dinomagick Posted January 26, 2014 Posted January 26, 2014 My husband has been pulling his hair out for a few months, trying to figure out why our home network sometimes becomes unusable... Recently, we were 'trying' to watch Master and Commander on our Amazon Prime account (off of our Sony Blue-Ray DVD player), and it kept losing connection, buffering and just basically unusable. I was trying to use the internet at the same time and was having to wait for Facebook or Google to display any of my requests... So, he reset our router... everything worked for a little bit, then he reset our cable modem and the router again... everything worked for a little bit, but each time, after a few minutes things just went bad again... Then, our son asked "What's up with the internet? I keep losing connection." So, we asked him what he was doing. "Playing Battlefield and talking with my friends on my X-Box." "DING!" The lightbulb went on in my husband's head... So... he asked our son to turn the X-Box off for a little while, and we resumed watching our movie, without issues for the next 30 minutes.... Then he told our son to turn the X-box back on and resume what he was doing, and within 5 minutes the movie was unwatchable again and I was struggling again with the internet. It turns out, the X-Box and X-Box Live, when wirelessly connected, can impede your home network. Now the X-Box is hardwired and everything is running great. Our son is able to play and we're able to watch movies and use the internet. Since this discovery, we've found out that other friends and family have been experiencing similar issues with their X-Box consoles... According to what my husband has discovered... Sometime around the end of September, Microsoft ran a series of code upgrades on the X-Box 360's, in preparation for the launching of the X-Box One.... To make the two consoles compatible with the X-Box Live servers.... Since then, home networks and WAN have been saturated to the point that it is taking 10 times more resources to resolve issues than ever before. He also learned that the X-Box One, by default, automatically takes screenshots and updates to the 'cloud' with no bandwidth restrictions. To really get a 'feel' for what was happening, he installed a network switch that he could monitor each port and what the device connected to that port was using. In comparison to the rest of the stuff on our network, the port with the X-Box was using 20 times more bandwidth than everything else combined... People say "Get a faster internet speed." But we already have a 30meg down 5meg up connection at $70.00 a month.... My question to them is "Why should we have to spend MORE money, just to support a game console that just months before was working just fine?????" Other than the X-Box, we have a PS4, three laptops, two desktops, a Sony Blue-Ray DVD, my husband's Linux Server, plus three I-phones, two kindles, a Wii and a Wireless Printer.... Without the X-Box on our network, everything ran fine with no latency.... If getting more bandwidth is 'their' answer, all it means is spending more money, for shit we don't need, in an economy that we can't afford it in anyways......
Ark of Truth Posted January 26, 2014 Posted January 26, 2014 It's a Microsoft product. It comes with the brand name, no joke! The Xbox is making sure it is classed as a priority. Wireless connections take more bandwidth due to the way they operate, its always based to make sure they have a wired connection.
prideslayer Posted January 26, 2014 Posted January 26, 2014 dinomagick: What other devices are on the wifi network segment? Is the bluray player? If you have nearby neighbors with wifi, is yours on a different channel? It's probably just simple congestion, in house or external. ----------- It's a Microsoft product. It comes with the brand name, no joke! The Xbox is making sure it is classed as a priority. No it isn't. Such a thing isn't even possible. If it were QoS tagging it's packets (it's not, I've looked), it would still require a real switch on the network to do anything about that tagging other than discard it. Wireless connections take more bandwidth due to the way they operate No they don't. Once the wireless packet is unencapsulated by the WAP and put on the wire, it's the same size and travels the same speed as every other ethernet packet. This happens long before internet bandwidth comes into play. its always based to make sure they have a wired connection. Well yes. Wired should be preferred wherever practical, for everything. It's more reliable, faster, and more secure.
dinomagick Posted January 27, 2014 Author Posted January 27, 2014 Our Wireless is secured and no one else is connected to it other than our in-house devices. My husband put everything on a network switch to monitor the traffic and the xbox used all the available bandwidth. Taking the xbox off the network solved the congestion. in my OP, you will see what he did to discover the 'hog'. our Blue-Ray does not use the wireless network, it is right next to our router and is directly connected. This same thing was occurring to other people with their Xbox's connection taking over the network, as soon as they took the Xbox off of the wireless, the rest of the network devices worked again. He found out that more and more people are complaining about this, so it wasn't just what we experienced with the Xbox... When he took a switch and monitored the traffic of all the devices and the xbox alone used up 20 times more than all the other devices combined, that cinched the theory.... So if the xbox doesn't use all that bandwidth, then why does the network run fine when the Xbox is off? And why has this same issue been affecting others as well, and the solution has been the same? Even hardwired to the network, my husband had to set something up on the router to 'force' the xbox to be low priority?
