[SOLVED] Serious Issues with Ping Spikes on Single Device

[Riv162]

Hi all,

Since nearly the beginning of quarantine I've been having issues with online internet on only my Personal Computer. In various games on nearby servers I would be recieving ping spikes of nearly 100-200ms more than I should've been getting, this was manageable at the time as we assumed it was a router problem, so we sent for a new one and had it replaced. The issue persisted and I would continually continue to get severe pings spikes, however it would drop down to normal (20-50ms) and would later jump back up to high ping.

I managed to find a temporary solution where I would remove and reinsert the wi-fi adaptor, however the issue would persist on both wifi and ethernet, and therefore was unlikely to be an issue with the adaptor for either the ethernet cable and was instead a problem with the router and internet service provided instead.

I recently moved back out to student accomodation, and to my surprise the ping issue has gotten worse, when both my phone and roommate's devices have completely normal download, upload and ping, mine are worse than they were back home, leading me to believe it's actually a computer error, after trying several youtube tutorials and attempting to install drivers and update windows (which I'm having trouble with due to the very low download speeds), nothing has currently fixed or altered the problem in any noticeable way.

Any advice or help on what to try next would be greatly appreciated.

 

[bill001g]

You really need to test on ethernet. You want to ping the router IP. If it really is your PC you should see the problem in the ping. It would be strange to happen on ethernet. If it does get a USB linux boot image and boot your machine on that and see if you still have ping issues to the router.

If you do not get ping issues to your router the issue is going to be much more complex. You would then try ping to 8.8.8.8.

 

[Riv162]

Hi, I currently don't have access to an ethernet cable, but previous to moving I had both a ethernet cable and the wi-fi adaptor (which was bought because of the issues with the ethernet as the computer doesn't have an internal wifi adaptor), but I can assure you that the issue has been prevalent on both WiFi and Ethernet, which had been connected directly to the router, and through a ethernet extender.

Here are the results from pinging 8.8.8.8 on the wifi, I'll attempt to get an ethernet cable shortly in the very slim chance that there's an issue with the external wifi adaptor.

Pinging 8.8.8.8 with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=136ms TTL=117
Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=224ms TTL=117
Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=225ms TTL=117
Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=114ms TTL=117

Ping statistics for 8.8.8.8:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 114ms, Maximum = 225ms, Average = 174ms

 

[bill001g]

You see large spikes but it still can be the wifi. You want to ping the router IP. If you do ipconfig /all you will see the gateway which should be your router.

Ping to 8.8.8.8 means very little by itself since it just shows you actually do have a problem but it could internet related or many other things outside your control.

You main goal is to try to prove it is or is not your wifi and then see if it is the hardware or the driver/os. This is why you want to boot into linux rather than blindly replacing drivers in windows.

 

[Riv162]

Hi,

Haven't managed to get ahold of a USB stick for booting a version of linux yet but managed to try and ping both 8.8.8.8 and my IP, which yielded similar results to that being on the wifi

Pinging (IP ADDRESS) with 32 bytes of data:
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.

Ping statistics for (IP ADDRESS):
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 0, Lost = 4 (100% loss),

This is currently what I got on both ethernet and wifi, similar to before moving as I outlined earlier, getting a USB may take a while with the current situation, so before then is there anything else I could possibly try other than resetting my install drive to factory settings and reinstalling Windows 10?

Edit: After a few hours like normal the ping will go back to normal, here's another sample from just now when the internet is working perfectly fine as it should be.


Pinging (IP ADDRESS) with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from (IP ADDRESS): bytes=32 time=3ms TTL=64
Reply from (IP ADDRESS): bytes=32 time=4ms TTL=64
Reply from (IP ADDRESS): bytes=32 time=2ms TTL=64
Reply from (IP ADDRESS): bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64

Ping statistics for (IP ADDRESS):
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 1ms, Maximum = 4ms, Average = 2ms

 

[bill001g]

That makes things more of a challenge. Normally if there is some issue with the machine or the cable you get other strange errors not a simple timeout. It almost looks like there is a router problem but it can be other things.

The next step is to look at the ARP table. If you use ARP -a you should see the mac address of your router mapped to the IP of the gateway. If you do arp -d * it will delete all the entries. The entry for your router should immediately reappear but you use a ping to force it.

What you want to do is see if the ARP entry reappears even when the ping fails to work. This would mean you have very basic communication since the only way for your machine to learn the mac address is for the router to tell you. It might be able to send ARP but not ping. This tends to be firewall or other software problem on the PC.

If you do not get the ARP entry repopulated then you start to suspect a device driver BUT since it happens on both wifi and ethernet that is not real likely.

 

[Riv162]

I've done this, and it looks like the ARP entries are reappearing, however it also looks like the ping has been fairly stable for the last hour or so, so this could possibly change later, however I'll assume that this would be the case regardless and that it's a software or firewall issue, would it be possible that some antivirus software would be accidentally causing my internet to throttle? If so what would be the best way to solve that issue?

 

[bill001g]

You have to get lucky and test when it is broken. The key thing is when arp works you have basic communication. It sends out a broadcast ARP saying who has x.x.x.x (the ip of the router). The router sees this message and responds.

If you get these messages it generally means the cables/ports/drivers are likely ok.

It is almost impossible to block ARP with any kind of firewall which is why it is a good test.

If this was only happening in your current location I would suspect a duplicate IP or something but because it has happened in mulitple location it is not likely.

The brute force test is to boot a linux USB image. This does not touch your main windows install. The issue will depends on how intermittent your problem is. It all depends on if linux supports what you are doing. Most web based stuff mostly works, games do not. So you would have to be able to use linux long enough to be really sure the problem was not happening. If linux is good then unfortantly it is something hiding in windows causing it.

 

[Riv162]

Alright, It's been fairly stable since I last posted so I'll wait until tomorrow before I try anything in case I upset the status quo, I'll work on trying to get a USB and a copy of linux for it, hopefully shouldn't take too long, in the meantime I've asked a few others in case they've got any experience with similar problems but I'll be doubtful, I'll also have a look at any firewalls and security apps to make sure they're not causing conflicts or problems where they shouldn't.

If anything changes, assuming the post isn't locked I'll update here,
Thank you for your help so far.