High ping on LAN games

This has been happening since I got this router (AR625W). When I get all
of my computers connected to a server on the LAN, they get a ping of
around 900ms (while playing half life 2 deathmatch). My computer, which
is usually the host, is connected by a wire to the router. The other
four are connected wirelessly. two have wireless NICs that are the same
brand as the router, Airlink101, and two are D-links that have 54mbps
speeds.

The Router is using WPA-PSK encryption with TKIP. While this is
enabled, the ping stays way up at around 900ms. But after turning off
the encryption completely does the ping on all computers go down to 5ms.
I've tried all encryption settings. They all have the same effect on
ping. Disabling encryption completely fixes the ping problem, but I
can't risk having other people connecting through my router from the out
side.

Please help.

Borgslayer


------------------------------------------------------------------------
View this thread: http://www.wirelessforums.org/showthread.php?t=31098
http://www.wirelessforums.org

Borgslayer wrote:
> This has been happening since I got this router (AR625W). When I get all
> of my computers connected to a server on the LAN, they get a ping of
> around 900ms (while playing half life 2 deathmatch). My computer, which
> is usually the host, is connected by a wire to the router. The other
> four are connected wirelessly. two have wireless NICs that are the same
> brand as the router, Airlink101, and two are D-links that have 54mbps
> speeds.
>
> The Router is using WPA-PSK encryption with TKIP. While this is
> enabled, the ping stays way up at around 900ms. But after turning off
> the encryption completely does the ping on all computers go down to 5ms.
> I've tried all encryption settings. They all have the same effect on
> ping. Disabling encryption completely fixes the ping problem, but I
> can't risk having other people connecting through my router from the out
> side.
>
> Please help.
>
> Borgslayer
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> View this thread: http://www.wirelessforums.org/showthread.php?t=31098
> http://www.wirelessforums.org
>

Sounds like the router is very slow with WPA-PSK. Try a different router;
maybe buy one from a store with a friendly return policy.

I use WPA-PSK on my Linksys WRT54G v2 router, and PING times from my wired
main PC to either of my wireless boxes are typically under 5ms.

By the way, you may want to try using PING standalone with no other traffic;
Start/Run CMD, then PING X (using the name of a wireless PC instead of X).
You may discover that the game is totally clogging the router; if so, then
see if the game has a means to throttle the traffic a bit.

Do you see a difference in game play with and without WPA-PSK? If not, the
lazy PING times while running the game with WPA-PSK may be an artifact that
you can live with.
--
Cheers, Bob