Question Why am I getting disconnected from Online Multiplayer Games once every few minutes ?

[PetiteSnowman]

I've been having issues with my internet suddenly disconnecting and then reconnecting after a 16-second interval for the last few months after I switched network providers. (Unifi to Digi. I'm in Malaysia) I've been constantly disconnecting from games like Master Duel, Dragon Age Inquisition Multiplayer, and even services like Spotify.

-THINGS TO KNOW

1. I'm using a Wireless Connection.

2. My internet is way faster during the day than at night.

3. I never had this problem before I switched network providers.

4. Ping in games is acceptable.

5. Not using a VPN

6. Modem in another room but its distance is very close. (Literally just a wall between them.)

7. My internet will sometimes disconnect for a few seconds while web browsing or listening to Spotify but the Wi-Fi logo in the bottom right never changes (it never shows the internet disconnected sign when this happens though).

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I've tried ipconfig /flushdns and while I think it made my internet a bit more stable, I've still been disconnecting.

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SPECS -

OS: Microsoft Windows 10 Pro 64 bit

GPU: AMD Radeon RX Vega 3

CPU: AMD Athlon 3000g

MOBO: A320M-A Pro Max

PSU: X-Five 500W Power Supply

Modem: Zyxel EX3300-T0 with a HUAWEI ECHOLIFE HG8240H5 serving as a bridge

Wireless Adapter: TP-Link AC1300 Mini

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RESULTS FROM RUNNING ipconfig/all
Windows IP Configuration

Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : DESKTOP-1BS2OM6
Primary Dns Suffix . . . . . . . :
Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Hybrid
IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
DNS Suffix Search List. . . . . . : home

Ethernet adapter Ethernet:

Media State . . . . . . . . . . . : Media disconnected
Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Realtek PCIe GbE Family Controller
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-D8-61-DE-6A-A0
DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes
Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes

Unknown adapter ProtonVPN TUN:

Media State . . . . . . . . . . . : Media disconnected
Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : ProtonVPN Tunnel
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . :
DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No
Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes

Unknown adapter Local Area Connection:

Media State . . . . . . . . . . . : Media disconnected
Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : TAP-ProtonVPN Windows Adapter V9
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-FF-7F-A3-46-E8
DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes
Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes

Wireless LAN adapter Local Area Connection* 39:

Media State . . . . . . . . . . . : Media disconnected
Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Microsoft Wi-Fi Direct Virtual Adapter #31
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 12-27-F5-85-30-A7
DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes
Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes

Wireless LAN adapter Local Area Connection* 41:

Media State . . . . . . . . . . . : Media disconnected
Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Microsoft Wi-Fi Direct Virtual Adapter #33
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 10-27-F5-85-30-A7
DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes
Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes

Wireless LAN adapter Wi-Fi:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix . : home
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : TP-Link Wireless USB Adapter
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 10-27-F5-85-30-A7
DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes
Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes
IPv4 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.50.46(Preferred)
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
Lease Obtained. . . . . . . . . . : Friday, August 25, 2023 11:57:10 AM
Lease Expires . . . . . . . . . . : Saturday, August 26, 2023 11:58:10 AM
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.50.1
DHCP Server . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.50.1
DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.50.1
NetBIOS over Tcpip. . . . . . . . : Enabled

Wireless Adapter: TP-Link AC1300 Mini Wireless

 

[bill001g]

To start with you are using wifi so this can be expected from time to time and if that wifi adapter is one of those tiny USB things then it is one of the worst possible choices for a desktop machine.
I would try a USB extension cable to get it away from the metal case. It still has very tiny antenna and likely a low power transmitter to save battery power which does not matter in desktop use.

BUT I don't think it is a wifi problem based on the log. Not 100% sure from the log.

What it seem to say is you have a wifi connection between your pc and the router but you do not have internet access.

This makes me think the internet connection itself is going down between your house and the ISP but it could be in the ISP network also.

First I would recommend you try this on ethernet just to be sure it is not a wifi problem. It is extremely common for wifi to have issues and the ISP will always blame it if you tell them you are using wifi.

So some pretty standard tests to locate it.

Run tracert 8.8.8.8

This will likely not show anything real interesting what you are trying to get is the IP addresses of the routers in the path.

Now open a couple CMD windows and leave a constant ping run to 8.8.8.8, your ISP first router which should be the IP in hop 2, and 192.168.50.1 which should be the hop 1 address also and is your router IP.

You will almost never see loss to your router...maybe some on wifi. You should see loss to 8.8.8.8 when the internet goes down.
In some ways if you are lucky you will also see loss to the ISP router. What this means is your router is fine but there is some issue with the connection coming to your house. If you really want to go the extra step....mostly to avoid the idiot ISP trying to blame your router...take your pc and connect it directly to the ONT. You might have to reboot the ONT. Your tracert should now show the first ISP router as hop1. You want to ping that address and 8.8.8.8 The ISP can not blame your pc because it works to ping your router and can not blame your router because it does the same thing without the router in the path.

