Question Random lag spikes windows 10 (both wired + wireless)

Aug 30, 2022
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I am having lag spikes when gaming with Windows 10 making it impossible to enjoy playing. Every 5-10 seconds the game lags/ruberbands.
I am using an ethernet cable but I have also tested Wifi.
I have tried everything I can think of/find online. I have spent about 10 hours over the past two days trying to resolve this. It is becoming so frustrating. I have spent hours on the phone to my ISP too, they are convinced there is nothing on their end (probably a lie and can't be bothered to diagnose/fix it). I've had multiple line tests done with nothing found and multiple engineers come out to look at the cabinet and my master socket.
My ping seems to be fine when I test it, always at 7-10. Download/upload speeds are always fine too.
I've had constant issues with my ISP for over 3 years now. Drop outs 20+ times a day, the speeds dropping occasionally, high ping etc. so many issues but lag spikes is a new issue I've not seen until a few days ago. My drop outs and high ping have improved a lot since the last engineer came out a few weeks ago and replaced all the internal wiring, but now this new issue has surfaced. It probably is on their end but I honestly don't even know anymore. I have no idea what to do, I am so mentally drained from 3 years of hassle with still no resolution.
I'm going to list everything I have tried to see if anyone else has any other suggestions or anything I have missed. The lag spikes are constant, they have not stopped at all for the past 48 hours. I have also linked some photos.

View: https://imgur.com/a/SLQ487P


I have tried three different CAT6 ethernet cables; the same results every time.
I have tried both wired and wireless. Same results.
VPN on + off. Same results.
Making sure Windows 10 is fully up to date
Uninstalling all VPN software + drivers
Updating network drivers through Windows 10 (I have the most recent drivers)
Checking for corrupted files in CMD (found a few and fixed them)
The following CMD prompts: ipconfig/ release, ipconfig/ flushdns, ipconfig /renew, netsh int ip reset,
netsh winsock reset
Pinging my router (4 data packets sent and received with 0 packet loss)
Pinging google DNS 8.8.8.8 (4 data packets sent and received with 0 packet loss)
Changed wireless channel and frequency on router (when testing wireless)
Turning off windows firewall (just to test)
Turning off my ISP firewall (just to test)
Turning off antivirus software (just to test)
Running multiple virus/malware scans with two different softwares; no viruses/malware found.
Turning UPNP On + Off
Manual port forwarding
Changed the location of the router (when testing wireless)
Router factory reset
Removing every device ever connected to my router and starting from scratch with just my PC
 

Lutfij

Titan
Moderator
Welcome to the forums, newcomer!

Updating network drivers through Windows 10 (I have the most recent drivers)
You manually install any and/or all relevant drivers after sourcing them from manufacturer's support site. The OS often times get's this wrong or messes it up.

Making sure Windows 10 is fully up to date
What version are you on?

my ISP
Who are you working with?

Changed the location of the router
Make and model of your router?
 
Running the default ping which sends 4 or 5 packets will not show much unless you get very lucky.

What you want to do is leave a constant ping run to both your router IP and some ip like 8.8.8.8 in background cmd windows. When you see a problem in the game see if the ping also shows this. You are looking for both packet loss and very large variations in the ping time...like over 100ms difference between packets.

Now of neither of these show anything then it gets messy and can be a number of things. 2 fairly common ones are try to disable IPv6 on your machine and look for any so called "gamer" qos software. Companies like Asus bundle some crap called gamerfirst with some motherboards and it causes all kinds of problems. There are other similar programs that come with other motherboards or even video cards. Anything that talks about giving your game traffic priority you want to uninstall.

It could also be the connection between your ISP and the game company ISP. That tends to be impossible to get fixed but you could test if you can find a server or router at the game company location that will respond to ping. Most actual servers do not because the script kiddies would denial of service attack them with ping commands. Some router before the server might respond though. But again there is little you can do to fix a issue like this.