Intermittent High Ping on Hub 2 Router

[#1]

Renewed my Plusnet Contract and opted for the new Plusnet Hub 2 Router, swapped over to using it and it works great apart from now and again it will start having a really poor ping on Wired and Wireless devices at the same time. 

Usually the ping is 16-20ms (74Mb Down/18Mb Up) and gaming/browsing is fine but at random points in the day it will go to 100-150ms ping causing noticable issues, especially lag in gaming. I never had any issues with the Hub 1 Router.

Is there a way I can force any new firmware to come down?

If I restart the router it is usually fine but it will return sometimes quite soon, sometimes OK for a couple of days. It does correct itself as well without me having to do anything, it is just very random.

Download/Upload speeds remain at about 80% of what I usually get when this happens. 

Router is plugged in exactly as the old one was, directly to the master socket (BT 5C) which has no additional phone points (or even a phone) connected to it.

Any ideas?

Cheers

[#2 · Accepted solution]

@falken 

If you still have the old router you could put that back and see if that gets rid of the problem.

If so, it does seem to be something related directly or indirectly to the Hub 2.

Do you have anything that does synchronising large volumes of data with online storage?

You have a decent connection speed and the Hub 2 is more than capable of utilising it so it's a bit of a mystery.

[#3]

There are many past topics highlighting the gaming ping problem with the Hub-2 which wasn't an issue on the Hub-1.

You can probably prove it for yourself.

Try running this test - https://www.waveform.com/tools/bufferbloat  on each router and see which has the better "Bufferbloat Grade"

Given that you have both the Hub-1 and Hub-2, you could take advantage of the best of both.

The Hub-1 doesn't suffer as much with bufferbloat or the associated bursts of extended ping times,

whereas the Hub-2 has better WiFi range than the Hub-1.

Use the Hub-1 as the modem and router but with WiFi disabled, and then wire the Hub-2 as a dumb wireless access point to provide better wireless coverage.  A bit messy but it would work better than either on their own.

Or just use the Hub-1 !

.

[#4]

Large PST files updating to Google Drive was the issue. Not noticable with Hub 1 but Uploads really drown the ping on the Hub 2. Explains the randomness, main PST file doesnt update if Outlook is sitting open so it was retrying.

[#5]

Thanks, yes the Hub 2 is worse on the Bufferbloat when it comes to uploading, makes the ping drop to what I was experiencing, this ties in with the large PST files uploading to Google Drive occasionally. Not really an issue with the Hub 1 so am assuming it has better buffer bloat readings as you suggested. 

Have made changes to uploading of these files so not to cause issues.

Thanks both.