Strange random lag spikes every 5-10 minutes

Moffinz

Reputable
Oct 29, 2014
62
1
4,640
My PC specs are as following:
Summary
Operating System
Windows 10 Home 64-bit
CPU
Intel Core i7 4770K @ 3.50GHz 44 °C
Haswell 22nm Technology
RAM
16.0GB Dual-Channel DDR3 @ 666MHz (9-9-9-24)
Motherboard
MSI Z97 GAMING 5 (MS-7917) (SOCKET 0) 39 °C
Graphics
ROG PG348Q (3440x1440@100Hz)
VG248 (1920x1080@144Hz)
4095MB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 (ASUStek Computer Inc) 51 °C
Storage
232GB Samsung SSD 840 EVO 250GB (SSD) 41 °C
279GB Western Digital WDC WD3000HLFS-01G6U1 (SATA) 35 °C
931GB Western Digital WDC WD10EARS-00Y5B1 (SATA) 35 °C
1863GB Seagate ST2000DX001-1NS164 (SATA) 33 °C
1863GB TOSHIBA External USB 3.0 USB Device (USB (SATA)) 33 °C
Optical Drives
ASUS BW-16D1HT
Audio
Sound Blaster Z
Operating System
Windows 10 Home 64-bit
Computer type: Desktop
Installation Date: 08/05/2017 14:46:30
Serial Number: T49TD-6VFBW-VV7HY-B2PXY-MY47H
Windows Security Center
User Account Control (UAC) Enabled
Notify level 2 - Default
Windows Update
AutoUpdate Download Automatically and Install at Set Scheduled time
Schedule Frequency Every Day
Schedule Time
Windows Defender
Windows Defender Disabled
Firewall
Firewall Enabled
Display Name Bitdefender Firewall
Antivirus
Windows Defender
Antivirus Disabled
Virus Signature Database Up to date
Malwarebytes
Antivirus Enabled
Virus Signature Database Up to date
Bitdefender Antivirus
Antivirus Enabled
Virus Signature Database Up to date
.NET Frameworks installed
v4.6 Full
v4.6 Client
v3.5 SP1
v3.0 SP2
v2.0 SP2
Internet Explorer
Version 11.1198.14393.0
PowerShell
Version 5.1.14393.0
Java
Java Runtime Environment
Path C:\Program Files (x86)\Java\jre1.8.0_131\bin\java.exe
Version 8.0
Update 131
Build 11
Java Runtime Environment
Path C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.8.0_131\bin\java.exe
Version 8.0
Update 131
Build 11
Java Runtime Environment
Path C:\Program Files\Java\jre1.8.0_131\bin\java.exe
Version 8.0
Update 131
Build 11
Environment Variables
USERPROFILE C:\Users\Erlend
SystemRoot C:\WINDOWS
User Variables
OneDrive C:\Users\Erlend\OneDrive
Path C:\Users\Erlend\AppData\Local\Microsoft\WindowsApps
C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft VS Code\bin
TEMP C:\Users\Erlend\AppData\Local\Temp
TMP C:\Users\Erlend\AppData\Local\Temp
Machine Variables
asl.log Destination=file
ComSpec C:\WINDOWS\system32\cmd.exe
NUMBER_OF_PROCESSORS 8
OS Windows_NT
Path C:\ProgramData\Oracle\Java\javapath
C:\Program Files (x86)\Razer Chroma SDK\bin
C:\Program Files\Razer Chroma SDK\bin
C:\WINDOWS\system32
C:\WINDOWS
C:\WINDOWS\System32\Wbem
C:\WINDOWS\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\
C:\WINDOWS\system32\config\systemprofile\AppData\Local\Microsoft\WindowsApps
C:\Program Files (x86)\NVIDIA Corporation\PhysX\Common
C:\Program Files (x86)\Skype\Phone\
PATHEXT .COM;.EXE;.BAT;.CMD;.VBS;.VBE;.JS;.JSE;.WSF;.WSH;.MSC
PROCESSOR_ARCHITECTURE AMD64
PROCESSOR_IDENTIFIER Intel64 Family 6 Model 60 Stepping 3, GenuineIntel
PROCESSOR_LEVEL 6
PROCESSOR_REVISION 3c03
PSModulePath %ProgramFiles%\WindowsPowerShell\Modules
C:\WINDOWS\system32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\Modules
TEMP C:\WINDOWS\TEMP
TMP C:\WINDOWS\TEMP
USERNAME SYSTEM
I have a Zhone zNID 2400 Series router.

So the issue I have occured after I reinstall Windows 10 on my PC. Basically, I'm experiencing strange lag spikes that last for 0.5-1 seconds every 5-10 minutes when I'm playing games (it may occure in different places aswell, but online games is where I notice it). This was not an issue before the reinstall, and all my other devices does not have this problem.

