Port Forwarding

Hey y’all,
Hope this is an appropriate post for this forum/site. If not, just let me know and I'll keep searching for help.

I have a game room on the other side of the house from my modem with no ability to move the modem location. Have a Linksys dualband router about a year old. Can't get WiFi well in the game room due to distance/obstructions so I have an older Linksys dualband that I've run a long Ethernet cord to from the main router. I think I put it in bridge mode, but it does have a different name and I connect manually to 5ghz on my phone etc when entering game room.

My issue is related to my new Xbox series X. I have it hard wired into the older router in game room which again I think is bridge mode. I have severe packetloss in every online multiplayer game I play. It didn't used to do this (set this all up about 2 years ago) but last 3-4 months it's gotten to where I can't play (dating back to my old Xbox one)
Every speedtest i run shows full download/upload speed on the Xbox and on wifi in game room. Streaming video is never a problem.
I've taken the Xbox to the main router's location and connected via WiFi and had the same issues. So I don't think it's the 2nd router/bridge/length of cat5 cable.

Last night I experimented with port range forwarding while on the main router wifi and i thought I fixed it!!! Everything was amazing last night. Both on wifi on main and hardwired in game room. I thought I was so smart haha!

But now the next day, we are back again. Same issue. Any thoughts on my networking issue?
Appreciate reading the lengthy post.
Thanks!

 

Sorry I must not have been clear. I am hard wired in the game room.
I have a cat 5 from main router to the game room router (bridge mode), and a cat5 from the game room router into the Xbox.

What I was trying to say is regardless of if I'm hardwired in game room, on game room wifi, or on main router wifi, I have full speeds on all tests and can stream perfectly... But when gaming I'm experiencing packet loss and lag.

 

And I thought that for a while too. But it's every game. Every server. Every lobby.
I can get into the game, but within a few seconds the lag begins.

I'd also completely agree with you had I not had success the other night with port forwarding. I looked at the Xbox advanced internet settings and found the port it's using (3094) put a range of port forwarding to include that number (3000-4000) and bam. I had 40 ping, no lag, no packet loss. Played for an hour.

The next night however, back to the original problem. I feel like I was onto something with port forwarding but I don't know very much about that. I don't understand why I had success in the first place I guess...?

 

You're good ijac! My setup and explanation are weird haha.
I've been doing tests. Chronologically after Tony's recommended experiment I did the following:
-tried to play rocket league (very bandwidth dependant game) without changing anything from my original setup. First game had ping in 30s. Next game 40s. Next 50s. Then got up to 90ping and I started having issues like always.
-disconnected from game room router and plugged cat5 from main router directly into Xbox as suggested to bypass game room bridge router.
-again played 30 minutes. Similar results. First game on 30ping was amazing and crisp. Slowly ping crept higher game to game until had problems.
-went back to original setup again with 2nd router in between. Same thing. First game or 2 was great, then started to creep up.

I don't think it was host/lobby specific bc the pattern was too similar.
I don't understand what packet collisions are yet but if unplugging Ethernet resets that process and starts it again, that would make sense in my mind.

Again, very thankful for your help guys. My wife surprised me with this for Christmas and I've never been able to fully enjoy.

PS only other thing I changed in my router settings 2 days ago (when I first saw improvement) besides port forwarding was device prioritization, putting Xbox at top of list. It didn't fix any issues. But thought I'd mention it.

 

My thought is the main/first router yeah. Which I know u said it's not anything port forwarding related but why did it improve when I entered it's specific port?
I know I've set a static IP address on it before because we use an ATT Microcell (bad cell service here, it provides internet based phone coverage) and I think it needed a weird setting on the router to work properly.

Would screenshots of router settings be helpful to y'all at all? If so, can I access them without messing with the current settings?

 

Also this main router is an ea8300 router.
I started researching and found this post by someone that sounds like is having similar issue to mine although once my packets start going bye bye I can't recover.
Router firmware is up to date.

 

Before I did device prioritization and forwarding it did not deteriorate. It just never worked. I could join a server and 20 seconds in I'm rubberbanding everywhere

 

If it's true that all is well in the beginning, then deterioration ensues, then I suggest that the possibilities are:

1) Throttling from the ISP.

2) Throttling due to a misconfiguration of the hardware, or a defective hardware component that throttles down due to overheating.

 

We have a small ISP called Ritter Communications.
They are not popular. Last year preCovid they put in data caps. Claimed their servers couldn't handle the workload. Magically during quarantine they lifted caps and last month announced they weren't returning (FINALLY a competitor made its way to town with fiber, there's been ZERO competition for 20 years.)
So while I don't doubt their ability to screw me, I don't get why streaming/testing all comes back good.

Since last post I verified my 1500 MTU was optimal with basic ping test. Each packet returned between 30-40 ping (I thought it was supposed to be 0 or 1 ping at home???). I'm not on ivp6 but that shouldn't matter residential. No packets were lost.

Gaming today was actually mostly fine, although had a couple times where ping and packet loss notifications went crazy and I couldn't play for 4-5 seconds before returning. I didn't notice the deteriorating effect today! Most games were around 55ping.

My wife has noticed wifi being more spotty since I've been testing things and added device prioritization/port forwarding for the Xbox on 3074 (it's confirmed specific port per it's settings).

Not running static IP, am on DCHP.
There's 20 connected devices online with 30 others offline that don't think we use much.
I read something online about a double NAT situation with this router but the Xbox shows my NAT is open.
Firewall is on per router settings.


Trying to list everything I looked at this weekend for a last ditch effort here... lol. Appreciate you all.
Todd

 

Just saw this.
I did a cmd ping test while confirming MTU on my laptop while on wifi and yes 30-40ms per packet. I thought that seemed high.

This week has been generally ok but here and there it'll just go nuts.