Wired Connection Lag Spikes

[Gam3Pwn3rz]

A couple of days back I started to get incredibly bad lag spikes in my games, bad enough to completely freeze the game I was playing for around 3-5 seconds. I have since tried many fixes such as: unplugging router and modem, changing my DNS, messing with random settings in my router, and ping tests. Sadly, none of the solutions I have found and tried so far have worked. Any help would be appreciated.

Modem: Motorola Surfboard SB6121
Router: Linksys EA3500

 

[jimmyEatWord]

what is your usual ping / latency ? check to see if you have any unwanted programs open and if you're within wifi range , and if someone else is not using the same wifi

 

[Gam3Pwn3rz]

what is your usual ping / latency ? check to see if you have any unwanted programs open and if you're within wifi range , and if someone else is not using the same wifi

My usual ping is 10-30 ms, but it spikes up to 2000 ms when the problem happens. There are 3 other people in my house who use the wifi, but the problem still persists even when they are not using the wifi. My computer is plugged directly into my router for the best connection possible, which I get, besides these random lag spikes.

 

[jimmyEatWord]

could be a software problem with your router you can try a firmware update or a factory reset

 

[Gam3Pwn3rz]

could be a software problem with your router you can try a firmware update or a factory reset

As sad as it is through all the stuff I went through, I think it was the Ethernet cable. I ruled it out due to it being a relatively new cable and not knowing if I had any other cable long enough to reach, but sure enough, my connection seems more stable now. Will get back after further testing to see if it really is fixed.

 

[Gam3Pwn3rz]

could be a software problem with your router you can try a firmware update or a factory reset

It seems like switching the cable helped a little bit, along with me factory resetting my router, but the lag spikes still keep happening.

 

[bill001g]

Do you see the lag spikes if you ping your router. If this is fine then it is not likely a problem with your router or your PC.

You should be able to get into your modem...I think the ip is 192.168.100.1 and it should show you the statistics. What you are looking for is the uncorrected errors number to be increasing. You actually will see numbers but as long as they don't change much your internet connection likely is ok.

After this you can try a tracert to say 8.8.8.8 You want to ping some of the ip in the trace. The most useful is hop 2 which represents the first ISP router in most cases. If you see the lag spikes here your ISP maybe able to fix it. It could be something in their equipment. You would want to show them that if you ping your router you see no problems but when you ping their first router you see issues. This is just to avoid them telling you to reboot your pc/router/modem etc, hopeful the tech knows no ping issue to your router shows your equipment is not the problem.

 

[Gam3Pwn3rz]

Do you see the lag spikes if you ping your router. If this is fine then it is not likely a problem with your router or your PC.

You should be able to get into your modem...I think the ip is 192.168.100.1 and it should show you the statistics. What you are looking for is the uncorrected errors number to be increasing. You actually will see numbers but as long as they don't change much your internet connection likely is ok.

After this you can try a tracert to say 8.8.8.8 You want to ping some of the ip in the trace. The most useful is hop 2 which represents the first ISP router in most cases. If you see the lag spikes here your ISP maybe able to fix it. It could be something in their equipment. You would want to show them that if you ping your router you see no problems but when you ping their first router you see issues. This is just to avoid them telling you to reboot your pc/router/modem etc, hopeful the tech knows no ping issue to your router shows your equipment is not the problem.

I am doing just that! I have a technician coming tomorrow after I saw the lag spikes happening with the ISP router, but not mine. Hopefully they will be able to help.

 

[Gam3Pwn3rz]

Do you see the lag spikes if you ping your router. If this is fine then it is not likely a problem with your router or your PC.

You should be able to get into your modem...I think the ip is 192.168.100.1 and it should show you the statistics. What you are looking for is the uncorrected errors number to be increasing. You actually will see numbers but as long as they don't change much your internet connection likely is ok.

After this you can try a tracert to say 8.8.8.8 You want to ping some of the ip in the trace. The most useful is hop 2 which represents the first ISP router in most cases. If you see the lag spikes here your ISP maybe able to fix it. It could be something in their equipment. You would want to show them that if you ping your router you see no problems but when you ping their first router you see issues. This is just to avoid them telling you to reboot your pc/router/modem etc, hopeful the tech knows no ping issue to your router shows your equipment is not the problem.

Does it mean my router is bad if I get infrequent high pings when pinging it? I am getting very high pings and packet loss when pinging Google and my ISP's router, but I still do get some high ping on my router, just no packet loss.

Edit: My modem says something in its' logs about attempting maintenance ranging and no ranging response.

 

[bill001g]

You will see those messages from time to time in a modem if they happen a lot it is a problem. There are sites that tell the recommended signal levels for cable modem...it varies a bit depending on how many channels etc the ISP uses. You should be able to see if the numbers are in the recommended range. The ISP should also be able to look at the values and know if they are ok but they have much fancier meters to test with also.

Some higher ping to your router here and there are expected but you should not see a lot on a wired connection on wireless it happens all the time.

In general all it mean is the router is too busy to respond to the ping in a timely manner...why exactly is hard to say most routers don't have good diagnostic tools. Most times it is traffic related but you should know if you are using a lot of your internet bandwidth

 

[Gam3Pwn3rz]

Problem was fixed! It turns out a couple of my splitters were really old and the technician fixed them free of charge.