Massive latency issues on SmartHub Plus

[GusWar]

So I moved to a new building a few months ago and opted for EE Essential Full Fibre WiFi with a SmartHub Plus. After a nightmare getting it installed (they had the wrong serial number for my modem on file which apparently broke everything) it actually worked great until a few weeks ago. 

seemingly at random, I started getting massive lag spikes and latency issues, most noticeably on my PS5. Playing any online game, the ping would jump massively, freezing for a full second and lagging out, before jumping back down. It’s not game-specific and also affects party voice chat. 

I have tried *everything* to fix it. Power cycled the PlayStation, the router, the modem.ive tweaked the PS5’s settings, I’ve moved the wifi channels on the admin settings, I’ve even moved my hub out into the hallway - but that’s about as much as I can move it due to my modem placement. 

EE can’t see any issue on their end, but my ping tests show jumps from 15 up to 300, 500 or even 950. This makes games unplayable. 

as I say, it just suddenly started and I have spent weeks at my wit’s end trying to fix it. One forum seemed to suggest that there may be a defect in these hubs, which wouldn’t surprise me. 

aside from chucking the router in the bin, any suggestions?

[BlockyMan]

I've just posted about this on another thread I started because I was getting the same thing on my gaming PCs.  After months of investigation I've concluded EE's router is junk as it's sending out spurious network messages (confirmed by Wireshark) and seems to struggle with NAT traffic.

EE Smart Hub Plus ARP and SSDP Message Flooding - The EE Community

I've just bought a new router (a TP-LINK AXE75) and all our problems are gone.  Last night both my son and I were gaming while he was also streaming and the wife was watching Netflix and it all remained nice and smooth.  Web browsing is also vastly more snappy.  Seems the Smart Hub Plus just doesn't have the internals to handle more complicated networking scenarios.

[Sweboi]

Do you have the WiFi Enhancer Service by any chance?

Not to be confused with WiFi extenders.

If you do the ask EE to remove it and factory reset your router. I had issues that were pretty much identical to yours. When WiFi Enhancer is enabled a service from Netduma will run on the router and traffic is looped back through this service. The service starts to misbehave and you get huge lag.

Once the service is removed you need to factory reset. This is crucial.

Not sure if this is fixed in the 2.x firmware though as I moved to the WiFi 7 router which solved all my issues. Including working WiFi enhancer.