Backstory included.
Backstory included.
Hello everyone!
I've been using a cable connection for years, but recently we managed to switch to a fiber optic service via MetroNet. I chose to upgrade from my previous 300/30 cable setup to a 1GB fiber connection. The device they installed is an Eero Pro 6E tri-band router.
This router is a mesh model and only features one Ethernet port on the back. My main PC is hardwired, while a few devices connect via Wi-Fi. I ran a speed test using Ookla to check my internet performance.
On the hardwired PC, I consistently get around 1GB up and 1GB down with minor fluctuations. However, my mobile connection varies depending on my location within the house. For instance, when close to the router, download speeds reach about 400 to 600 Mbps, but if I move to the back of the house, it drops to around 150 Mbps.
At Best Buy, I checked for expansion nodes compatible with the 6E Pro and found none—probably had to order them from Amazon. Instead of waiting, I opted for a new Gigabit router with Wi-Fi 7 and broader coverage. At Best Buy, I purchased the Nighthawk RS500, which supports Wi-Fi 7, tri-band, and covers up to 3000 sq ft. Installing it added more Ethernet ports and provided a strong signal throughout the house. I experienced speeds of 400–600 Mbps in the room with the router and around 150 Mbps in the back rooms.
To verify, I ran some speed tests. While download latency was typically between 25 to 35 ms, detailed checks showed spikes reaching 145 to 230 ms. I suspected these were latency fluctuations. After testing again with the Eero Pro, the latency stayed in the low 20s and the "high" values matched closely—usually between 150 and 140 ms.
I’m still unsure if these spikes are normal or indicative of an issue. Since latency is crucial for gaming, I decided to revert to the Eero router temporarily while troubleshooting.
My home is 1700 sq ft, so I’m wondering if a mesh router is the right choice or if a standard one would suffice.
I considered the ASUS BE-96U tri-band model but wasn’t sure it would prevent similar latency issues.
Do you think these spikes are typical? Should they always be low like the main latency?
Looking forward to your thoughts!
I recommend a budget-friendly gigabit switch to connect with the Eero, ensuring all high-speed requirements are met through wired connections. 150Mbps should suffice for a device that doesn’t need to download large files.
Thanks. I want to know if these latency spikes are typical or something to worry about. Should I be concerned about the highs between 140 to 200+?
Using an advanced QoS method like CAKE or fq_coDel on downloads makes it easy to reduce latency consistently below 20ms. Your old cable provider might achieve this without any QoS in the router, since the standard PIE was included in the Docsis 3.1 release. Hardware-based QoS is usually handled in software, which demands significant CPU resources and turns off many hardware speed boosts that would otherwise let a basic router handle gigabit connections smoothly. Most consumer routers lack the processing power needed for this task, so the typical advice is to use an x86 device—essentially a regular PC—as the router when applying QoS to gigabit networks. Consumer models usually have underpowered CPUs that can't manage the workload, making them unsuitable for such demanding tasks.
However, there are exceptions. You’d need a router that explicitly advertises this capability, often requiring dedicated hardware support. Even popular third-party firmware options like the 10-year-old R7800 have beta-level OpenWRT builds that can handle fq_coDel with hardware acceleration up to 940+ Mbps—enough for gigabit speeds. This setup might work in 2025, but it’s risky due to the short support life of such releases and the shift to DSA in newer OpenWRT versions, which doesn’t work well with NSS hardware offloading.
It’s worth noting that latency spikes often stem from "bufferbloat," where packets pile up in memory buffers along the path to your device because they aren’t delivered quickly enough. AQM addresses this by dropping random packets so upstream routers can prevent buffer overflow. The QoS aspect then involves your router deciding which less urgent packets to discard instead of prioritizing them, like a Skype call over a video chat.
I recommend using a spare PC as your router. I have one that's not in use, around ten years old, and it functions properly. You're asking if it's possible to repurpose it as a router?
Sure, just need two NIC ports and install one of the software packages I mentioned. Adding a budget network switch makes it possible to use any internal drives as a high-performance NAS. You could also install a Wi-Fi card turning it into a wireless router.
The main drawback is it would likely consume more power than a typical router with a wall wart. However, with multi-gigabit ISP speeds, this PC would be the only one capable of keeping up.
You are going to have to be a bit more clear of how you were testing.
First wifi7 does not actually have more coverage that older versions of wifi. This distance the signal goes is regulated by the transmit power which has not changed....technically the more advanced types of wifi encoding have slightly less power allowed.
Now back to a key question. Are you seing this latency spike on ethernet or is it only on wifi. This is a fundemental design "flaw?" of how wifi works. Wifi unlike ethernet attempt to do error correction and data retransmission mostly because it gets much more damaged data than ethernet. This data retransmission takes time and is why you see latency spikes.
You should never see latency spikes on ethernet. Your router "should" never cause latency spikes. Modern routers run the NAT function in a hardware assist. Even the very cheapest routers have this. In some ways cheap routers might be better because they have less features....most of which you are not actually going to use. The problem is this hardware assisted NAT bypasses the much slower cpu chip in the router. When you use any feature that requires seeing the data...say QoS of any kind.. the data must now pass the CPU chip. The CPU chip must now do both the feature you want as well as the NAT feature which is very CPU compute intensive at high data rates.
From the above post you want to disable any kind of QoS or bufferbloat support. In many cases using this function actually causes bufferbloat. Bufferbloat is a extremely old and outdate concept. You only get bufferbloat if you are attempting to exceed you bandwidth, and this is extremely hard to do on a 1gbit connection. The only other source of delays is the router CPU but the hardware NAT function bypasses that.
You should not look to use a PC as a router unless you have some need for some very specific feature. VPN or advanced data filters are a example of reasons to use a PC. For the vast majority of people the hardware NAT assist is really the only function they are using in the router.
Now again if you are talking wifi that is just something you live with. The only application that is actually affected by latency spikes is online games everything else can use buffers to hide the problem. This is why you see everyone say never play online games on wifi.
MetroNet provides up to 5GB speeds, but I prefer 1GB for now. It's worth noting that using a PC as a router or firewall might be possible, though I'll look into it further. Do you mean that pre-made routers aren't suited for even 1GB speeds, or are they limited in handling higher speeds?
this setup was on hard wired ethernet.
certainly, but it was unusual—on the eero router the spikes occurred rarely.
on the nighthawk they happened constantly.
after testing, the upload delay was around 20 to 30ms, and download was mid 30ms.
if you opened the "details" section, under latency it would mention "high" with a typical value between 140 and 200ms.
i think these are lag spikes.
i’m not sure what power requirements are needed; this asus model has a 2.6Ghz quad-core processor.
that seems suitable for routers?
i get that the variations come from the hardwired pc.
the eero router appears to have minimal spikes, while the nighthawk had constant spikes.
i usually prefer traditional routers since i haven’t used a mesh model.
the eero has limited options and i’m unsure about security—seems it still uses WPA2, whereas newer ones use WPA3.
also, for wifi, this eero router doesn’t boost the signal evenly throughout the house, which is why i was considering traditional routers with better coverage.
but since i play games, i’m also worried about those lag spikes.
so i thought it would be helpful to get some advice from you.
thanks