Now it gets very messy if you get loss to 8.8.8.8 but not the ISP first router...or if they have it rigged to not respond to ping. You can try higher number hops from the tracert but the farther away from your house it gets the more difficult it is to fix. You go to far and it can actually be in another ISP network.

 

[PetiteSnowman]

To start with you are using wifi so this can be expected from time to time and if that wifi adapter is one of those tiny USB things then it is one of the worst possible choices for a desktop machine.
I would try a USB extension cable to get it away from the metal case. It still has very tiny antenna and likely a low power transmitter to save battery power which does not matter in desktop use.

BUT I don't think it is a wifi problem based on the log. Not 100% sure from the log.

What it seem to say is you have a wifi connection between your pc and the router but you do not have internet access.

This makes me think the internet connection itself is going down between your house and the ISP but it could be in the ISP network also.

First I would recommend you try this on ethernet just to be sure it is not a wifi problem. It is extremely common for wifi to have issues and the ISP will always blame it if you tell them you are using wifi.

So some pretty standard tests to locate it.

Run tracert 8.8.8.8

This will likely not show anything real interesting what you are trying to get is the IP addresses of the routers in the path.

Now open a couple CMD windows and leave a constant ping run to 8.8.8.8, your ISP first router which should be the IP in hop 2, and 192.168.50.1 which should be the hop 1 address also and is your router IP.

You will almost never see loss to your router...maybe some on wifi. You should see loss to 8.8.8.8 when the internet goes down.
In some ways if you are lucky you will also see loss to the ISP router. What this means is your router is fine but there is some issue with the connection coming to your house. If you really want to go the extra step....mostly to avoid the idiot ISP trying to blame your router...take your pc and connect it directly to the ONT. You might have to reboot the ONT. Your tracert should now show the first ISP router as hop1. You want to ping that address and 8.8.8.8 The ISP can not blame your pc because it works to ping your router and can not blame your router because it does the same thing without the router in the path.

Now it gets very messy if you get loss to 8.8.8.8 but not the ISP first router...or if they have it rigged to not respond to ping. You can try higher number hops from the tracert but the farther away from your house it gets the more difficult it is to fix. You go to far and it can actually be in another ISP network.

This is what I got after running it for 2 times. They both seemed to stop at the 13th one and then immediately close.

 

[hedwar2011]

From those logs, your connection is dying somewhere between you and your ISP. If I had to guess it happens right after it hits the IP showing 115.164.8.106 as it's the only common point in both.

According to WhoIs that IP is for Digi (Your ISP).

 

[bill001g]

This is what I got after running it for 2 times. They both seemed to stop at the 13th one and then immediately close.

Maybe a my post was large but tracert means nothing really. It does not test each node long enough to show proper problems. There are other tools that will but you are better off doing it manually so you understand what you are testing.

In this case run try a ping to the hop 2 IP which is 10.84.168.1. We can hope the ISP did not rig it to not respond to ping.

 

[PetiteSnowman]

Maybe a my post was large but tracert means nothing really. It does not test each node long enough to show proper problems. There are other tools that will but you are better off doing it manually so you understand what you are testing.

In this case run try a ping to the hop 2 IP which is 10.84.168.1. We can hope the ISP did not rig it to not respond to ping.

Is this what you meant by pinging to 10.84.168.1? They both cut off after the 3rd reply.

 

[bill001g]

That is extremely strange. You get nothing at all after that.

Normally what you see is those replay messages and then maybe a small delay and a message saying "request timed out".

The first command to try is
ping 10.84.168.1 -t

When you get packet loss it should stop for a couple seconds at most and then give you some kind of message.

Windows does run strange sometimes if you just key the command in directly on "run" line in window. What you want is to choose the option to open a CMD window or just type CMD into the run line so you get the old style black dos screen you can type commands in.

 

[PetiteSnowman]

That is extremely strange. You get nothing at all after that.

Normally what you see is those replay messages and then maybe a small delay and a message saying "request timed out".

The first command to try is
ping 10.84.168.1 -t

When you get packet loss it should stop for a couple seconds at most and then give you some kind of message.

Windows does run strange sometimes if you just key the command in directly on "run" line in window. What you want is to choose the option to open a CMD window or just type CMD into the run line so you get the old style black dos screen you can type commands in.

I tried what you suggested and the ping now doesn't end suddenly but sometimes it does say "request timed out" for a few seconds then returned back to normal.

