[SOLVED] Ethernet connection has significant latency

[jp7803]

I'm a college student, and I recently moved my PC back home for Thanksgiving break. I'm using an ethernet connection and the speeds are great, but I have significant latency. I have a 1 gbps internet connection at home. This wasn't the case before, and my internet connection at school was fine as well. Playing YouTube videos in FHD and up requires buffering, even though this wasn't an issue before. Going on other websites have significant load times as well. I have tried restarting my PC, restarting the router, and disabling and reenabling my network adapter but to no avail. The only significant change I made since going back to school was reinstalling Windows 11. How can I fix this?

 

[Ralston18]

At home - some immediate things to do:

- Disable IPv6.

- Ensure that only one network adapter is enabled on your PC. Either wired or wireless as required. In this case - wireless should be disabled.

- Check Speed & Duplex. Use Auto-negotiate.

- Check NAT

- Run the built in Windows troubleshooters. The troubleshooters may find and fix something.

- Try another known working (at speed, no latency) Ethernet cable.

- Use Task Manager and Resource Monitor to observe system performance. Use both tools but only one tool at a time. Determine what happens (or perhaps stops happening) when latency occurs.

Overall I would expect some network related mis-configuration due to some difference between the college network environment and the home network environment.

No harm in powering down the PC, unplugging it, and opening the case.

Clean out dust and debris.

Verify by sight and feel that all cards, connectors, RAM, jumpers, and case connections are fully and firmly in place.

Something may be just a bit loose due bumps and other jiggling about when the PC was moved.

 

[kanewolf]

I'm a college student, and I recently moved my PC back home for Thanksgiving break. I'm using an ethernet connection and the speeds are great, but I have significant latency. I have a 1 gbps internet connection at home. This wasn't the case before, and my internet connection at school was fine as well. Playing YouTube videos in FHD and up requires buffering, even though this wasn't an issue before. Going on other websites have significant load times as well. I have tried restarting my PC, restarting the router, and disabling and reenabling my network adapter but to no avail. The only significant change I made since going back to school was reinstalling Windows 11. How can I fix this?

The only part you have control over is the cable from your PC to the router. Start a continuous ping to the router IP address. If that doesn't have lag spikes, then there the problem is with the ISP and you will have to work with them.
I would make sure that you have IPv6 DISABLED on your PC. IPv6 can cause lots of strange things.
I would also ask if you were required to have a proxy configuration at school and need to disable the proxy.

 

[bill001g]

What you are describing is a much more general way to define latency. What you would want to do is ping say 8.8.8.8 and compare what it was before as to what it is now. Since I suspect you do not have data from before it is hard to say if you have a actual latency increase.

A ping to 8.8.8.8 should still be extremely high if you have a network issue. Most people see under 10ms to 8.8.8.8 but anythings under say 100ms would be acceptable.

This does not really sound like a network problem but it could be.

 

[jp7803]

Disabling IPv6 did the trick!

 

[bill001g]

It is surprising for how many people this "fixes" their problems. I really don't understant why the ISP can't get IPv6 correct, they have had almost 20yrs to get it right.

 

[kanewolf]

It is surprising for how many people this "fixes" their problems. I really don't understant why the ISP can't get IPv6 correct, they have had almost 20yrs to get it right.

It almost seems like they have routing loops or some other asymmetric routing on the IPv6. Maybe the ISPs just need to have IPv6 test hosts they are testing continuously. Maybe their internal tests don't exercise IPv6 enough. I don't understand why, but I do know that suggesting that it be disabled "fixes" MANY odd issues that would otherwise never be solved.