I run through an wired connection, and I have a Killer E2200 ethernet adapter, which is built into my motherboard. I have the latest driver for this adapter, and I have tried older versions. I'm not sure if it's my computer that is lagging causing the game client to rubberband trying to catch up to where it's supposed to be, but this is getting quite frustrating. I've tried calling my internet provider and they say that they can't see anything wrong with the connecting, nor any drops in performance over the 2 last days, so I'm suspecting that it is my PC that is the culprit.

Is there any way to identify what's causing this issue? I have a 100/100 fiber connection, so my ping is all good. I can't even see my ping jumping up when the lag comes in, in game.

I've tried pinging a website through CMD to see if there is any sort of connection losses, but the log shows nothing. I ran it for like 2-3 hours, and nothing came up.

Any help is appriciated, thank you :)

EDIT: Thought I'd just put it in here: When these lag spikes occur, I never get disconnected. It's just some rubberbanding and then it's back to normal, until it happens again.

EDIT: I did a test with Net Uptime Monitor and Rocket League. When the lag spike occured all three Net Uptime Monitor servers (Google, Level 3 and OpenDNS) jumped up to >200 ms, and it started to log it as a fail. The "fail" alert was only there for about 1 second before it disappeared. I checked the failure log in NUM, but all it said was this:
Net Uptime Monitor Failure Log (NetUptimeMonitor.com)
UNLICENSED TRIAL VERSION

=======================================
13/05/2017 18:55:05 Log Start
---------------------------------------
Failure Start Length

Also, the fails only seem to happen when I'm playing games.
 
Solution
It really depends if your really have a network issue or not. Some things say they are network issues but can be things like disk or video card issues as you have been investigating.

Leave a continuous ping run to something like 8.8.8.8 in a background cmd window. Normally ping is not affected by your machine a lot.

Killer nics have all kinds of strange issues. First try to disable any of the so called game accelerator stuff but you can only really partially disable it. To really get rid of it you need a special set of drivers from the killer site that have all the killer features removed. It is mostly marketing hype so you will lose nothing to not have the features.

Then again it might not be network related anyway games...
Make sure you don't have a pagefile on any of your HDDs. If you do and the drive spins down or parks its heads, and Windows tries to access the pagefile (it does this even when you have plenty of free RAM), Windows will freeze until the HDD unparks or spins up and responds to the pagefile access request.
 

Moffinz

Reputable
Oct 29, 2014
62
1
4,640


Hello and cheers for the reply! How do I see if I have any pagefiles on my HDDs?

EDIT: I did a quick search for "pagefile.sys" through Search Everything, and the only one that is there is on my primary SSD. That wouldn't affect games that are installed on my two other drives right?
 

Moffinz

Reputable
Oct 29, 2014
62
1
4,640
So uh, a small update. This issue seems to only happen when I use my D disk. I'm saying this because all of my online games that is on the D disk do get the lag, but World of Warcraft which is on my SSD (C disk) does not lag at all. I don't want to delete the pagefile.sys on my SSD since it's saying that it could cause instability, whenever I look it up. I've done malware searches and full system virus scans, but both found nothing. So the issue still stands as before. I even talked to my ISP again, but they gave me the same answer as before. No errors whatsoever, all signals are good, and everything is fine from their end.
 
It really depends if your really have a network issue or not. Some things say they are network issues but can be things like disk or video card issues as you have been investigating.

Leave a continuous ping run to something like 8.8.8.8 in a background cmd window. Normally ping is not affected by your machine a lot.

Killer nics have all kinds of strange issues. First try to disable any of the so called game accelerator stuff but you can only really partially disable it. To really get rid of it you need a special set of drivers from the killer site that have all the killer features removed. It is mostly marketing hype so you will lose nothing to not have the features.

Then again it might not be network related anyway games are very resource intensive. You should be able to see if you have memory or cpu problems with the resource monitor.
 
Solution

Moffinz

Reputable
Oct 29, 2014
62
1
4,640


Thanks for the reply. I have been keeping an eye on CPU/RAM usage while gaming, and everything is fine. I shall give the driver-only version of the killer software a go and see if that helps.
 

Moffinz

Reputable
Oct 29, 2014
62
1
4,640
The issue has been fixed. Installing the driver only worked for me. Seems that extra software just ruined the connection. It's weird since I've used it before without problems. Anyway, thanks for your help!
 
  • Like
Reactions: Loryn2k
Apr 5, 2020
1
0
10
The issue has been fixed. Installing the driver only worked for me. Seems that extra software just ruined the connection. It's weird since I've used it before without problems. Anyway, thanks for your help!
Hello , please can u Tell me What to so!?
I have the dame problem