Question PC loses internet connection when launching certain games.

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Brettapus

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Nov 5, 2013
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Ill just explain everything in the order it all happened. I really hope someone can help me because im losing my mind.

So ive been having an issue now thats been plagueing me for about a year now. It started when i upgraded to 1gig internet through my same ISP. i first noticed the issue when launching The Elder Scrolls Online. Upon launching the game my steam would go offline, my discord call would drop out i could no longer browse the internet or anything until i got to the main menu and then suddenly everything would come back online. Though when i tabbed out to check if i lost connection i never did it would show that my Ethernet port is still plugged in on the task bar. I shrugged the issue off since it only did it on ESO an no other games and it was only a minor inconvenience for a split second or so.

The issue overtime got progressively worse as sometimes i would physically not be able connect to the game servers and it was like my PC was being held hostage in some kind of limbo offline yet online state. The strangest thing about the whole thing is when it does this i can still hear people in my call talking yet nobody can here me its like ive disconnected without disconnecting. I would have to wait until it finally lets me connect to the servers which could sometimes take as long as 10 minutes. At this point i was getting very annoyed with the issue and started to look up about it to see if other people have the issue. I found 1 post referencing the exact same issue i was having and i couldnt believe it but it was actually on the ESO forums and in the post he actually mentioned his ISP; Virgin Media. The exact same ISP as im on, though nobody ever replied to his post and i could never follow it up if he fixed it.

This was interesting though since i could say it was Virgin Media to be the potential cause of the problem. So i contacted the ISP and they sent out an engineer who all he did was place the router/modem which never fixed the issue. So i called back and they took the issue a little more seriously this time and replace absolutely everything hardware based that they would supply, new capbles around the house, new box on the outside of the house. Literally everything. This still didnt fix the issue, at this point i was starting to think it was my PC but i wasnt too worried since i was soon to be ordering new parts and building an entirely fresh system so i was hopeful that maybe the issue would go once i do that.

After building my new system and replacing every single part of my PC, i tried ESO out of curiousity and it was still doing it. I'd launch the game and eveything on my PC would stop working if it requires internet. It got to the point i was done with the game and couldnt be bothered to even play it anymore because it just put me in a mood every time i tried launching it.

Fast forward a few months later and a new game is coming out Delta Force Hawk Ops, i was excited to try it, i installed it and launched the game only to find i disconnect when trying to get to the main menu. Now i really was fuming because the issue is happening to other games and the fact it could be any new game that releases got me real mad. Then only a couple weeks later another game i was looking forward to trying launched. Arena Breakout Infinite, same thing i launched it and for this one it would disconnect me but because they only have a 30 second reconnect period i physically never got to actually play that game because it took longer than 30 seconds to reconnect so it actually shuts the game down automattically.

So thats now 3 games i disconnect from 2 of which disconnect me so heavily it doesnt actually connect back to the servers so theyre unplayable for me. Up until now ive been annoyed but not full blown losing it. The two games i cant play are free to play and the 1 i can play is more of a minor inconvenience, but then it happened when the new Call of Duty launched a couple months ago and it cost me £70 so now the issue is affecting the games i buy. I called my ISP again threatening to cancel the contract and they sent out someone who took the issue seriously.

When he got here i explained the issue to him and him being a PC gamer he was so confiused when i literally showed him what happens. I told him everthing ive had done.
•New Router
•New Router again with all other hardware being replaced too
•Built an entirely new PC the only thing i didnt replace was my case

So he then said "have you tried launching any of these games without Ethernet and doing it wirelessly".
I gave that a try and i couldnt belive it but it worked on black ops 6, so i tried Elder Scrolls Online and it also worked, the only issue being is this didnt entirely help since im so far away from my router wireless isnt an option it was just hander to see the culpret was the Ethernet cable. I didnt have the other 2 games to try since 1 was a test and the other i uninstalled. The guy basically said it seems like i have a faulty Ethernet cable. i Instantly bought a new one and tried it today only to find nope its still doing it on an new CAT7 Ethernet cable.


I am losing my mind with this issue now and i really dont know what to do, im getting to the point i dont wanna pick up new games anymore incase theyre unplayable please im hoping someone can help.
 
