How to Fix High Ping: 12 Practical Steps for Faster Latency

High ping (high latency) makes games feel delayed, calls sound choppy, and remote work frustrating. The key is to identify whether latency is coming from Wi‑Fi, your ISP, bufferbloat, routing, or a VPN—then apply the right fix.

What ping is “good”?

• Gaming: under 30 ms feels excellent; 30–60 ms is fine; 80+ ms is noticeable.
• Video calls: under 50 ms is great; packet loss hurts more than raw ping.

12 fixes for high ping (in the right order)

1) Switch to Ethernet

Wi‑Fi is the #1 cause of inconsistent ping. Test once on Ethernet to isolate the problem.

2) Move closer to the router (or use 5 GHz/6 GHz)

Weak signal causes retransmissions that look like high ping. 5 GHz/6 GHz is faster but has shorter range.

3) Kill background uploads (cloud sync, updates)

Uploads can saturate upstream and spike latency.

4) Look for bufferbloat

If ping jumps dramatically during downloads/uploads, your router may lack good queue management.

5) Restart modem/router (only after measuring)

Reboots can clear a stuck state, but they’re not a permanent fix.

6) Try a different DNS (for slow lookups, not raw ping)

DNS won’t usually change in-game ping, but it can speed up page loads and app connectivity.

7) Change Wi‑Fi channel / reduce interference

Neighbors, Bluetooth, microwaves—interference matters. Auto-channel is often fine, but not always.

8) Check if your VPN is adding latency

A VPN can increase ping depending on distance to the VPN server and congestion.

Fix: choose a nearer server, switch protocol, or temporarily disconnect for latency-sensitive sessions.

9) Try a different game region/server

Sometimes the game’s server is far away or overloaded.

10) Test on another network (hotspot)

If hotspot ping is much better, the issue is likely your home ISP route or local network.

11) Check your public IP routing hints

ISP/ASN data can explain why routes are weird (regional hubs, mobile gateways):

12) Contact ISP if it’s consistent and time-based

If latency spikes every evening, that often points to ISP congestion. Provide timestamps and test results.

What Causes Ping at the Network Level

Ping measures Round Trip Time (RTT)—how long a packet takes to travel from your device to a server and back. RTT is the sum of several distinct delay types, and understanding them helps you target fixes more precisely.

• Propagation delay: The physical time for a signal to travel the cable or fiber. Speed-of-light in fiber is about 200,000 km/s—so a 3,000 km transcontinental route adds a minimum of ~15 ms each way regardless of everything else.
• Transmission delay: Time to push bits onto the link. On a 10 Gbps fiber connection this is negligible; on a slow DSL uplink with large packets, it can be significant.
• Processing delay: Time routers take to inspect packets, perform routing table lookups, and apply firewall rules. On enterprise hardware this is microseconds; on overloaded home routers it can be milliseconds.
• Queuing delay: Time packets spend waiting in router buffers. This is the main cause of variable, "bursty" latency—especially under load. It's also what bufferbloat refers to.

The key insight: fixes 1–5 target queuing and local transmission delay. Fixes 6–12 target routing, processing, and propagation delay. Knowing which layer your latency lives in lets you stop chasing the wrong fix.

How to Diagnose with Traceroute

Traceroute (called tracert on Windows) sends packets with incrementally increasing TTL values, forcing each router along the path to identify itself. This lets you see exactly where latency accumulates.

Running traceroute

• Windows: tracert 8.8.8.8 in Command Prompt
• macOS / Linux: traceroute 8.8.8.8 in Terminal
• For gaming servers: trace the actual game server IP, not a generic target

Reading the output

Each line represents one hop (router). Three round-trip times are shown per hop. Here's what to look for:

• Hops 1–3 (under 5 ms): Your local network and gateway. High latency here = Wi-Fi or router issue.
• Hops 4–8 (5–30 ms): Your ISP's backbone. A sudden jump here points to congestion within the ISP.
• Later hops (variable): Transit providers and the destination network. Each hop's latency should be equal to or greater than the previous—if it suddenly drops, the router is de-prioritizing ICMP replies (normal, not a real problem).
• Asterisks (* * *): The router dropped ICMP packets. This is common on enterprise routers and doesn't necessarily indicate a problem—check the next hop's latency instead.
• A single hop with dramatically higher latency: That specific router is overloaded or the link between that hop and the previous is congested.

Bufferbloat: What It Is and How to Fix It

Bufferbloat occurs when network equipment uses excessively large buffers (queues) to avoid dropping packets. The result: during periods of high throughput (large downloads, video uploads), latency can jump from 10 ms to 500+ ms because packets sit in these oversized queues waiting for transmission. Your connection looks "fast" on a speed test but feels terrible in games and video calls.

How to test for bufferbloat

The best test is waveform.com/tools/bufferbloat or similar tests that measure latency under load (not just idle ping). A grade of A or B is acceptable; C through F means bufferbloat is affecting your experience. Our Speed Test also measures loaded latency.

