Killer Wireless n1525 Latency Variation Issue

Hey guys recently I've been having issues with latency variation while playing games like Battlefield 4 or Counter Strike GO. About a month ago it was working perfectly fine, I was able to run at a steady 75 fps on battlefield in all stituations, but then I started to get extreme lag at perfectly timed intervals. I started to look into the problem and I found out that the issue is latency variation and some packet loss which causes a rubberbanding effect in fps games. Heres a link to a picture of what I mean (the graph is on the bottom right). However with regular internet use, it is fine. I was able to narrow down the issue to my wireless card. Currently I am using the Killer wireless n1525 card. I've tried resetting my router, resetting the wireless on my computer, and reinstalling the killer wireless drivers. I my next option is to either do a fresh install of windows and restart everything, or replace the card entirely. Before I go and buy the card I was wondering if anyone has had the same issue with the card, or knows any possible fixes, or can recommend a very reliable and good performing card for the price. Thank you for any input!

Heres a list of my specs if that will help at all
Clevo/Sager P770ZM Laptop
Intel i7 4790
Nvidia Geforce GTX 980m
Killer Wireless-n/a/ac 1525 Wireless Network Adapter
16gb ram
1tb 7200rpm HDD
256gb SSD
The standard router that optimum provides (not the best but it suits my needs)

 

Can you try to recreate this issue by pinging an outside server and your local router?
I might not even be a problem on your side.

 

How would I do that? I mean I'm able to run the game on the same network and server just fine on my other computer, so I think it is my laptop thats just acting up...

 

Use ping with -n and certain number to ping a given number of times line "ping -n 200 IP here" Ping your router and some server that allows that on the Internet and compare results.

 

Having ping spikes on 5Ghz with my killer 1525 on AC router, in 2.4 n i get stable ping BUT micro disconnections time (3 ping calls or 2) in which the internet doesnt respond ...
Should 've buyed an Intel card before going on a mission like now..

 

Neither of you mentions removing the "Killer Network Manager" and "Killer Bandwidth Control Filter Driver", both of which can be causing your symptoms.

Basically you want to install the Suite as normal, then after reboot, run the Installer a 2nd time, and deselect the two items - uninstall them - and then reboot again. That should get rid of the latency issues.

And no, the installer doesn't give you fine grain control on initial install, at least not with the current installer.

How to dialogs:

Spoiler

Run the Installer a 2nd time, and select Modify


Deselect the "Killer Network Manager" and "Killer Bandwidth Control Filter Driver"


After uninstalling the 2 options, and running the Installer again, this is what shows up

The other method is to install the "Driver Only" package called "Standard Drivers - no Killer Features", but sometimes the Suite is the newest driver version, so it's good to know both methods

Killer Wireless Downloads
http://www.killernetworking.com/support/driver-downloads

And, don't forget to download and install the latest Bluetooth drivers as well.

 

I will try to get rid of it and do like you said , I tried to install the clean driver without killer features. I've been using them and having ping spikes non stop

 

Unfortunately, I have a somewhat related issue. 1525 card, using it on W7 64-bit with only Killer drivers installed. Intermittently, when I load a webpage while I'm listening to music I get brief audio stutter/dropouts. I've tried almost everything and I believe I've narrowed it down to this card. Using the DPC Latency checker v1.4.0, I notice spikes that coincide with me clicking/loading a webpage. So I don't know if the wi-fi card is inefficiently tasking resources, causing DPC latency spikes that at times interrupt my audio signal. Tried everything and I don't know what else to do but to maybe ask Eurocom for a different wireless card (the compatible Intel one) under my warranty. By the way I listen to music via an external DAC/Amp that has its own power supply. So I don't think it's a USB power issue more a signal-based one, if that makes sense. Any help/ideas would be appreciated?

 

You shouldn't get drops in USB audio; it might be power cycling of the device / port due to device and power plan settings. Try another port as well, other side of the laptop.

Try disabling Wifi and use Ethernet to see if the USB drops still occur, if they do, its on the USB side and not the network side.

Did you turn off all power saving related settings for the Wifi / USB / Ethernet devices in power plan and in device manager?

Spoiler

Once you have all the USB / network devices power management on/off disabled, go into the power plan and do the same for your active power plan - then reboot.

As long as you are there, in device manager/power plan, disable power management for the drives as well.

Also, if you have both network devices active, try disabling one or the other, if you are on Wifi, disable the Ethernet device in the Network and Sharing Center

Spoiler

 

Ping spikes to all external sites, or just certain ones? Ping spikes to your router as well - on the local LAN side?

There could be Router / Wifi adapater protocol settings to set correctly. Make sure to update the router firmware too - go directly to the support site to download, the automatic / update from router doesn't always show the latest driver.

