that are connected that's having a effect on the router as well. Not much one can do. We are struggling to have ends meet with everything right now so. Sucks but that is the way life is for now


If it is overheating, it's a simple fix. I hacked up an old 80mm casefan and spliced it up to a usb cable and plugged it into the router's USB ports. A good option for the RT-N66R, not sure if your router has any USB or not.


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## Mussels (Jul 29, 2018)

Games alone mostly use under 1Mb/s, something else is using the bandwidth

phones, tablets, game consoles/PC's downloading updates...
grab a TP link router with global shaping and throw in a bandwidth limit per device, and watch your issues go away


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## FordGT90Concept (Jul 29, 2018)

Microsoft is notorious for using all the bandwidth when it does something (Windows and Xbox updates).  They make no attempt to be gentle.  That's why I think that it will quit it once it finishes whatever it is doing.


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## newtekie1 (Jul 29, 2018)

I'd like to see a speedtest.net result from the OP with nothing else on using the internet.



FordGT90Concept said:


> Microsoft is notorious for using all the bandwidth when it does something (Windows and Xbox updates).  They make no attempt to be gentle.  That's why I think that it will quit it once it finishes whatever it is doing.



Any half way decent modern router should have basic QoS that prevents one device from starving the rest of the network.  Of course, if the internet bandwidth is really bad one device can choke the rest of the network.


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## 95Viper (Jul 29, 2018)

rk3066 said:


> Our modem is from ARRIS but the model I can't look at but the Firmware version is 9.1.103S



Is it this one in your post here --> Post #5 in your thread --> My Internet is So slow

Arris DG2460A/NA page


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## Toothless (Jul 29, 2018)

We had an issue with the neighbor kid, turned out the Xbox was far away enough to cause issues with the rest of the network.


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## StrayKAT (Jul 29, 2018)

Story of my life... or at least currently. Since I transitioned to AT&T from cable (my area right now is just 25mbps :/). Pretty much any other TV streaming netflix or something will slow the rest to a crawl.


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## Vayra86 (Jul 29, 2018)

rk3066 said:


> Yea lol that's not happening to the kids. Kids these days...
> 
> Most importantly I forgot we were living in a complex and everyone else uses the same internet



Bandwidth is just part of the story. What KIND of connection is it? Cable internet for example suffers heavily from other traffic on the same box (the box where all of those cable connections come in @ your neighbourhood, cant find the right term atm). DSL on the other hand suffers from your *distance* to that same box and barely from other users on the same box.

With cable internet it is extremely common to see sharp drops in performance during peak hours, ie when people get home from work until they go to bed.


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## theFOoL (Jul 29, 2018)

Gigamonster is most likely dsl as no coax cable on the router. Our only means of connection is wifi sadly as I do wish our apartment had ethernet jacks in each room. That would be cool but the rent would be up the roof. Anyways we're fine for now


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## dirtyferret (Jul 29, 2018)

rk3066 said:


> Hi guys,
> 
> As title says. The kids play games on the Xbox and it kills my internet to a crawl
> 
> We said no gaming at 9 cause I told them it's killing our bandwidth here for us. Are killing our bandwidth? Both all of us are on Wi-Fi and yes I know getting a access point thing would help?


You live in an apartment complex?  It's not your kids, it's 40 wifi signals on the same 2.4 frequency.  I had the same issue years ago.  Switch to 5ghz frequency.



rk3066 said:


> Gigamonster is most likely dsl as no coax cable on the router. Our only means of connection is wifi sadly as I do wish our apartment had ethernet jacks in each room. That would be cool but the rent would be up the roof. Anyways we're fine for now


Use power line adapters to hardwire what you can


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## theFOoL (Jul 29, 2018)

But But 5Ghz Band is shorter range then 2.4 but it is faster so hmmm.... 

I may try today so this thread is called Fixed! (In a way)

One more  thing LoL. *If you plug a USB 3.0 WiFi Adapter or even a 2.0 USB Adapter in a USB 3.0 Cable/Connector on the MB would the speed be faster or more Stabled?


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## Durvelle27 (Jul 29, 2018)

95Viper said:


> Is it this one in your post here --> Post #5 in your thread --> My Internet is So slow
> 
> Arris DG2460A/NA page


If this is the router/modem you have I’d suggest a new one. They are piss poor in performance.


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## theFOoL (Jul 29, 2018)

Yep Yep that's it!


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## dirtyferret (Jul 29, 2018)

rk3066 said:


> But But 5Ghz Band is shorter range then 2.4 but it is faster so hmmm....
> 
> I may try today so this thread is called Fixed! (In a way)
> 
> One more  thing LoL. *If you plug a USB 3.0 WiFi Adapter or even a 2.0 USB Adapter in a USB 3.0 Cable/Connector on the MB would the speed be faster or more Stabled?


2.4ghz has 13 channels but they overlap so when you have an apartment complex with dozens of APs overlapping into the same channels it becomes a four way intersection with a broken light.


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## theFOoL (Jul 29, 2018)

Yeah I can switch channels to see which one is better so but hopefully they have a better modem out there. You know most ISP or at least some don't change modems for say 5yrs or so cause they don't hear complaints...

Changing channels did the trick.... For NOW


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## John Naylor (Jul 29, 2018)

1.  Leave them the WiFi and you use a cable.

2.  100 MB/s is considered light

3.  Check speed offerings as well as channels, many routers are dual band.  Put them on one, you on anpother


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## theFOoL (Jul 29, 2018)

A cable would cost. I would need at least a 25-50FT Cable. For now changing the channel fixed it

OK Hold the phone!!! It happening again. Bahhh!!! This POS! Router/Modem Sucks to *HELL*-*$-Back* Hopefully we buy this house we're looking into so we can get a mewc ISP and a better Router!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

BTW how old is the modem/router?


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## theFOoL (Jul 30, 2018)

It would appear that the times during the day is true when it comes to the ISP peak hours. Like at 9:00AM it starts to slow down but at 11:30 it becomes a crawl then BY 6:00PM it starts to crawl back to normal then by finally @10PM it's back to normal. Why is this? Just curious...


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## Frick (Jul 30, 2018)

FordGT90Concept said:


> Microsoft is notorious for using all the bandwidth when it does something (Windows and Xbox updates).  They make no attempt to be gentle.  That's why I think that it will quit it once it finishes whatever it is doing.



Apple too, at least they used to.


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## John Naylor (Jul 30, 2018)

rk3066 said:


> A cable would cost. I would need at least a 25-50FT Cable. For now changing the channel fixed it



It's costing you performance now.  Want the problem to go away ? ... invest $10 ... $3 if ya can borrow a tool and make it yaself.

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod...k Ethernet Cables&Order=BESTMATCH&isdeptsrh=1


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