Is my network card causing latency spikes?

[Murtsman1]

For the past three days my internet latency has been behaving abnormally. I play a generous amount of PC games and lately in all online games I rubber band every 5~10 seconds, and have noticed whenever this happens my ping has gone up from 100 to 500. This was unplayable so i decided to attempt to diagnose the problem.

I updated my network driver, scanned for malware/viruses, and defraged my hard drive. Nothing worked so I called up my ISP and they said they found nothing on their end that would be cause the problem. I went into the command console and did a tracert on google.com and got this:

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C:\Users\Me>tracert google.com
Tracing route to google.com [2607:f8b0:4007:803::1009]
over a maximum of 30 hops:
1 2 ms 1 ms 1 ms 2605:e000:1117:8015:4af8:b3ff:fecc:3e71
2 * * * Request timed out.
3 79 ms 25 ms 21 ms 2605:e000:0:4::b:741
4 422 ms 13 ms 21 ms 2605:e000:0:4::b:110
5 77 ms 64 ms 65 ms 2605:e000:0:4::50
6 * * * Request timed out.
7 137 ms 100 ms 65 ms 2001:1998:0:4::38b
8 73 ms 582 ms 77 ms if-ae24.0.tcore1.LVW-Los-Angeles.ipv6.as6453.net [2001:5a0:fff0::41]
9 455 ms 78 ms 465 ms 2001:4860:1:1:0:1935:0:c3
10 77 ms 66 ms 74 ms 2001:4860::1:0:6b02
11 70 ms 71 ms 62 ms 2001:4860:0:1::3b
12 423 ms 73 ms 76 ms lax17s02-in-x09.1e100.net [2607:f8b0:4007:803::1009]
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After running this diagnostic a couple times I decided to ping different hops to find the earliest spike. So i ping-ed hop one and got this.

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C:\Users\Me>ping 2605:e000:1117:8015:4af8:b3ff:fecc:3e71 -t
Pinging 2605:e000:1117:8015:4af8:b3ff:fecc:3e71 with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 2605:e000:1117:8015:4af8:b3ff:fecc:3e71: time=7ms
Reply from 2605:e000:1117:8015:4af8:b3ff:fecc:3e71: time=2ms
Reply from 2605:e000:1117:8015:4af8:b3ff:fecc:3e71: time=2ms
Reply from 2605:e000:1117:8015:4af8:b3ff:fecc:3e71: time=457ms <-----------
Reply from 2605:e000:1117:8015:4af8:b3ff:fecc:3e71: time=175ms
Reply from 2605:e000:1117:8015:4af8:b3ff:fecc:3e71: time=2ms
Reply from 2605:e000:1117:8015:4af8:b3ff:fecc:3e71: time=2ms
Reply from 2605:e000:1117:8015:4af8:b3ff:fecc:3e71: time=364ms <-----------
Reply from 2605:e000:1117:8015:4af8:b3ff:fecc:3e71: time=82ms
Reply from 2605:e000:1117:8015:4af8:b3ff:fecc:3e71: time=363ms <-----------
Reply from 2605:e000:1117:8015:4af8:b3ff:fecc:3e71: time=50ms
Reply from 2605:e000:1117:8015:4af8:b3ff:fecc:3e71: time=2ms
Reply from 2605:e000:1117:8015:4af8:b3ff:fecc:3e71: time=2ms
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I believe this hop is from my computer to my router, so one of the two must have been behaving abnormally. Just for safe measure I pinged my router and google simultaneously and the spikes happened at the same time every time, so i'd assume it isn't just the router not wanting to respond to trace route commands.

I hooked up my Ethernet cable from the computer straight to the modem, and was getting absolutely no lag spikes, but this setup was only temporary and was not something i could do on a regular basis.

I decided to use two other computers in the house to see if they were having the issue, and both worked fine getting a steady 60ms when pinging google.com and 3ms to the router. So it had to be my computer and not the router that was causing troubles.

From there on I assumed it was my wireless network card, so i decided to disable it in the device manager and use a thumb network adapter as a placeholder. I ran a ping test again to the router and this showed up.

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C:\Users\Me>ping 2605:e000:1117:8015:4af8:b3ff:fecc:3e71 -t
Pinging 2605:e000:1117:8015:4af8:b3ff:fecc:3e71 with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 2605:e000:1117:8015:4af8:b3ff:fecc:3e71: time=3ms
Reply from 2605:e000:1117:8015:4af8:b3ff:fecc:3e71: time=1519ms <-------
Reply from 2605:e000:1117:8015:4af8:b3ff:fecc:3e71: time=21ms
Reply from 2605:e000:1117:8015:4af8:b3ff:fecc:3e71: time=3ms
Reply from 2605:e000:1117:8015:4af8:b3ff:fecc:3e71: time=4ms
Reply from 2605:e000:1117:8015:4af8:b3ff:fecc:3e71: time=3ms
Reply from 2605:e000:1117:8015:4af8:b3ff:fecc:3e71: time=1421ms <-------
Reply from 2605:e000:1117:8015:4af8:b3ff:fecc:3e71: time=21ms
Reply from 2605:e000:1117:8015:4af8:b3ff:fecc:3e71: time=946ms <-------
Reply from 2605:e000:1117:8015:4af8:b3ff:fecc:3e71: time=3ms
Reply from 2605:e000:1117:8015:4af8:b3ff:fecc:3e71: time=3ms
Reply from 2605:e000:1117:8015:4af8:b3ff:fecc:3e71: time=3ms
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Okay... So i got spikes again and they seemed a lot more dramatic ms wise, but they were less clustered/lengthy as before. I tested the thumb adapter on both of the other computers, and they worked fine with a solid 60 and 2 as before. I'm sitting here pulling my hair out because for online games, both are equally annoying. I've also tried running a test off my neighbors WiFi (we know each other) and I experience the same problem. I'm fairly certain it's my network adapter still, but it doesn't make sense to me why the problem would persist with the thumb drive adapter, and why Ethernet does work. Anyone have any advice on how to go about fixing this? Do I need a new network card?

