Why is my ping so high? How to lower ping

High ping almost always comes from one of four things: Wi-Fi, other traffic filling your connection, a game or app server that's far away, or a VPN. Plugging in with Ethernet, pausing downloads and uploads, choosing the nearest server region and turning off the VPN fixes most cases. If ping is still high on a wired, idle connection to a nearby server, the cause is your ISP's line or routing.

First, check which ping is high

"Ping" can mean different things in different places:

• The ping on a speed test is the round trip to the test server, usually a nearby one. SpeedMetric shows idle ping and jitter, measured while the connection is quiet.
• The ping in a game is the round trip to that game's server, which might be in another region or country.
• Ping while the house is busy can be far higher than either, because of queues on a loaded connection.

If the speed test shows low ping but the game shows high ping, the problem is the distance or the route to the game server, not your home network. If both are high, start at home. For what counts as good, see what a good ping for gaming is.

Run three quick tests to find the cause

Run a speed test three times, in three conditions, and write down the ping and jitter each time:

1. On Ethernet, with nothing else running. This is your connection's best case.
2. On Wi-Fi, from where you usually play or work. If ping and jitter jump here, Wi-Fi is the cause.
3. On your usual setup while someone streams or uploads. SpeedMetric's ping is measured before the download starts, so it won't show the spike from a busy line. Watch the in-game ping or a call while the other traffic runs instead. If it shoots up, the connection is congested.

Compare the three and jump to the matching fix below.

Fix 1: get off Wi-Fi, or improve it

Wi-Fi adds delay and, worse, jitter. Devices take turns to transmit, interference forces resends, and a weak signal makes everything slower. A wired connection is the biggest single improvement for most players. Why Wi-Fi is slower than Ethernet explains why.

If a cable isn't possible:

• Use 5 GHz and get closer to the router, or bring a mesh node with a wired or dedicated wireless link to the router into the room.
• Move the router out of cabinets and away from thick walls.
• Powerline adapters work in some homes and not others. Test ping before and after.

Fix 2: stop other traffic from filling the line

When an upload or download fills your connection, packets queue up in the modem or router, and every game packet waits in that queue. That's bufferbloat, and it's the usual reason ping is fine at 3 a.m. and terrible at 8 p.m.

• Pause the heavy stuff: game and system updates, cloud backups, photo sync, torrents, 4K streams on other TVs.
• Watch uploads in particular. Upload is small on most cable and DSL plans, so one phone backing up photos can fill it.
• Turn on smart queue management if your router has it. Look for SQM, Smart Queue, FQ-CoDel or CAKE. It keeps queues short when the line is busy, and it works far better than generic "gaming mode" switches.
• Use QoS to put your console or PC first, if the router supports it properly.

Fix 3: pick a closer server

Distance sets a floor that no setting can remove. Light in fiber travels at roughly 200,000 km per second, about two-thirds of its speed in a vacuum. That works out to about 1 ms of round trip for every 100 km, in a straight line, before any routing or processing. Some rough estimates:

• A server 500 km away: at least about 5 ms.
• A server 3,000 km away: at least about 30 ms.
• A server on another continent, 8,000 km away: at least about 80 ms.

Real routes are longer than straight lines, so actual ping is higher. In games, choose the nearest region in the settings rather than "auto" if auto keeps placing you somewhere distant. Party and lobby hosts in other countries will always mean higher ping.

Fix 4: turn off the VPN

A VPN sends every packet to the VPN server first, then on to the game. If that server is in another city, you've added the trip there and back. Turn the VPN off and compare. If you need one, choose a server close to you or to the game server. How a VPN affects your speed covers the trade-offs.

Fix 5: check the device itself

Sometimes the delay is in the computer rather than the network:

• Close background downloads, cloud sync and streaming tabs.
• Update the network driver on Windows PCs.
• Turn off power-saving modes for the network adapter.
• Restart the router and the device if neither has been restarted in weeks.

What won't lower ping

• Changing DNS. DNS is only used to look up addresses before you connect. It doesn't touch the ping to a game server you're already connected to. Whether DNS affects internet speed explains what it does change.
• A faster plan on its own, unless your current plan is regularly full.
• "Ping reducer" apps, which mostly do what closing background programs does for free.

When it's the ISP

If ping stays high on Ethernet, with nothing else running, to a nearby speed test server, the problem is outside your home. The cause can be the line itself, the type of connection, or how your ISP routes traffic. Traditional satellite internet, which relays through satellites far above the equator, has high ping by design. Note your results and the times, and ask your ISP to check the line. If it's a routing problem to one game, the ISP's support team or the game's support team can sometimes fix it once they have evidence.