Laptop freezes/lags in the office but works perfectly fine at home.

[Krish25]

I have an old Asus x43sj laptop. I only use my laptop to do general stuff and play league of legends. I use my laptop at 2 places, at home and in my office. When i'm at home LoL works perfectly fine but when i'm in my office i get low fps and then randomly it would freeze completely and come back after few seconds. The weird thing is that when the game freezes completely the mouse still works. If i try to minimize the game while its frozen then nothing happens and it lags badly.Basically, whenever my laptop gets a lot to do when i'm in my office it starts running slow. I don't understand what is causing my laptop to run slowly when i'm in my office. The only difference i can think of is a different internet connection and that i plug in my charger in a different power plug. I'm hoping someone can help me find out what the problem is and hopefully help me fix it.

Thanks for reading.

 

[royalcrown]

it's likely your internet. Even if it's not being used heavily, there could be a lot of connections open at once. This would cause your game to have to wait for the incoming data it needs to update what is going on in the game.

 

[spdragoo]

Is LoL the only thing that lags, or do other apps also lag? If they are, then there's a good chance that the power outlet you're using at work has some issues, as it's causing your laptop to flip between regular & lower-power modes.

If it's just LoL, then it's probably the Internet connection at work. You could try running a speed/QoS test both at work and at home to see if there are any particular issues.

 

[Boogieman_WD]

Hey Krish. If you have a lot of demanding programs running while you play LOL your laptop might not be up to the task if it has low specs. Also this could be due to a faulty drive as well, although it is strange that this happens only when you use your laptop in the office. I'd suggest that you download the HDD manufacturer's diagnostic tool and run the tests so that you see if there are any errors or bad sectors.

Edit: Usually a game can freeze because of a bad internet connection, but that wouldn't make your computer so unresponsive that you wouldn't be able alt+tab (minimize) the game at this time.

Hope that helps.
Boogieman_WD

 

[Krish25]

it's likely your internet. Even if it's not being used heavily, there could be a lot of connections open at once. This would cause your game to have to wait for the incoming data it needs to update what is going on in the game.

Hi, Nobody else uses my internet in the office

 

[Krish25]

Is LoL the only thing that lags, or do other apps also lag? If they are, then there's a good chance that the power outlet you're using at work has some issues, as it's causing your laptop to flip between regular & lower-power modes.



If it's just LoL, then it's probably the Internet connection at work. You could try running a speed/QoS test both at work and at home to see if there are any particular issues.

Hi,

I close all the apps like skype etc before i start gaming. Even i was thinking about the power outlet, not very long ago i started noticing my laptop charger adapter getting very hot in the office, I'm not sure if it has something to do with this. Though it has stopped doing that now. Also, my laptop batteries are dead so i'm on plugged in mode whenever i play (high performance all the time).

About the internet speed test, Its pretty weird because my speed is fine but ping (ms) sometimes it shows very low values like 2-5 and then sometimes it goes as high as 70-80. Once i checked my ping and it was 4 ms so i started LoL and once the game was on, i checked it again and it went to 60 ms. I don't know if its normal or LoL causes this, its really confusing to me.

 

[Krish25]

Hey Krish. If you have a lot of demanding programs running while you play LOL your laptop might not be up to the task if it has low specs. Also this could be due to a faulty drive as well, although it is strange that this happens only when you use your laptop in the office. I'd suggest that you download the HDD manufacturer's diagnostic tool and run the tests so that you see if there are any errors or bad sectors.

Edit: Usually a game can freeze because of a bad internet connection, but that wouldn't make your computer so unresponsive that you wouldn't be able alt+tab (minimize) the game at this time.

Hope that helps.
Boogieman_WD

Hi Boogie, I don't have any applications running when i play. About the HDD, I think its ok because it runs fine at home. But i will try download the manufacturer's tool and give it a try and yes, when LoL starts lagging, everything starts lagging and freezing up even outside the game.

[edit] I have Hitachi HTS547550A9E384, Can you provide me with a link to the manufacturers diagnostic tool is possible. Thanks.

 

[Delfinos]

Hi there.

Must say I agree with royalcrown on this.
The only thing that's changed from home to office is your internet connection.
Especially if you use a wireless network, in that case you might try a cable and see if that works.