(Apologies for the lengthiness of this thread, but i want to give as much useful info as possible.)

[Edit: My upload and download are absolutely fine in any configuration.]

 

[bill001g]

If you mean you use wireless and it has problems but you use ethernet and it is fine then that is exactly the reason they say to not use wireless to play games. It tends to be impossible to get rid of all interference. Why some machine work ok and other don't is all based on many difference in the location and construction of the device. Even extremely simple thing like someone walking though the room changes the radio patterns. Most things are unaffected by this but games are extremely sensitive to any variations in the delay.

Although it is likely not your problem you can try to disable IPv6 in your computer. Because IPv6 is not well supported in the internet sometime the data will not follow the most efficient path. Still this has nothing to do with issues ping your router.

 

[Urumiko]

Your network card is not the problem. You are getting interference/drop-out in your PC's location.

Do you know which wireless standard/frequency you are using?
Have you started using any new electrical devices recently?

Wireless is never ideal for gaming, Ethernet cable is always best, and power line Ethernet is usually better.

- Try changing your wireless channel on the router.
- download a free program called "inSSSIDer" to look for interfering networks.
- If you are using 2.5ghz try switching / upgrading to 5ghz.

 

[Murtsman1]

Do you know which wireless standard/frequency you are using?
Have you started using any new electrical devices recently?

Wireless is never ideal for gaming, Ethernet cable is always best, and power line Ethernet is usually better.

- Try changing your wireless channel on the router.
- download a free program called "inSSSIDer" to look for interfering networks.
- If you are using 2.5ghz try switching / upgrading to 5ghz.

-I have a router that puts out both a 2.4 and 5.0 frequency, I get the same amount of stuttering on both.
-There hasn't been any new electronics being used, but my father did move his desktop computer closer to the router at about the same time I started getting these issues, and his computer seems to be getting much better ping. Do you think that might have something to do with it?
-I know Ethernet is much better for gaming, but my house doesn't have the ability to run that setup unless i got a 60ft cord and strung it across the floor. I don't think that it's just WiFi being WiFi. I've been running WiFi for awhile now and this si the first appearance of problems.
-After downloading inSSIDer and checking it, it appears that i am picking up like 20+ routers in the 2.4Ghz menu. I chose the only vacant channel for the 2.4, and nothing seemed to improve. Unfortunately I can't change the 5Ghz channel, so it's stuck with 6 other routers in the same channel.

One more thing, I did a second test this morning on the 2 other computers. The desktop my father has still gets good ping. The laptop appears to be having mixed signals now, depending on where i put it in the house.

So what you're getting at so far is this problem can only be solved with Ethernet then?

 

[Urumiko]

The simple test for your dads pc is to see if it makes any diference if it is turned off completely.

The thing to remember with wireless is its a shared medium. Only one thing can talk on any frequency at a time. Even in an envitonment where there is just your pc and the router. The pc and the router have to take turns at using the frequency to talk while the others listen. Add in the fact you probably have several devices on your network. Then your neighbours have networks also sharing the same frequency
This isnt really an issue if you are the only one trying to talk but imagine your neighbour starts streaming netflix. Suddenly there will be periods of many milliseconds where you and your router have to wait for their turn to talk.

For quite complex reasons there are only 3 usable channels in the 2.4ghz range. 1, 6, and 12 because they interfere with adjacent channels. This is why you will see what you see in inssider. Lots of neighbours overlapping on channels 1,6&12 with nowhere to go. You may still find switching between these three helps.

If you have a device which supports 5ghz use it to try and decide if its worth buying a 5ghz adapter. These are quite cheap.

Also remember inssider only shows wifi networks. There could be other sources of interference that are not wifi. Like power supplies, speakers, or wireless peripherals.

An ethernet cable is always the best option as it allows communication in both directions at the same time with little interferance and is cheap.

The other option is powerline ethernet. Its the most expensive option but not too expensive, and tends ti either work very well or not at all.

 

[Urumiko]

Sorry i just re read that, so the interference happens on both bands. Well that would suggest either some really bad interference, some busy neighbours on both bands, or the routers wireless chipset isnt up to the job but im only guessing. It sounds weird but it might be worth trying turning off one of the bands on the router.

 

[Murtsman1]

Sorry i just re read that, so the interference happens on both bands. Well that would suggest either some really bad interference, some busy neighbours on both bands, or the routers wireless chipset isnt up to the job but im only guessing. It sounds weird but it might be worth trying turning off one of the bands on the router.

Okay man, thanks for all the help. I'll continue working on it and keep your advice in mind.