gvman3670 Posted January 27, 2014 Posted January 27, 2014 Was your son also running a background download with his XBox? Was he gaming plus in a party and a chat session all at the same time? I've found that my XBox is the least of the hogs on my network. The laptops and smartphones are worse unless the XBox is downloading something.
prideslayer Posted January 27, 2014 Posted January 27, 2014 Even hardwired to the network, my husband had to set something up on the router to 'force' the xbox to be low priority? He probably set some IP or MAC based QoS on the router to ensure other packets were given priority over the xbox -- you don't have to take it off wifi to do this, and the result would've (should've) been the same. This is almost certainly what actually fixed the problem.
dinomagick Posted January 27, 2014 Author Posted January 27, 2014 Even hardwired to the network, my husband had to set something up on the router to 'force' the xbox to be low priority? He probably set some IP or MAC based QoS on the router to ensure other packets were given priority over the xbox -- you don't have to take it off wifi to do this, and the result would've (should've) been the same. This is almost certainly what actually fixed the problem. Yes.. That is exactly what he said he had to do. Thanks. But he also added, that for some reason, possibly because of our router, that the qos thing didn't work on the wireless side, only the hard wired side. But yes.. that is what he had to do. (wish I knew this stuff). To answer gvman3670's question, my son said all he was doing was playing Battlefield 4, but that he was also using the voice-chat as well. He said that he didn't have any downloads going while he was playing, he said it would lag his game. I honestly don't know enough about XBOX and just relay what little I have learned. As far as he has told me, since my husband changed things and added that qos thing, he has not had any problems playing and we're fine on the rest of the stuff on our network now. I wonder what changed with the XBOX stuff? Before the end of September and the 'patches' that my son and hubby seem to think happened, everything was fine and we didn't have any problems with the XBOX....
prideslayer Posted January 27, 2014 Posted January 27, 2014 Even hardwired to the network, my husband had to set something up on the router to 'force' the xbox to be low priority? He probably set some IP or MAC based QoS on the router to ensure other packets were given priority over the xbox -- you don't have to take it off wifi to do this, and the result would've (should've) been the same. This is almost certainly what actually fixed the problem. Yes.. That is exactly what he said he had to do. Thanks. But he also added, that for some reason, possibly because of our router, that the qos thing didn't work on the wireless side, only the hard wired side. But yes.. that is what he had to do. (wish I knew this stuff). That's not too uncommon, most of those little "routers" are pretty dumb. If he's willing, I'd replace it with a separate WAP that only does the wifi side, a decent switch, and a "real" router. At home I use a PC hidden away in the basement that has two network cards. One is plugged directly into the cable/dsl modem, and the other is plugged into the in-house network. The WAP is also plugged into the in-house network. The computer runs pfSense (a free firewall), and can be very small and cheap -- the minimum hardware is a Pentium II w/ 256M of ram. If the switch supports VLAN tagging, you can even use a computer with only a single network card. This is what I do at home. I wonder what changed with the XBOX stuff? Before the end of September and the 'patches' that my son and hubby seem to think happened, everything was fine and we didn't have any problems with the XBOX.... I imagine it's just MS rolling out more 'features' that eat bandwidth. I've noticed something similar here (I have a 360 and a One) though I had already pushed the xbox priority downward, as basically everything on my network is more important to me than a silly video game console.
Lovely Rose Posted February 1, 2014 Posted February 1, 2014 i never have a problem with xbox 360 and my internet, and i run a 150kb per secound internet most the day. XD considering ill be doing updates and can still do shit on my computer without lag. So idk what to tell ya. Its wireless to. haha. Weird thou. Better than playstation. atleast u can play on xboxs servers XD
gvman3670 Posted February 1, 2014 Posted February 1, 2014 I'm a HUGE Halo fan so you know my XBox gets used (and I have no need for a PS3 or 4 ). I do still play H2 on PC as well, but not often. I can tell you that a lot of computer or smartphone traffic will make my Halo matches lag to hell and back, though, as well as getting matched up with a bunch of damned Mexicans!
Rayblue Posted February 6, 2014 Posted February 6, 2014 If you could get the gist on how to get it working, either you use QoS, a load-balancing router (unfortunately somewhat expensive than a home router) or PFsense (which may requires some technical knowledge).
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