 

[bill001g]

That is what you are hoping to see in a way. In means you local internet connection is going down.

Now what you want to do is open a second window and run that same ping and in the other window run a ping to 192.168.50.1 which is your router.

What you want to see is at the point of time you are getting timeout to the ISP the connection to your router is fine.

You want to save those 2 ping test and show them to your ISP and hopefully they can fix it. Their equipment should show the connection going down in their logs also.

 

[PetiteSnowman]

That is what you are hoping to see in a way. In means you local internet connection is going down.

Now what you want to do is open a second window and run that same ping and in the other window run a ping to 192.168.50.1 which is your router.

What you want to see is at the point of time you are getting timeout to the ISP the connection to your router is fine.

You want to save those 2 ping test and show them to your ISP and hopefully they can fix it. Their equipment should show the connection going down in their logs also.

This is what I got. Strangely, I got disconnected while surfing the Internet 3 times in close succession today. It was a full-on disconnection where the internet just disconnected for a good 30 seconds and I had to reconnect manually.

 

[bill001g]

You now must call the ISP and try to get them to fix it. Even though the person you likely talk to is no better than a script bot you have test results that show it is a ISP problem. You need to lead them down the correct path in their scripts.

Key points to make when you call the ISP.
1. Yes I have rebooted everything before I called you and it still does it.
2. You have packet loss and outages to sites on the internet.
3. You have no loss on the local lan with a ping command to the router.
4. You have loss to the first ISP router at the same time you see no loss to the lan.

What 3 &4 together mean is your pc and the router are fine. They can communicate correctly. The problem happens after it leaves your router.

If the problem happens enough times so the ISP can actually see it they will likely also see packet loss when they use their testing tools from their side. It is really hard when it for example only happens when the ISP techs are not work so their tools will tell them everything is fine because they do not let the tools run say overnight.

This is highly likely some simple wiring issue with the wire coming to the modem. You can look at your the wires in and on your house to see if anything looks damaged or loose. It tends to be issues in some connection in the street someplace. A tiny bit of water or dirt can easily cause this. A tech will have to come out and test.

....a added note. You see the spike to 111ms in your test results. This is because you are testing on wifi. That 111ms spike can cause minor stutter in some games, it does not though cause a disconnect or any issues with non online game applications.

 

[PetiteSnowman]

You now must call the ISP and try to get them to fix it. Even though the person you likely talk to is no better than a script bot you have test results that show it is a ISP problem. You need to lead them down the correct path in their scripts.

Key points to make when you call the ISP.
1. Yes I have rebooted everything before I called you and it still does it.
2. You have packet loss and outages to sites on the internet.
3. You have no loss on the local lan with a ping command to the router.
4. You have loss to the first ISP router at the same time you see no loss to the lan.

What 3 &4 together mean is your pc and the router are fine. They can communicate correctly. The problem happens after it leaves your router.

If the problem happens enough times so the ISP can actually see it they will likely also see packet loss when they use their testing tools from their side. It is really hard when it for example only happens when the ISP techs are not work so their tools will tell them everything is fine because they do not let the tools run say overnight.

This is highly likely some simple wiring issue with the wire coming to the modem. You can look at your the wires in and on your house to see if anything looks damaged or loose. It tends to be issues in some connection in the street someplace. A tiny bit of water or dirt can easily cause this. A tech will have to come out and test.

....a added note. You see the spike to 111ms in your test results. This is because you are testing on wifi. That 111ms spike can cause minor stutter in some games, it does not though cause a disconnect or any issues with non online game applications.

Thanks, I'll try calling the ISP provider tomorrow.

 

[PetiteSnowman]

You now must call the ISP and try to get them to fix it. Even though the person you likely talk to is no better than a script bot you have test results that show it is a ISP problem. You need to lead them down the correct path in their scripts.

Key points to make when you call the ISP.
1. Yes I have rebooted everything before I called you and it still does it.
2. You have packet loss and outages to sites on the internet.
3. You have no loss on the local lan with a ping command to the router.
4. You have loss to the first ISP router at the same time you see no loss to the lan.

What 3 &4 together mean is your pc and the router are fine. They can communicate correctly. The problem happens after it leaves your router.

If the problem happens enough times so the ISP can actually see it they will likely also see packet loss when they use their testing tools from their side. It is really hard when it for example only happens when the ISP techs are not work so their tools will tell them everything is fine because they do not let the tools run say overnight.

This is highly likely some simple wiring issue with the wire coming to the modem. You can look at your the wires in and on your house to see if anything looks damaged or loose. It tends to be issues in some connection in the street someplace. A tiny bit of water or dirt can easily cause this. A tech will have to come out and test.

