Lag spikes from connection, help!

WiL11o6

Limp Gawd
Joined
Feb 20, 2007
Messages
478
I have Comcast cable and prior to a couple days ago, it has always been smooth @ 36mbps download and 5mbps upload. I have a Netgear WNDR3700 and Motorola 6121 connected to my PC via Ethernet cable. Up until a couple days ago, I've been getting lag spikes where my games would completely freeze for a good 2-3 seconds and resume, as if the entire connection dropped and reconnected. I did a speedtest and I was getting around 4mbps download and 1-2mbps upload with huge fluctuation in speed.

I called Comcast and they said they were seeing a "red" signal error from their end so they sent out a tech to my house. He came over, changed some cables outside because they were corroded and that's about all he did. I tested my connection while he was still there and I was again getting 36mbps download and 5mbps upload so I sent him on his way saying thank you. It was a quick 1-2 test so everything seemed normal until I started to see lag in games again.

I am getting the same lag spikes, albeit it's not as bad as before but it's still pretty annoying. Using speedtests, I am still getting 36mbps download but the graphs show that there are inconsistencies where there would be sudden drops in speed and picks back up still to show 36mbps. These drops are what I assume are the lag spikes. The upload is also suffering now, dropping down to 2-3mbps and it takes the test about 20-30seconds to load the upload portion of the test. Even loading web pages, sometimes it locks up for a few seconds longer than it should, which is normally instantaneous.

I have tried connecting my PC directly to the modem to bypass the router and am still getting the same lag, probably a little LESS but still the lag is there. My router is has always been updated to the latest firmware. Speed is not an issue as I can still download fast, it's just the sudden drops in speed that causes lagginess which is annoying.

Ideas?
 
does it happen all the time, or just particular time of day?
What OS?
If Win7 (Vista may have it too?) use the pathping command line tool and hit, say, google.com.
So from a cmd prompt, pathping google.com

This will help determine where the latency increase starts.
 
It happens pretty much all the time, but particularly more noticeable while in game because it would stutter or freeze for 1-2 seconds.

I just ran the pathping, but I have no idea what I'm reading and what I am expected to get.
 
I had something like this happen and it turned out to be the wiring in my apartment was bad. Is your cable modem connected via a splitter or anything like that when it comes into the house? Those things can go bad too. I had Comcast come out and they ran a piece of coax directly from where it came into the house to the modem and everything was fine. So it was something between that and the modem.
 
I just ran the pathping, but I have no idea what I'm reading and what I am expected to get.

Would you paste the results here?
We can help.

Basically pathping is just upgraded versions of tracert (trace route) and ping that provides a little bit more info.
 
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