So if wifi is too far how do you get a ethernet cable. Are you using ethernet cables that are in the walls.

Some basic testing should show where the problem is.

Start with 2 cmd windows and run constant ping to your router IP and some common IP like 8.8.8.8. You can let this run all the time and then try to see if there is any loss in these windows that correspond to you issues with the game.

If you lose ping commands to the router it is some issue inside your house. Would normally be a cable or some software on the pc. If this is good but you get loss to 8.8.8.8 it is more likely some issue with the internet.


This is messy because you have replaced almost everything there is to replace.
 
bill001g said:
So if wifi is too far how do you get a ethernet cable. Are you using ethernet cables that are in the walls.

Some basic testing should show where the problem is.

Start with 2 cmd windows and run constant ping to your router IP and some common IP like 8.8.8.8. You can let this run all the time and then try to see if there is any loss in these windows that correspond to you issues with the game.

If you lose ping commands to the router it is some issue inside your house. Would normally be a cable or some software on the pc. If this is good but you get loss to 8.8.8.8 it is more likely some issue with the internet.


This is messy because you have replaced almost everything there is to replace.
Click to expand...
Can you give me a little step by step guide on how to do this I’ve never done anything like this before network stuff is not my strong suit.

No I’m not use those wall Ethernet things I must have a long cable through my house. It’s not so much distance that gives me terrible wireless signal it’s the thick walls win my house between where my router is and my PC. So I’ve just got a cable running there. It’s not been an issue for about 5 years it wasn’t until I upgraded to this new speed and router this all started. I had done upgrades in those 5 years before and never had an issue, any time we was offered a better speed and router we accepted and never had an issue.
 
make sure you enable WWAN and WLAN services, these services are essential to run the Wireless and wired connection perfectly, then restart and see if there still problem, try typing these commands in command prompt CMD
each one then press enter..
netsh int tcp set heuristics disabled
netsh int tcp set global autotuninglevel=disabled
netsh int tcp set global rss=enabled
netsh winsock reset and press Enter
netsh int ip reset and press Enter
ipconfig /release and press Enter
ipconfig /renew and press Enter
ipconfig /flushdns and press Enter
 
littlepony said:
make sure you enable WWAN and WLAN services, these services are essential to run the Wireless and wired connection perfectly, then restart and see if there still problem, try typing these commands in command prompt CMD
each one then press enter..
netsh int tcp set heuristics disabled
netsh int tcp set global autotuninglevel=disabled
netsh int tcp set global rss=enabled
netsh winsock reset and press Enter
netsh int ip reset and press Enter
ipconfig /release and press Enter
ipconfig /renew and press Enter
ipconfig /flushdns and press Enter
Click to expand...
Damn this is a lot of fancy stuff that I don’t understand, so how would I enable WWAN/WLAN

are all this commands safe like am I gonna break anything by doing them
 
All that is needed is Cat 5e or Cat 6a.

Pure copper, round, AWG 22-24. Not flat, not copper clad, not thin.

Cat 7 serves no use at all in home network environments and there is a lot of fake Ethernet cable being sold.

= = = =

You need to go back a few steps:

Make and model modem, router, or modem/ if combined.

Run "ipconfig /all" (without quotes) via the Command Prompt.

Copy and paste the full results into your next post.

Who has full admin rights to the network router?
 
cruisetung said:
Assuming you have Virgin Media Hub 6

Put 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 in Preferred and Alternate DNS

https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https://preview.redd.it/2gph8kikk4mc1.png?width=1244&format=png&auto=webp&s=b5f6d65c0ea54d616fd77bad592bd50ab3f947ec

Need to restart the router and your PC. This will affect the whole network.

The other way is only changes your individual PC's DNS setting.
https://www.windowscentral.com/how-change-your-pcs-dns-settings-windows-10
Click to expand...
i have the virgine media Hub 5
 
Ralston18 said:
All that is needed is Cat 5e or Cat 6a.

Pure copper, round, AWG 22-24. Not flat, not copper clad, not thin.

Cat 7 serves no use at all in home network environments and there is a lot of fake Ethernet cable being sold.

