Unusually High Ping/Slow Internet

[Tomahawn]

Recently my in games such as League of Legends, or Rainbow Six: Siege my overall internet speed has dropped vastly.

In League of Legends my ping sometimes chills at around 100ms ping (Which is my standard), but at seemingly random moments it will jump any where in between 250ms-700ms.
In Rainbow Six: Siege my ping appears (Keep in mind this game might be displaying my ping incorrectly) to be a steady 124 or so, but when I attempt to do even simple tasks such as walking literally nothing registers, I'm even occasionally removed from the match.


I have a D-Link DWA-566 installed in my computer which just passed its 1 year anniversary, it's never had a problem prior to this instance.
The router that's place relatively close by is a Linksys E3000 that's coming to be something around 4 years old now, but when I run a speed test beside the router it displays an almost exact speed of what we should be receiving, so it seems to be accurate.


EDIT: I just ran 3 speed tests to see if my PC was getting the correct speed, 2 of which were done via my phone, the other by my computer.

PC SPEED TEST:
Download: 1.72 Mbps
Upload: 0.94 Mbps
Ping: 37 ms

(From the same spot as where my Wireless adapter sits)
PHONE SPEED TEST:
Download: 3.69 Mbps
Upload: 0.91 Mbps
Ping: 33 ms

(From on top of my router)
PHONE SPEED TEST:
Download: 3.62 Mbps
Upload: 0.94 Mbps
Ping: 32 ms

If need be I can run a speed test from a computer that's hooked up directly to the router (Trust me, I really want to wire my Gaming PC, but it's not really a possibility)
So do the speed tests sort of cut out that it's for a fact my Wireless adapter and that it needs to be replaced? Any help would be appreciated 😀

 

[Solandri]

You are complaining about lag spikes. Speed tests will not help diagnose lag spikes (unless they're both being caused by the same problem). As you've surmised, speed is in Mbps. Lag is in ms ping times. You can have very low speed but good lag (48 kbps but 54 ms ping on a game back in my dialup Internet days). Or you can have high speed but bad lag (HDD being carried to your friend's house in your car can hit several Gbps, but the "ping time" is like 15 minutes).

So testing speeds using an ethernet cable instead of wifi will not help. You need to leave that cable draped across your floor for a few days while you game. See if the lag spikes to 250-700 ms continue to happen even though you're wired. That will tell us definitively if we're dealing with a wifi problem or if it's some other issue.

Off-hand, my main suspect would be the Linksys E3000. I had one of those, and I ended up getting rid of it because it would develop lag problems like yours after the router had been on for several days. They would clear up when I restarted the router. The Linksys firmware did not have a keepalive function which would reboot it for me every night to clear up whatever the problem was (router had to have been on for several days before the problem appeared), and there was no DD-WRT firmware out for it at the time. So I gave it to my parents, who just use it for email, web browsing, and streamed video (buffered). So they don't notice the lag problem like I did in games.

If the lag problem persists even with a wired connection, I would try loading DD-WRT onto the Linksys router. I believe they have a version out for that router now.

 

[Tomahawn]

You are complaining about lag spikes. Speed tests will not help diagnose lag spikes (unless they're both being caused by the same problem). As you've surmised, speed is in Mbps. Lag is in ms ping times. You can have very low speed but good lag (48 kbps but 54 ms ping on a game back in my dialup Internet days). Or you can have high speed but bad lag (HDD being carried to your friend's house in your car can hit several Gbps, but the "ping time" is like 15 minutes).

So testing speeds using an ethernet cable instead of wifi will not help. You need to leave that cable draped across your floor for a few days while you game. See if the lag spikes to 250-700 ms continue to happen even though you're wired. That will tell us definitively if we're dealing with a wifi problem or if it's some other issue.

Off-hand, my main suspect would be the Linksys E3000. I had one of those, and I ended up getting rid of it because it would develop lag problems like yours after the router had been on for several days. They would clear up when I restarted the router. The Linksys firmware did not have a keepalive function which would reboot it for me every night to clear up whatever the problem was (router had to have been on for several days before the problem appeared), and there was no DD-WRT firmware out for it at the time. So I gave it to my parents, who just use it for email, web browsing, and streamed video (buffered). So they don't notice the lag problem like I did in games.

If the lag problem persists even with a wired connection, I would try loading DD-WRT onto the Linksys router. I believe they have a version out for that router now.

My apologies, I was just spitting out every bit of information that I knew in an attempt to make it easier for someone to help me out.
So basically all the way dumbed down as possible:
- Wire the PC to the router
- Test
- Cash Income (See if the problem persists, take actions based on the results)
OR
- Restart my router
- Test
- [strike]See if high ping persists[/strike]
- Literally do this every night and deal with it