Ping spikes/unstable connection, roommate having no issues on same network.

[gazman30]

I have an Acer Aspire V3-572G laptop and it has been working just fine for the last almost two years. As soon as I brought it up to my college dorm, my ping when on game servers is spiking from 50 to 200-300 and it is absolutely awful. My roommate is not having any such issues. I have tried both wireless and wired connections and both experience the same results. I took the laptop apart and got rid of all the dust inside and saw no physical damage to the wifi card or the ethernet port. I am hoping that it is not the motherboard that is failing. Any help would be appreciated.

UPDATE: my ping spikes when pinging servers in the cmd window too, not just when gaming. I think it's a hardware issue, because I have the same problem with both wired and wireless connections.

 

[webworkings]

Here are a few things to try and see if they help resolve the issue.

1. Try changing your router/modem Password and check that it/they are working correctly.
2. Check that nothing is running in the background while you are playing, especially any downloads or updates that could be intiated by the computer/programs directly.
3. Also you may want to disable and/or unplug/unscrew your routers/modems antenna (if it has one).
4. How many others are using this specific network at the time? Try using it without anyone else on it and see if things do better.
5. Try doing a ping test and a speed test (there are many places online to run them) and make sure this isn't your ISP.
6. Check your in game settings to make sure there is nothing in there that is adding to or creating the issue.

 

[gazman30]

I tried pinging servers through my cmd window in batches of 50 at a time and my ping spiked significantly about every 5-ish pings. I have the same issue with both wired and wireless connections. My roommate is connected to the same router and has no issues. I have no physical access to said router because I am on the college's internet. Also, while pinging from the cmd window I have no packet loss. If it helps at all, in CS:GO while my ping spikes, my choke% in my netgraph also spikes. Is it a problem with my motherboard or just some faulty drivers?

 

[gazman30]

Here are my pingtests to bing.com https/gyazo.com/00812756d99e60936a7c1931132c8ea8

 

[webworkings]

Yep some serious spikes there for sure. I would try the drivers first. I don't think it is the motherboard. It doesn't seem like the likely cause.

Also, although you said your roommate's computer works fine on the WiFi there, have you guys tested his system to see what the results are?

 

[gazman30]

I ran the same test on his computer pinging the same website, and he actually lost one packet (I didn't lose any surprisingly). However, those massive ping spikes didn't occur at all; however, there was one spike to 37ms from ~12ms (which seems to happen on any computer I ran the same test on today). I ran & installed all the updates for both my OS and firewall today and it didn't change anything. I also ran a malware scan (using malwarebytes) and it didn't return anything. Should I uninstall and reinstall the drivers for my wifi card?

 

[webworkings]

That would have been my next suggestion. The drivers for the WiFi card.

 

[gazman30]

I uninstalled the drivers and plugged the ethernet cable back in and lo and behold everything was back to normal. I'm currently in the process of installing new drivers for the wifi card and if they don't work I can just use my ethernet cable. Thanks for your help!

 

[webworkings]

You are most welcome.