= = = =

You need to go back a few steps:

Make and model modem, router, or modem/ if combined.

Run "ipconfig /all" (without quotes) via the Command Prompt.

Copy and paste the full results into your next post.

Who has full admin rights to the network router?
Click to expand...
I am using the Virgin Media Hub 5 this was what they provided us with upon upgrading.

I have full access to the admin rights

Also im at my PC now do you want the results of the ipconfig/all while im just idle on the desktop or when it crashes due to me launching a game? Also is it safe to do be doing so. i feel like thats a bit of a security risk to post all my network stuff like that?
 
bill001g said:
So if wifi is too far how do you get a ethernet cable. Are you using ethernet cables that are in the walls.

Some basic testing should show where the problem is.

Start with 2 cmd windows and run constant ping to your router IP and some common IP like 8.8.8.8. You can let this run all the time and then try to see if there is any loss in these windows that correspond to you issues with the game.

If you lose ping commands to the router it is some issue inside your house. Would normally be a cable or some software on the pc. If this is good but you get loss to 8.8.8.8 it is more likely some issue with the internet.


This is messy because you have replaced almost everything there is to replace.
Click to expand...
so i did this, and the 8.8.8.8 was pinging totally fine up until loading into the main menu then i timed out for 8 pings, quickly reconnect fro 4 pings, then timed out again. as the first time out happened my router IP ping went from a consistent 1ms to a 14ms, then on the second timeout went to an 8ms spike.
 
Brettapus said:
so i did this, and the 8.8.8.8 was pinging totally fine up until loading into the main menu then i timed out for 8 pings, quickly reconnect fro 4 pings, then timed out again. as the first time out happened my router IP ping went from a consistent 1ms to a 14ms, then on the second timeout went to an 8ms spike.
Click to expand...
These are the kind I hate the most. I am going to assume the internet is not actually going down and it is your local pc. If it did this when you ping the router it would confirm this. It really doesn't matter a lot since a very strange symptom like this would be almost impossible to find.

What makes this even harder is you have replaced the machine and have a new OS install.

There are 2 things I can think of but there might be more. If for some reason all the cores on your CPU where busy it might not have time to run the ping command. That would be a rather strange thing to not even have a tiny amount of CPU to run a ping command. The other would something that was disrupting the ethernet port. This tends to also be rather unlikely since it is a new ethernet and a new driver/os install.

Maybe the event viewer might give you a clue. You would hope there was some error message that happens about the time you see this issue. Things like ethernet ports going down generally cause errors.
 
bill001g said:
These are the kind I hate the most. I am going to assume the internet is not actually going down and it is your local pc. If it did this when you ping the router it would confirm this. It really doesn't matter a lot since a very strange symptom like this would be almost impossible to find.

What makes this even harder is you have replaced the machine and have a new OS install.

There are 2 things I can think of but there might be more. If for some reason all the cores on your CPU where busy it might not have time to run the ping command. That would be a rather strange thing to not even have a tiny amount of CPU to run a ping command. The other would something that was disrupting the ethernet port. This tends to also be rather unlikely since it is a new ethernet and a new driver/os install.

Maybe the event viewer might give you a clue. You would hope there was some error message that happens about the time you see this issue. Things like ethernet ports going down generally cause errors.
Click to expand...
yeah since this issue started i was on windows 10 on my old build and literally the only parts i didnt replace in my pc was 6 fans and my case, everything is fresh and this time im on windows 11. Ethernet cable is brand new i even tried it on another one just now (cat6) i had to move my pc and monitor near the router to try since it was only a 2m cable; just to make sure i wasnt extremely unclucky and got a faulty cable yesterday.

I have also checked my Motherboard Lan drivers are all up to day too which they are.

i just checked event viewer and around the time i launched the game and i have a warning at with the Event ID 10016
 
Unfortunately that is not much help. Seem that event id is something microsoft considers normal.

So this only does it when you launch a game ? If you play say youtube video or run other content it has no issues. When you actually download the games does it give you trouble. This can get tricky because steam will alternate between download and installing and even doing both. I would think as something that can block ping traffic for multiple seconds would cause a very obvious issue in steam.

