Question PC randomly loses internet for 5-10 seconds. Not ISP/mode/router related. Im losing my mind....

[ThirteenEra]

So i have a really weird issue, and its incredibly difficult for me to troubleshoot and/or fix.

Some months ago (6months? ish) i started getting a weird issue where my internet would randomly drop on my pc. Here is how i would know this:

* If i am playing an online game (such as World of Warcraft for example) my abilities would stop being used, and other people see me running on the spot. The weird thing however is that i can still see other players and enemies play normally. So i would see the enemy mobs running around and killing people, i would still see other players kill stuff, mount up, dismount, use abilities etc. Basically its like im receiving data, but not sending it.

* If i am chatting to someone on discord/teamspeak/viber/etc, they stop being able to hear me, but i can still hear them. I can still hear them say stuff like "Hey, why did you stop talking, where did you go?", but they cant hear me.

* If i try to browse online while this is happening, i cant load any webpages. I dont get any errors, it just keeps "Loading" until the issue passes and it all suddenly loads.


It happens randomly - sometimes might not happen at all in a day, sometimes might happen once every 30min. When it does happen, it never lasts for more than 5-10 seconds, and once it's passed its as if nothing was wrong. There are no events or warnings in Windows Event log, there are no ? or ! symbols on notification panel, there's no logs or errors of any kind. For all intents and purposes, my PC thinks nothing was ever wrong.

Steps i've tried to figure this out:

1. Keep a phone nearby connected to my wifi connection (same router. My pc connects via ethernet), with mobile data disabled. When this issue happened i quickly tried to browse some websites on my phone. My phone was working fine, and nothing was wrong. Therefore conclusion is that its not related to my ISP.
2. Connect my PC to my router via WIFI instead of ethernet cable. Still same issues. Therefore not Ethernet related.
3. Connect my PC directly to my modem, skipping router. Still same issues. Therefore not router issue.
4. Disable antivirus, disable firewall, close down all non-essential software. Still same issues. Therefore i guess not related to antivirus.
5. Ran 24 hours of memtest86. 0 errors of any kind. Therefore not RAM related.
6. Ran cinebench, realbench, linx, 3dmark. System is stable.
7. Tried running ping 8.8.8.8 -t (google servers), and logging result into text file. Results are not in any way different when the issue happens
   (it just says Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=12ms TTL=55 or similar, varying by 1-2ms at most. Absolutely no changes when the issue happens).

At this point i was tired as hell of the issue, so i just nuked my entire windows install, formatted drives and did a brand new fresh reinstall, with only barebones stuff. I stayed barebones for 2 weeks ish, and didnt notice any issues. The problem is that because it happens so randomly, and because you can only really notice it if you're either playing online when it happens or trying to load a webpage at precise moment it happens, its very easy to miss it. So after 2 weeks i thought everything was fine, but over time it came back. So now im back where i started. Its even more annoying because some of the games t hat i play having a 5-10 second where you#re not doing anything can either be deadly (WoW raiding) or can get you booted out of the game (WC3 - if it "lags" while im playing it just kicks me out). So im quite desperate to find a solution. Which is difficult because i dont know whats causing it. Hell, i dont even know if its hardware or software related.

So yeah... any thoughts? any ideas? Any suggestions? Any advice at all?


Thanks!

(Edit: my pc: Win10 Pro 64bit, i9-9900k, 64GB ram, 2x 970Pro NVME (one for system, one for other stuff) + WD HDD, Gygabite 2080ti x2, MEG z390 Godlike motherboard)

 

[Colif]

Since it ran fine bare bones for 2 weeks, it could be a startup program.

Try a clean boot and see if it changes anything - make sure to read instructions and make sure NOT to disable any microsoft services or windows won't load right - https://support.microsoft.com/en-au/help/929135/how-to-perform-a-clean-boot-in-windows

if clean boot fixes it, it shows its likely a startup program. You should, over a number of weeks. restart the programs you stopped to isolate the one that is to blame.

 

[ThirteenEra]

Since it ran fine bare bones for 2 weeks, it could be a startup program.

Thing is, im not sure if it did. As i say in my post, its very hard to spot this unless you happen to be either playing an online game or swapping a website at precise moment it happens. While it seemed like nothing happened for 2 weeks, im open to the fact that it was still happening, i just didnt notice it.

if clean boot fixes it, it shows its likely a startup program. You should, over a number of weeks. restart the programs you stopped to isolate the one that is to blame.

Its worth a shot. I mean, everything is worth a shot at this point. Ill give it a try. Any more ideas?

 

[Colif]

Newer versions of WIFI drivers - https://support.killernetworking.com/download/killer-drivers-installation-64bit/

Can you try ethernet?

you already tried 1 way - https://whoisonmywifi.com/more-info/additional-info/monitoring-a-wireless-network/ (who would have guessed they trying to sell you something).

 

[ThirteenEra]

My computer is always connected via ethernet as I explained in my original post. I only tried using WiFi as a way to troubleshoot whether ethernet was the culprit (the issue persists regardless of whether ethernet or WiFi is used, so no, ethernet wasn't the cause). This is also not any kind of WiFi connectivity issue. I have tried connecting directly to modem with cable and WiFi turned off completely, and nothing changed.

 

[Colif]

okay, sorry. I must have missed it.

 

[ThirteenEra]

No worries, just trying to make sure we investigate the correct things

 

[GrandSACHI]

The usual suspect here would be an antivirus or firewall behaving weirdly. Do you happen to have a 3rd party security suits installed per chance?

 

[ThirteenEra]

disabling antivirus was among the things I've tried first - as I also said in original post

 

[orko1978]

Try the free trial of Ping Plotter, it will map and identify what is happening with the network traffic.

 

[GrandSACHI]

You do not happen to use some software to block Windows telemetry either, right? I just find it puzzling that based on your description, only outbound communications are affected and not inbound com…