Testing your ping will only show so much,
it might not be the connection itself but stuff like a bad cable or switch.
It could even be a nutty IT guy that pulled unshielded cables past a noise source like an air-condition unit or along a power cable.

The later happens more often than you'd think and a pain in the preverbal backside to find.

 

[Boogieman_WD]

Hi Boogie, I don't have any applications running when i play. About the HDD, I think its ok because it runs fine at home. But i will try download the manufacturer's tool and give it a try and yes, when LoL starts lagging, everything starts lagging and freezing up even outside the game.

[edit] I have Hitachi HTS547550A9E384, Can you provide me with a link to the manufacturers diagnostic tool is possible. Thanks.

Well it probably is OK, but it wouldn't hurt to check it. If the problem occurs only when you are in the office, then @Delfinos and @royalcrown might be right.
As for the diagnostic tool, I can't give you direct link, but you should be able to find it in the manufacturer's official site, in the support and downloads sections... or you could use a 3rd party diagnostic tool as well.

 

[Krish25]

Is LoL the only thing that lags, or do other apps also lag? If they are, then there's a good chance that the power outlet you're using at work has some issues, as it's causing your laptop to flip between regular & lower-power modes.

If it's just LoL, then it's probably the Internet connection at work. You could try running a speed/QoS test both at work and at home to see if there are any particular issues.

Hi there.

Must say I agree with royalcrown on this.
The only thing that's changed from home to office is your internet connection.
Especially if you use a wireless network, in that case you might try a cable and see if that works.

Testing your ping will only show so much,
it might not be the connection itself but stuff like a bad cable or switch.
It could even be a nutty IT guy that pulled unshielded cables past a noise source like an air-condition unit or along a power cable.

The later happens more often than you'd think and a pain in the preverbal backside to find.

So, today i noticed something strange, for a change i had my sound off and i was getting bored so i started playing LoL. I noticed that whenever the game froze completely i could hear my laptop fan spinning fast and then when the game came back the spinning sound would reduce and this kept going on. It din't get very hot, I checked the temp. using "core temp". I've had problems with the laptop getting heated up (with my previous fan) so i know how it lags when its hot, this lag is just something else. Its laggy, then smooth, then laggy, smooth, freezy..laggy..smooth. I hope you get the picture.

Maybe its the power outlet then?

p.s - my laptop is super quiet, there are no noises and my laptop fan got changed last month itself (this freezing problem existed before i got this new fan, so the new fan is not the problem that i know)

 

[royalcrown]

I have a theory on this. Look at input prediction and lag compensation.

https/developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Source_Multiplayer_Networking

I think for whatever reason there is a lot more lag or lost packets when you play from work. This could be due to a ton of reasons, especially if you are wireless. So if the game is expecting info that it's not getting in a timely manner, it has to "catch up". The game can't just ignore what happened during the lag. Stuff like champions getting killed by turrets and such HAVE to be acknowledged and their effect on the game (yours and everyone else's) has to be played out.

So I think your laptop finally gets the info it's waiting for and says, "I need to catch up", It's also supposed to be doing the stuff that's going on currently as well. Since this is a competition type game, I bet the CPU then goes full power to try and catch up as quickly as possible. The fan would then kick in because the CPU is maxed out, it's also probably not telling your GPU what to be drawing while it's figuring out where everybody is and what they did because it's looking at the late data and updating the game on you positions first. This would mean that the fan kicks in and it "freezes" when it has really bad lag. When it catches up, it can lower the CPU usage and your fan drops down. It's not running hot then because the fan is doing a better job than the old one.

Your computer can probably play it fine at home because of better service between you and riot's servers.I don't know what you can do unless you are the boss or good buddies with the IT guy at the office. Also since it is an "older laptop" it may be more sensitive to lag that something like the newest desktop (it can "catch up" faster, so any lag or freezing is shorter or not noticeable).

 

[Delfinos]

Well in a laptop I would imagine it would be able to compensate for bad power outlets, unless its so bad stuff turn off from it.
But I'm not that experienced in that part of bug searching.
Anyway one way to check if its the outlet at Work is to simply unplug the supply and see if LoL will run.
Of course the lack of power can reduce the laptops work capacity too much but worth a try.

I don't know the requirement for internet on LoL.
But if you have access to a phone or usb dongle with 4G or even 3G internet you might be able to confirm or reject that its the internet.