Lag spikes in games caused by computer on network


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So I recently did a reformat because I couldn't play a game without lag spikes getting the best of me... I ran scans beforehand, shut down everything but the game I was playing... couldn't get the lag to go away, so as a last resort I just reformatted. Well, the lag never went away. This is on a 150mbps connection. This time I was running the game(league of legends) without ANY OTHER PROGRAMS INSTALLED. I couldn't figure out what the hell the problem was... 

 

I started disconnecting other items from the network. PS4. XBox 360. PSVita. 3 smart TV's. Finally made it to my girlfriends laptop, which was connected via wired connection. BOOM. Lag gone. However she was still connected through wireless and the issue does not exist. Does nayone have any way I can prove to her that this is what is the problem? She(and I) think this is impossible, but if I didn't see it with my own eyes I wouldn't believe it.

 

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First off, scan her laptop, and update her computer drivers, change the network cable.  Then come back with more detail.   I remember back in the Dialup days, I had huge problems with my connection, until i unplugged our kitchen phone. Might have been some interference with the phone, cable who knows.

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First off, scan her laptop, and update her computer drivers, change the network cable.  Then come back with more detail.   I remember back in the Dialup days, I had huge problems with my connection, until i unplugged our kitchen phone. Might have been some interference with the phone, cable who knows.

Her computer has been scanned with AVG and Malware Bytes. Nothing. Not a single issue.

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try the drivers, update the firmware on the rounter, basic stuff first.  Try connecting her laptop in safemode with Networking, and connect the cable.

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Of course it's possible, it could be anything, it could even be hardware malfunctioning. 

 

I have a switch that started causing issues on my network. lag spikes and even causing other computer on the network to have frequent irregular short connectivity drops. 

If disconnecting her from the wired connection chances are it's something with her network card or possibly the cable. seeing as wireless doesn't cause an issue it's probably not software. 

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I have often seen NIC cards go bad and become "chatty" sending thousands of unneeded packets trying to correct errors over and over again. I have also seen bad switch ports or even cable problems cause this. How long is the cable, is it shielded properly(most are unshielded UTP but you may have interference that a shielded cable could help), and was the laptop dropped or damaged? Many factors could cause it, especially in a laptop any compromise of an internal components shielding could negatively affect the performance of the on board NIC.

 

 

 

You could just go on her laptop and instead of auto negotiate on the speed set her NIC to 100 FULL, or even 10 FULL (some won?t go as low as 10 anymore but for normal internet it?s still a decent speed)

 at least for troubleshooting, move the cable to another port use a shorter cable 3m or so and see if the problem is better, use a packet sniffer such as wireshark.

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We've made sure all drivers were up to date, viruses/malware were not there. I've tried 4 cat6 cables. 

 

Its odd. On wireless she's completely fine. Literally the second we plug her in with a cable, my ping jumps from 51 in game, to 2-300. Unfortunately the only way to 'monitor' my ping is to have a game of league of legends running. There is no real reason she needs to be wired in. She doesn't download, or play games. Just pays her bills with her phone. Buuuuuuttttttttttt she's a tech nerd like us and she would PREFER to be wired if possible. She spent several hours last night trying to diagnose the problem. No luck. 

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Why would she prefer to be wired on a laptop ? there's zero reason for that. it won't affect her ping, it's unlikely to affect her download speeds unless you have awesome internet. it most it would slightly affect her transfer speed on the LAN, if you have a G router or something. 

 

IT's obvious her network card is broken.

 

as for ping monitoring tools.

 

ping plotter, but it costs. there's another tool similar to ping plotter my ISP told me to use that's free for regular users.

 

or you can do a cmd prompt and do "ping www.url.com /t" then it will ping the address forever.

 

I prefer ping plotter since it will trace the route and provide the ping for each step continuously so you can see where the lag occurs on the route.

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Get a USB NIC and give that a try.  If the issue goes away on that then it is a bad NIC.  Otherwise the port might be bad so you could also just try a different port first if you wanted to.  Either way it is going to be physical.  I did have this happen on a prior desktop but it only got chatty when I was over at a major lan event (go figure) and was causing high latency for everyone else at the table.  Luckily I had a USB NIC on hand and the issue went away.

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ive had this happen a few times. the network card will spam the network with packets. there are certain features on some routers to filter this,but I've had that break other things.

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Why would she prefer to be wired on a laptop ? there's zero reason for that. it won't affect her ping, it's unlikely to affect her download speeds unless you have awesome internet. it most it would slightly affect her transfer speed on the LAN, if you have a G router or something. 

 

IT's obvious her network card is broken.

 

as for ping monitoring tools.

 

ping plotter, but it costs. there's another tool similar to ping plotter my ISP told me to use that's free for regular users.

 

or you can do a cmd prompt and do "ping www.url.com /t" then it will ping the address forever.

 

I prefer ping plotter since it will trace the route and provide the ping for each step continuously so you can see where the lag occurs on the route.

I agree, she has absolutely no reason to be wired, but c'mon. Arguing with this woman is like arguing with a rabid wolverine. You're better off running and hiding for your own safety. I'm sure its her NIC, but there is no 'free' way of diagnosing it right now that I know of. We do have an 'awesome' internet connection of 150mbps, but realistically she doesn't need it for her bank account or anything she does. I use it for gaming/downloads. Its nice downloading games through steam at 20+MB/s

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Try booting her laptop off a Live CD and using it on the wired network and see what happens. If it doesn't do it, its something with her Windows install.

If it does, then you can trace back the connection from there:

Is there a switch?

Have you tried different ports?

Have you tried different ports on the router?

Have you tested using a second router? 

 

You can test the above before using the LiveCD if you wish as well.

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Try booting her laptop off a Live CD and using it on the wired network and see what happens. If it doesn't do it, its something with her Windows install. If it does, the card is shot.

Good idea. Do you have suggestions on a live cd to get? I haven't used one since the release days of Ubuntu. Something simple that wouldn't require configuring for the card if possible.

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  • 2 months later...

Did you get to try a different Cable or the Live CD and did the problem get better or go away?

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By your description, it could be quite easy.  Some laptops when connected to a hard wired connection AND a wireless connection simultaneously create packet storm on the network.  I.E. The computer is talking to itself without even realizing it due to two different IP addresses on the same network both with gateways and DNS servers assigned.  Windows tries to figure out which connection is best to use, but because both are essentially equal, it bounces between both of them.

 

Disable the wireless card, plug in the ethernet cable and see if the problem crops back up.  If it does, check to see that you have the newest generic drivers for the network card from the chipset manufacturers website (not from the laptop manufacturer due them only updating their drivers every couple years on their websites).

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