....a added note. You see the spike to 111ms in your test results. This is because you are testing on wifi. That 111ms spike can cause minor stutter in some games, it does not though cause a disconnect or any issues with non online game applications.

Hi. It's me again. Sorry for the necro but I seem to have misunderstood some things.
1. It seems that it's only a problem with my computer/my wifi adapter. I installed an Internet Connection Monitor on my laptop, which doesn't disconnect when my computer disconnects.
2. I'm unsure if it's an issue with the computer or the Wi-Fi adapter, and I don't have a way to test it without buying a new one.
3. I didn't run a ping to 8.8.8.8 at the same time as the ping to 10.84.168.1 or 192.168.50.1. Here's what happens when it goes down.
Imgur Link

 

[bill001g]

It depends what a internet connection monitor program actually does and how much active testing it does. It might not see short outages. Your ping tests show a outage of only a couple seconds so your laptop would have to be somehow actively testing.
You might want to leave ping run on the laptop also. If you see no issue on the laptop with a ping then it is more likely not a actual network issue. If both machines see loss to the 192.168.50.1 IP then you start to suspect a router failure.

You are now in the messy problem of using wifi. Wifi chips lock up all the diagnostic information seems they worry too much about hackers than their crappy firmware and hardware.

Your problem is it only fails for a short time so you have little chance to issue commands during the time it is down. Maybe your router has a log. What you are trying to determine is does the wifi session drop or does the wifi stay connected but you just can't pass data. This is mostly to determine if maybe it is some software issue with the pc...dhcp timeout is just one example..or if you have a actual failure in the wifi.

Not sure what to recommend since wifi hides why and even sometime if the connection disconnects and reconnects. The most common reason wifi would disconnect would be there is some interference or you do not have a strong enough signal. You could try seeing if moving the pc might give the antenna better signals. Problem is it can also be a hardware failure of some kind.

You can try the standard get the newer driver for the chipset but on older chipsets it seldom makes any difference. After that you consider blindly replacing the wifi card because you can think of nothing else to do.

I really hate wifi but there is little outcry from the general public because problems like your have very little impact on anything other than online games.

 

[PetiteSnowman]

It depends what a internet connection monitor program actually does and how much active testing it does. It might not see short outages. Your ping tests show a outage of only a couple seconds so your laptop would have to be somehow actively testing.
You might want to leave ping run on the laptop also. If you see no issue on the laptop with a ping then it is more likely not a actual network issue. If both machines see loss to the 192.168.50.1 IP then you start to suspect a router failure.

You are now in the messy problem of using wifi. Wifi chips lock up all the diagnostic information seems they worry too much about hackers than their crappy firmware and hardware.

Your problem is it only fails for a short time so you have little chance to issue commands during the time it is down. Maybe your router has a log. What you are trying to determine is does the wifi session drop or does the wifi stay connected but you just can't pass data. This is mostly to determine if maybe it is some software issue with the pc...dhcp timeout is just one example..or if you have a actual failure in the wifi.

Not sure what to recommend since wifi hides why and even sometime if the connection disconnects and reconnects. The most common reason wifi would disconnect would be there is some interference or you do not have a strong enough signal. You could try seeing if moving the pc might give the antenna better signals. Problem is it can also be a hardware failure of some kind.

You can try the standard get the newer driver for the chipset but on older chipsets it seldom makes any difference. After that you consider blindly replacing the wifi card because you can think of nothing else to do.

I really hate wifi but there is little outcry from the general public because problems like your have very little impact on anything other than online games.

My laptop and computer are using the same Internet Connection Monitor program and only my computer gets disconnected. I don't think I can change the drivers cause it might cause my computer to crash with the DPC Watchdog Violation whenever I try to connect to my current Wi-Fi network and I think I am on the newest drivers from the Microsoft update catalog. I might have to try using Ethernet again. My PC is placed under my table so that might make it a little better.

 

[PetiteSnowman]

Btw, this is my modem setup. The 2.4g and 5g lights on the Zyxel, and the LAN2 and TEL1 lights on the Huawei are always blinking for some reason.

 

[bill001g]

Most devices the light blink can just mean there is traffic on some device. Hard to say to much variation between devices on what lights mean. Not likely a issue since a problem with the router or modem would affect both your machines not just one.

 

[PetiteSnowman]

Most devices the light blink can just mean there is traffic on some device. Hard to say to much variation between devices on what lights mean. Not likely a issue since a problem with the router or modem would affect both your machines not just one.

I think it actually does affect both machines but only my computer gets disconnected. My laptop latency just spikes to about 300ms but doesn't actually get disconnected. Same with my phone.

 

[PetiteSnowman]

I've upgraded my Wi-Fi adapter to a TP-Link Archer T9UH and it's gotten a little better but my connection still drops while playing MMOs.