You should be running WPA2 Personal / AES on both router / adapter, check to make sure it's handshaking correctly. And, that your negotiated speed is high, over 300mbps.

Check your local Wifi landscape and make sure your router center frequency isn't set to default - along with a dozen other local routers.

You can use an Android phone to look at Wifi routers, or on PC inSSIDer 3.x is free, 4.x costs, I have 4.x and it works great.

Move your center channel to a less crowded/empty area between other routers center channels.

 

installed the last driver and did the stuff in the answer in this topic, ping is slightly more stable on google dns server BUT now i get random Wifi "crash" means the wifi doesnt detect any network until i disable and enable the card from the device manager..
I have 433Mbit/s negociated on AC and 300 on N, there is no other wifis near my parents house in my home country.. using inssider 4 :'(

 

What is the make / model of the router?

Maybe it's incompatible. Try setting the router to 802.11g or b only as a starting point to find a compatible mode. If you are already in g,b,n mode, try n only.

This is why for years I carried a couple of different USB wifi adapters. When you are traveling you run into older tech, and there is nothing more compatible with older routers than a protocol matching adapter from that era

I have also carried router/wifi access points with me to set up in hotels that don't have good / compatible wifi.

Do you have 4g access out there? Can you use your phone as an access point?

Is there a shop locally to get a USB adapter more compatible? Maybe their ISP/provider sells them?

 

Thank you very much for all your suggestions @hmscott . Some of them I've tried already, and just repeated, some I tried newly as per your suggestions. Unfortunately the silly problem still persists. I haven't yet been able to test an Ethernet only connection because my current situation makes it somewhat difficult to access the router. I will try though. My gut tells me its this Wi-fi card. The brief audio stutters happen infrequently, when I'm listening to music and opening certain webpages (like Amazon), all while on Wi-Fi. Again it's not even constant nor does every web page induce the issue. If I'm only listening to music, and not browsing, it never happens. If I'm online gaming it never happens. If I load up an online video that's just running, it never happens. Only infrequently on page loads, on Wi-Fi. Again testing Ethernet seems like it will tell me a lot. Worst case is I contact Eurocom and tell them to send me the Intel Wireless-AC 8260 to replace this N1525 myself...

 

If you isolate the problem to the Wifi, it might be the same with any Wifi card through PCIE, it might be worth trying a USB adapter as well to balance the priorities - sharing USB resource contention might work better.

Check the PCI Latency timer in the BIOS, defaults to 32 but higher values might be more efficient.



PCI Latency Timer
http://www.techarp.com/showFreeBOG.aspx?lang=0&bogno=138

 

Sorry if it seems like I hijacked the thread.

Again, I appreciate your help @hmscott ! Your post made a lot of sense and especially after reading THIS, it sounded like the exact same issue I'm having. However, this PCI Latency timer was one of the potential troubleshooting steps I tried a while back (I told you I'd tried a lot of things ). Unfortunately, where I got stuck at that time was the same place I got stuck now. I don't have the setting in my BIOS set-up, even after updating my BIOS/EC to the latest from Eurocom. That said, your post got me thinking and re-motivated me to patiently follow through.

So I searched for a PCI latency tool, but it seems like there's no compatible Win7 version. Then I started thinking, maybe Prema's stock or modded BIOS/EC may add that setting for me. You may have heard of Prema on here, he kindly creates modded BIOS/EC/vBIOS for community members with Clevo machines and Nvidia cards. I think he even creates BIOS' for a few official Clevo resellers. I remember reading that his BIOS' open up additional BIOS menu options, and I thought maybe PCI latency timer would be one of them. Before PMing him though and investigating this PCI latency timer, I decided to do one last in-depth search engine probe and stumbled upon this from 2012!:

https://community.norton.com/en/forums/nis-causes-high-dpc-latency-when-browsing

The OP's issues sounded exactly like mine as I've been using Norton Internet Security (NIS) for as long as I've had my notebook (since May 2015). So I thought, why not...NIS Firewall's so-called "Intrusion Prevention" (IP) could be the culprit of my audio dropouts while loading certain web-pages on Wi-Fi. Plus it would save me from having to re-flash my BIOS or, as a last resort, contacting Eurocom. Firstly, according to Norton, here's what NIS's IP does: HERE.

So what I did to test was pretty straight forward: I first opened up DPC Latency Checker 1.40 to monitor DPC latency spikes. A while ago, I had noticed that very high spikes visualized in this checker coincided with certain web page loads (on Wi-Fi), which in turn coincided with the brief, audio micro-stutters I was hearing.