Fixing bufferbloat with FQ-CoDel and CAKE

The fix is a smart queue management (SQM) algorithm that keeps buffers from filling up. The two most effective algorithms are:

• FQ-CoDel (Fair Queue CoDel): Manages queues per-flow and actively drops packets when queue delay exceeds a target (default 5 ms). Dramatically reduces bufferbloat without sacrificing throughput. Available in OpenWrt, pfSense, and some consumer routers.
• CAKE (Common Applications Kept Enhanced): A newer, more sophisticated SQM algorithm that also handles diffserv QoS markings and link-layer overhead compensation. Generally considered the best option if your router supports it.

To use FQ-CoDel or CAKE, your router needs to support it. Consumer options include routers running OpenWrt, DD-WRT, or premium routers from Asus, Netgear, or TP-Link that include SQM features. Set the rate slightly below your actual ISP speed (90–95%) to prevent the modem buffer from being the bottleneck.

QoS Settings for Gaming Traffic

Quality of Service (QoS) lets your router prioritize certain traffic types, ensuring gaming packets get through even when other devices are saturating the connection. Most modern routers include some form of QoS in their admin interface.

How to configure QoS for gaming

• Access your router admin panel (usually 192.168.1.1 or 192.168.0.1).
• Find QoS or Traffic Priority settings.
• Prioritize by device (your gaming PC/console gets highest priority) or by application type (select "Gaming" if your router supports it).
• Gaming traffic typically uses UDP on ports 3074 (Xbox), 9308/9307 (PlayStation), and variable ports for PC games.
• Set streaming and file downloads to lowest priority—these tolerate latency well and shouldn't compete with real-time game packets.

Note: QoS helps when your connection is saturated. If your baseline ping is already high on an empty network, QoS won't help—address the root cause first (bufferbloat, routing, ISP congestion).

VPN Protocol Comparison for Gaming

Using a VPN for gaming (to reduce routing latency to certain servers, or for privacy) introduces its own latency overhead. The protocol choice matters significantly:

• WireGuard: The best choice for gaming. Lightweight kernel-level implementation, minimal overhead (~1–3 ms typical). UDP-based. Modern VPN providers (Mullvad, ProtonVPN, NordVPN) all support it.
• OpenVPN (UDP mode): Respectable performance but higher CPU overhead than WireGuard. Adds 5–15 ms typically, more on slower hardware.
• OpenVPN (TCP mode): Significantly worse for gaming. TCP's acknowledgment system causes latency amplification under any packet loss—avoid for real-time games.
• IKEv2/IPSec: Fast and stable, good for gaming. Built into Windows, macOS, and iOS. Second choice after WireGuard.
• PPTP/L2TP: Legacy protocols, security concerns—avoid entirely.

If your VPN adds more than 20–30 ms beyond your baseline, try switching to WireGuard, connecting to a closer server, or checking whether the VPN server itself is congested.

When to Contact Your ISP

If you've worked through the fixes above and still have consistent high ping at specific times, the problem may be upstream congestion at the ISP level. Before calling, build a case:

What to document

• Timestamps of when latency spikes occur (often 6–11 PM on weekdays = congestion)
• Traceroute output showing which hop adds the most latency
• Ping test results to multiple targets (your router, 8.8.8.8, and the game server)
• Speed test results at different times (our Speed Test records timestamps)

What to ask for

Ask the ISP to check for CIR (Committed Information Rate) vs burstable bandwidth issues on your connection. CIR is the guaranteed minimum speed; burstable bandwidth is the "up to" speed you see during off-peak hours. If congestion is consistent and documented, ISPs can sometimes move you to less congested infrastructure or upgrade your line profile. Keep records of all support calls and ticket numbers—escalation becomes much easier with documented history.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is 100 ms ping bad?

It depends entirely on the use case. For casual browsing, 100 ms is imperceptible. For video calls, 100 ms is acceptable but noticeable. For competitive first-person shooters, 100 ms is where gameplay starts to feel sluggish—most competitive players aim for under 40 ms. For turn-based games or strategy games, 100 ms is irrelevant. The target changes drastically by application.

Does a VPN always increase ping?

No—though it usually does add some latency. A VPN can sometimes reduce ping if your ISP is routing traffic inefficiently (common with some game servers) and the VPN's routing path is more direct. This is occasionally the case with international game servers where ISP peering is poor. Test with and without the VPN to see the actual difference for your specific game server.

What is jitter and why does it matter?

Jitter is the variation in ping over time. A connection with 40 ms ping that stays at exactly 40 ms has zero jitter and feels smooth. A connection that bounces between 20 ms and 80 ms has 60 ms of jitter and feels inconsistent even though the average ping is similar. Jitter matters more than raw ping for real-time applications because game engines and voice codecs can compensate for consistent high latency but struggle with unpredictable variation. Bufferbloat is the most common cause of high jitter. FQ-CoDel/CAKE dramatically reduce jitter in addition to average latency.