Maybe try a benchmark software like cinebench. This will max out the cpu. I would leave the ping commands run in the background to see if you get loss while this is running. I don't know of a good free video card benchmark. Maybe try heaven it is older and does not test ray tracing etc but it should test many common things games also use.

Both these are to try to get a idea what is causing the issue or at least get it to fail consistently. Game have massive number of settings so you never really know.

So you did not post details on your machines but I will assume you have a separate video card. Does you cpu have integrated graphics. It will run like crap but if you can run the game without the video card in the machine it would show if maybe it was some issue with nvidia/amd...again you never indicated you video card.
 
bill001g said:
Unfortunately that is not much help. Seem that event id is something microsoft considers normal.

So this only does it when you launch a game ? If you play say youtube video or run other content it has no issues. When you actually download the games does it give you trouble. This can get tricky because steam will alternate between download and installing and even doing both. I would think as something that can block ping traffic for multiple seconds would cause a very obvious issue in steam.

Maybe try a benchmark software like cinebench. This will max out the cpu. I would leave the ping commands run in the background to see if you get loss while this is running. I don't know of a good free video card benchmark. Maybe try heaven it is older and does not test ray tracing etc but it should test many common things games also use.

Both these are to try to get a idea what is causing the issue or at least get it to fail consistently. Game have massive number of settings so you never really know.

So you did not post details on your machines but I will assume you have a separate video card. Does you cpu have integrated graphics. It will run like crap but if you can run the game without the video card in the machine it would show if maybe it was some issue with nvidia/amd...again you never indicated you video card.
Click to expand...
Sorry this website doesnt notify me i keep forgetting to refresh i appecriate your help so much so far youve done more to attempt to fix this than my ISP have in the last year.

So yeah it only does this when launching Elder Scrolls Online it loses connection for a split second but reconnects only dropping any call im in momentarily. Arena Breakout and Delta Force both completely lock my pc down and disconnect me and can never so much as get to the main menu in those two games. Then theres Black Ops 6 where its kind of in the middle it disconnects me but if i sit and wait for a few minutes it reconnects, then disconnects and finally reconnects again but stays online until i quit the game next. If it doesnt ever reconnect when launching usually restarting and trying again works.

As for my PC
The old build: RTX 2080, i9 9900k, MSI MPG Z390 Gaming Pro Carbon, 32gb Corsair ddr4 memory, EVGA 750W gold Power supply.

The new build: RTX 3080, i7 14700k, ASUS ROG Strix Z790-F, 32gb ddr5 memory, Corsaid 1000W gold Power supply.

I probably cant try the whole cinembench thing tonight as its getting late, but upon checking my CPU doesnt throttle in anyway when launching the game
 
Pretty much I am just grasping at straws here. Need to get some idea what direction to even look. I seriously doubt it is a actual network issue. Something like netflix or steam uses far more bandwidth than a game....other than when you download/install it.
Its not like you are overloading the network or the interface.

The most common guilty party for strange game problems tend to be video related. You have tons of people who post here complaining about poor ping times in games. What is happening is the game is getting stuck in something like video rendering and then when it finally checks for the data it blames the network for the delays even though the data was sitting there all the time waiting to be read. They magically fix it by changing video setting, which makes no sense since the video itself never passes over the network.

Your problem though is much more fundamental. If it was just the game that stalls then it could be the game code but you problem cause other application/processes to also have network issues. This is hard to say if the whole machine is just getting stuck or if it somehow is killing some processes related to networking.

No easy answers I am afraid going to take testing and likely just getting lucky to find it.

..There is no rush to reply. Many people will respond to these threads that might have ideas.
 
bill001g said:
Pretty much I am just grasping at straws here. Need to get some idea what direction to even look. I seriously doubt it is a actual network issue. Something like netflix or steam uses far more bandwidth than a game....other than when you download/install it.
Its not like you are overloading the network or the interface.

The most common guilty party for strange game problems tend to be video related. You have tons of people who post here complaining about poor ping times in games. What is happening is the game is getting stuck in something like video rendering and then when it finally checks for the data it blames the network for the delays even though the data was sitting there all the time waiting to be read. They magically fix it by changing video setting, which makes no sense since the video itself never passes over the network.