I proceeded to monitor spikes with NIS IP ON or OFF, like so:

Spoiler: IP Disabled

NIS Firewall IP OFF by E.D.U. posted Dec 6, 2015 at 2:05 PM

Under both settings (ON or OFF), I opened up Firefox and one-at-a-time loaded three web home pages that typically induced intermittent microstutters in my audio experience; Amazon, Head-Fi and Notebook Review. I made sure to clear cache/history/cookies before switching settings and re-testing. Here's what I HAPPILY observed from results:

Spoiler: Latency Results

DPC NIS IP Check by E.D.U. posted Dec 6, 2015 at 2:05 PM

You should have seen my eyes widen when I saw the visualized differences provided by these results. I almost couldn't believe that such a small change could make such a difference in spikes observed. I tested it several times to see if my results were repeatable and gladly, most to all repeated tests showed the same thing: far less drastic spiking with NIS IP off. So of course, the next important question was did this translate into slim-to-zero audio dropouts?

So far!!! To my ecstatic surprise, the answer is YES! My fingers are crossed TIGHT in hope that I've found the culprit in NIS. I'll keep listening. But as of now, it appears these infrequent audio stutters (and drastic DPC latency spikes) are being caused by some latency-inducing actions performed by NIS IP during page loads. How annoying and yet how relieving at the same time. I'm so annoyed at Norton that even though I have 186 days left on my 1-year subscription, I will very likely uninstall all things Norton-related from my system. Who knows, there could be other undiscovered NIS processes that might still be inducing some degree of latency. Absolutely ridiculous. If more listening time shows that NIS has been the cause of this issue, I will never use another Norton product (been a long-time customer too). To see a post like that from 2010, and to have this still potentially occurring 5 years later is unacceptable. Yes, maybe my situation with NIS isn't the norm nowadays (IDK) but I bet that other people that have/have had this issue will not realize that it's possibly due to NIS or some AV program. Hopefully this helps some of those folks.

On that note, please do you know of any very resource-light and effective AV programs I can use to replace NIS? Something with a functional, non-invasive firewall. If the program is free, that's an even bigger bonus. I know Avast and maybe even MSE may be decent options, no? What do you use yourself? Or maybe I try my best to temper my anger, permanently disable IP and run through my NIS subscription... (barely want to even entertain that option). What do you think? And again THANK YOU, because your suggestions were a big help and are what re-motivated me to carry on searching!

 

Great work debugging to the "root cause", and finding a solution that quickly once you were on the right path.

NIS is what I normally use.

Now it's called Norton Security, maybe you can uninstall NIS and see if the latest version of Norton Security will not do the same thing... it's possible

I don't have NS web page protection inside IE or Firefox enabled. I let it install, then disable the extensions /add-ons / plugins.

There are other good network suites, but I keep coming back to Norton. Any good software suite will have negative aspects, but so far, for me and my configuration, Norton hasn't done to me what it is doing to your usage.

 

raised PCI Latency timer to 96 from 32 and no more problems for me ! else it's related to me playing with drivers around.. Donnow

 

Excellent, glad to hear drivers + PCI Latency fixed the last of the 1525 Wifi problems for you

 

Thank you. Haha, what a coincidence that Norton is also what you use. Small "security suite" world. I took the time to do more listening, and I can gladly confirm that it was definitely NIS's IP that was inducing the drastic latency spikes, and thus the audio dropouts. The incidences of the dropouts when Wi-Fi browsing have fallen to almost nil now. Far less frequently than before ("once in a blue moon"), I do get a drop but these very rare ones don't coincide with certain web page loads like before. Makes me think there may be something else of much less consequence acting in the background, or it could still stem from NIS's other functions (which I haven't uninstalled yet; only disabled IP at the moment).

Awww, why'd you edit the nice, long post you'd written? I was going to use your Firefox add-ons screenshot to build upon my own, where necessary. I'd still like to have it, if you don't mind. If I remember correctly, like you, I already use Ad-block and Ghostery but those are the two main ones for me (Tab-Mix Plus, etc). As for the NIS add-ons/extensions/plugins, I've always had them disabled in Firefox. Therefore it was really always just IP. I've also been using CCleaner to maintain my system for the longest time. I may investigate further into what exactly IP was doing but I'm so pleased about the dropouts virtually disappearing that I can satisfy myself with not knowing. Ever since Norton really revamped their Security suite about 5-10 years back to be resource-light yet effective, I've been a customer of theirs. That's why I was so surprised when I discovered IP to be the culprit in my case. Again, since you and others have zero issues, maybe Norton just dislikes my particular configuration. I'm happy it works for you because I think it's a great suite. However this experience left a bad taste in my mouth. I'll see if my NIS key will allow me to use Norton Security, and whether it helps. Otherwise as soon as this current subscription runs out I'll very likely move onto to something else. I'll have to do some research into other suites.

I'm still slowly learning the art of the persistent, "random probing" needed to be successful in troubleshooting any issues in life, online and offline. However this "root cause" was particularly difficult to find and really tested my patience. Glad it has been conquered though and I'm now the better for it. BRING IT!