Question Repeated Ethernet Disconnects (Year Long, Minus $250)

Jun 25, 2019
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Alright so this is a very long-lasting problem (almost year) and will be a long post, but hopefully, someone smarter than me can help me out, because I am all out of ideas.

So, it all started out with me gaming and receiving random lag spikes in any of the games I played. I would also lag in Discord and the people I was talking with would too. Sadly, I do not remember if there were any changes when this problem started occurring, because it has been so long. My internet setup is pretty strange so I will also have to go into that.

Basically, my setup is in my basement and my router/modem combo is upstairs in a different room. I used a WiFi extender (my specs will be underneath when I'm finished) in order to extend the connection. The extender has an ethernet port on it and connecting the extender to my computer via ethernet actually almost doubled the connection. It was working great until this problem, so naturally, I thought it was an extender issue. After updating the software and factory resetting, the problem still persisted and I was left having to buy a new extender. However, after it didn't work the first time I tried just connecting directly to my router. The connection was worse but playable, and the problem STILL persisted.

Now we get deeper into the issue in itself. Every 7 to 10 minutes I would receive a lag spike whether I was gaming or watching a Twitch stream. I tried so many different troubleshooting attempts it's insane. I will get into those as well now. After seeing that the direct connection to the router via WiFi was still broken I decided I had either a physical network card on my Mobo issue or a driver issue. Of course, I went with the driver issue not wanting to send my motherboard back or get a new one, but nothing. I updated the ethernet drivers and the Wifi drivers and even rolled them back to the last time I could remember them working, same issue. By now, I decided it was a physical motherboard problem and decided to buy a new one. After 250 bucks down the drain, and 1 hour of taking all the crap out of my PC and then back in, I had some confidence that the issue was fixed. But it wasn't. Same problem. So now, 250 dollars down the drain, I sit solemnly at my desk waiting for answers. I know now that it does have to be a router or modem problem, but every other device in my house does not experience this issue, so I am at a loss. Please if anyone could help me I would be so grateful.

After all of this, I saw a program that someone else having a similar issue ran that basically just pings a certain web address constantly. I decided to run it so I could put the graph up here, and maybe that could help anyone trying to help me figure out this issue. I just pinged Google.com and saw the issue immediately present. I really appreciate anyone who helps me and takes the time to read everything I just typed.

Link to Ping image: View: https://imgur.com/a/7RIJ1AB


Specs:
Motherboard: ASUS PRIME Z270-A
Old Motherboard: ASUS ROG STRIX Z270-E
CPU: Intel i7-7700
GPU: NVIDIA GTX 1080
Extender: Netgear AC2200
OS: Windows 10 Pro
Newest Router: Netgear Nighthawk X10
 
Jun 25, 2019
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Yeah, I thought about investing in those. Most likely will end up using them, I will update the thread once I get them and use them. The problem is that the only outlet in the basement is on the other side of the house compared to the router. Would I still be able to use them? Or would they be less efficient?
 
It could be your internet connection unless you tested this and I missed it.

You want to first leave a constant ping command run to your router IP. You should never see any kind of spike here (you will on wifi but you said you where using powerline).

Next you want to run tracert to some ip like 8.8.8.8. This likely will not show anything since your problem is random the goal is to get the ip address of the routers in the path.

Now leave a constant ping run to hop 2. This is the ISP first router and represents the path to your house. Generally you see packet loss and not delays. Delays are a indication of overload. Be very sure no other device in your house is using your internet capacity, this is especially true if you have a smaller internet connection. It can sometime be over selling by the ISP, if you have cable tv type internet you share the connection with your neighbors. This is not as big a issue as it once was.

If you see no problem to hop 2 continue pings to other nodes, the farther away from you house you get though the less likely you are to get the problems resolved.
 
Jun 25, 2019
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I've seen those steps before but was never 100% on how to do them correctly. I will look up a tutorial. I also have gig-speed internet and a ton of devices connected to the network. I tried that ping test in the image above, is that similar? I don't believe it is, I think it's just a ping to Google but maybe they are close.
Thank you!