Your problem though is much more fundamental. If it was just the game that stalls then it could be the game code but you problem cause other application/processes to also have network issues. This is hard to say if the whole machine is just getting stuck or if it somehow is killing some processes related to networking.

No easy answers I am afraid going to take testing and likely just getting lucky to find it.

..There is no rush to reply. Many people will respond to these threads that might have ideas.
Click to expand...
The only thing that makes me think its a Virgin Media issue is the fact that i have only found 2 other people having this issue right down to the exact same games as im having the issues on. 1 of them was someone experiencing the same exact thing on the ESO forums but i could never get a hold of him and he stated he was on Virgin Media in the post. The other person is someone im in direct contact with on the Virgin Media Forums who's experiencing this on the same 4 games as me. He even downloaded one of them just to test if it would happen and it did. So my theory is VM have some kind of block on these games or something idk, but then why isnt it all VM customers. Our specs are entirely different too
 
ISP would only care about excessive bandwidth. Maybe if you were running torrents 24x7. Games use maybe 1mbps. Watching a single netflix movie likely uses more bandwidth than you use in a whole month of playing a game.

Key thing would be if the ISP was blocking you they would block the game sites they would not randomly block all connection for just a couple seconds.

I am unclear if you do the more simple test. Instead of ping to 8.8.8.8 leave a ping run to your router IP. You should know this but you will see it as the gateway ip when you do ipconfig /all. If you get ping loss to this IP it is inside your house not even going to the ISP.

....................as I wrote this I guess we did not try other things that can cause very strange issue. Go into the nic settings and disable IPv6. IPv6 can follow a different path and we have been testing with IPv4 addresses. This again is a random thing to try that may or may not make any difference.

Although highly unlikely if you really think your ISP is blocking you buy 1 month of service from one of the large VPN providers. Do not use the free ones, some very bad "free" ones were mining bitcoin years ago.

Now the messy thing about a VPN is even if it is not the ISP you are loading a different network client so in might magically fix the problem even if it is not a routing issue in the ISP.
 
@Brettapus

Just for the record, run and post the results of "ipconfig /all".

Most of the information provided is related to the use of the private network IP addressing used by thousands of small networks including my own. My router IP, for example, is the commonly used 192.168.1.1 IP address.

What you do not want to reveal is your public IP address (the IP address provided by your ISP), or any host or network name that could personally identify you.

FYI (recommended reading):

https://www.lifewire.com/what-is-a-public-ip-address-2625974

https://www.lifewire.com/what-is-a-private-ip-address-2625970

Feel free to search for and read other similar links and tutorials.

"ipconfig /all" is a commonly used tool for helping with network troubleshooting.

Especially when combined with other known network devices and configurations.
 
bill001g said:
ISP would only care about excessive bandwidth. Maybe if you were running torrents 24x7. Games use maybe 1mbps. Watching a single netflix movie likely uses more bandwidth than you use in a whole month of playing a game.

Key thing would be if the ISP was blocking you they would block the game sites they would not randomly block all connection for just a couple seconds.

I am unclear if you do the more simple test. Instead of ping to 8.8.8.8 leave a ping run to your router IP. You should know this but you will see it as the gateway ip when you do ipconfig /all. If you get ping loss to this IP it is inside your house not even going to the ISP.

....................as I wrote this I guess we did not try other things that can cause very strange issue. Go into the nic settings and disable IPv6. IPv6 can follow a different path and we have been testing with IPv4 addresses. This again is a random thing to try that may or may not make any difference.

Although highly unlikely if you really think your ISP is blocking you buy 1 month of service from one of the large VPN providers. Do not use the free ones, some very bad "free" ones were mining bitcoin years ago.

Now the messy thing about a VPN is even if it is not the ISP you are loading a different network client so in might magically fix the problem even if it is not a routing issue in the ISP.
Click to expand...
sorry to be such a pain but regarding that IPv6 thing could you tell me how to do that i dont know what im looking for haha ill give it ago tomorrow when i wake up. Thank you for the suggestion
 
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