[SOLVED] Ping Spikes When Pinging Router and Google

[Littledoom]

Hello! And thank you for taking the time to try to help me.

First, I have Suddenlink's 1 gig internet service. I am hard wire connected on two different gaming PC's. Everything was running beautifully since I set up the second PC about a month ago. About a week ago, I started to notice some lag spikes in game and so I began troubleshooting. Firstly, I did a ping test to my router. I consistently get results like this from pinging just my router. Every 10-15 seconds, ping spikes to as high as 300ms, and then goes back to between 1-10ms. Command Prompt log below:

Reply from 192.168.0.1: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.0.1: bytes=32 time=5ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.0.1: bytes=32 time=7ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.0.1: bytes=32 time=3ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.0.1: bytes=32 time=5ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.0.1: bytes=32 time=83ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.0.1: bytes=32 time=3ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.0.1: bytes=32 time=163ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.0.1: bytes=32 time=4ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.0.1: bytes=32 time=40ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.0.1: bytes=32 time=5ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.0.1: bytes=32 time=15ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.0.1: bytes=32 time=5ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.0.1: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.0.1: bytes=32 time=5ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.0.1: bytes=32 time=4ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.0.1: bytes=32 time=7ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.0.1: bytes=32 time=3ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.0.1: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.0.1: bytes=32 time=2ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.0.1: bytes=32 time=3ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.0.1: bytes=32 time=8ms TTL=64

I tried then pinging google, and this was the result:

Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=25ms TTL=118
Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=26ms TTL=118
Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=27ms TTL=118
Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=33ms TTL=118
Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=29ms TTL=118
Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=28ms TTL=118
Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=27ms TTL=118
Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=32ms TTL=118
Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=67ms TTL=118
Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=24ms TTL=118
Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=215ms TTL=118
Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=33ms TTL=118
Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=80ms TTL=118
Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=24ms TTL=118
Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=50ms TTL=118
Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=24ms TTL=118
Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=36ms TTL=118
Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=24ms TTL=118
Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=34ms TTL=118
Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=32ms TTL=118

Very similar. Now, I've tried the same ping tests on the other computer, and have gotten the same results. Two different PC's, two different ethernet cables, same problem. I tried replacing the ethernet cables, same problem. I even swapped out the modem/router combo for a new one, same problem.

Things I have tried:

Pinging from different computers
Pinging over wireless
Pinging over ethernet
Swapping Ethernet Cables
Swapping Modem/Router
Booting into safe mode with networking
Disabling Delivery Optimization Win10
Enabling Preventing OneDrive from doing anything
Restarting Computer
Restarting Router
Factory Resetting Router
Moving router to different location (in case of interference)

The new gaming PC is basically on a fresh copy of windows, so I don't imagine freshly wiping windows will do anything for me, especially when I ran the ping test over wifi on a laptop running Ubuntu.

All testing resulted in the same ping spikes and there has been no break in them. I've tested at all hours of the night and day.

Modem/Router: Arris DG3270

I'm genuinely stumped. If anyone has any ideas, please let me know.

 

[Littledoom]

Also, when I swapped out for the new modem/router, my main PC was the only thing connected to the new modem and it was still having the same ping spikes. So I know it isn't something else on the network bogging down the modem or anything like that.

 

[bill001g]

To keep things simple you only want to ping the router ip until it show no issues.

You need to always test on ethernet spikes in wifi are common.

When you test on ethernet this is pretty simple. It is either the pc sends the ping and the router delays the reply or the router replies quickly but that pc is not taking it out of the buffer when it receives it and blames the delay on the network.

You have pretty much eliminated all sources of the problem though. You have replaced the router and you have replaced/used different pc.

It will not be a cable issue, those normally cause packet loss. A cable has no place to hold data anyway it is data being held in a memory buffer someplace.

I would retest very systematically to make sure there are not other variables being introduced. You want to test with ethernet and only ping the router. You could even try disconnecting the router from the internet just to be sure it is not something extremely strange like someone doing DoS attacks against your router.

 

[Littledoom]

To keep things simple you only want to ping the router ip until it show no issues.

You need to always test on ethernet spikes in wifi are common.

When you test on ethernet this is pretty simple. It is either the pc sends the ping and the router delays the reply or the router replies quickly but that pc is not taking it out of the buffer when it receives it and blames the delay on the network.

You have pretty much eliminated all sources of the problem though. You have replaced the router and you have replaced/used different pc.

It will not be a cable issue, those normally cause packet loss. A cable has no place to hold data anyway it is data being held in a memory buffer someplace.

I would retest very systematically to make sure there are not other variables being introduced. You want to test with ethernet and only ping the router. You could even try disconnecting the router from the internet just to be sure it is not something extremely strange like someone doing DoS attacks against your router.

I disconnected my coax cable from my modem/router. Currently pinging it for several minutes and it peaked at 21ms, but averaged at 4ms. So I believe you're onto something. Any ideas as to why my ping would be spiking while I'm connected to the internet, but be fine when I'm not? Also, I've done ping tests on other machines and its usually 1ms or <1ms constantly. Why does mine fluctuate so much?

 

[bill001g]

The most common cause of strangeness in a machine I have seen lately is idiot "gamer" network drivers. The worst offender is the killer chipset. If you have any of that you need to get it uninstalled.

You could try to boot a USB linux image and see if you set the same ping problems. Ping is pretty simplistic so I doubt it is a hardware issue.

4ms rather than 1ms is likely a reporting issue on ping. The spikes even to 21ms mean the machine is doing something else and is too busy to get the packet. Since other machines are not affected it means it can't be the router. This is strange since it has to be the OS.

 

[Littledoom]

I apologize, by other machines, I mean other computers on other networks. Both PC's that are hardwired have the 4-20ms normal ping. And I'm finding it hard to believe that there is an issue on one computer, when the problem has persisted through multiple. I'll definitely check for those network drivers. But I think that whatever it is, it's either the isp or an outside source causing the router to delay the reply. I'll try a linux image if I don't find a network driver causing the issue.

 

[bill001g]

I would not worry too much about the 21ms. If you only see the larger spikes when it is connected to the internet it could be either some machine you have is download or uploading something or there is some kind of garbage traffic coming in from the internet. Most problems like this are on smaller internet connections say under 50mbps. It tends to be very hard to overload a larger internet connection.

You might see some kind of error messages in the logs. Be aware you will always see some error messages in cable modems but most do not cause a issue you can see.

You might try to reset the router to factory and only set the admin and wifi passwords. Some feature use a lot of CPU especially if you have a fast connection. Using the default settings most routers can easily pass 1gbit of traffic wan/lan without a bottleneck.