In-Game Ping Spikes

[Cappo619]

Hello,
I play games online a lot, especially Battlefield 2, where my issues occurs. In other games I play like CSS, I have a steady ping depending on where the server is. Since about a month of go to this day, I have been having times where I have a steady ping of 60s...Then the other days (more commonly) I ping 100+. I had a tech come over today to check to see if there was anything wrong, inwhich he "found nothing wrong". I am using a Motorola Surfboard SB1501 Cable Modem with no Router Attached and with Default Windows Firewall.

I have tried everything that I could that may have fixed the issue, which all were unsuccessful. I was wondering, is there a chance that a defective NIC Card could possibly causing this? My NIC Card is built into my MOBO, but I talked with the company where the PC is from (HP) and they said that since I have a free PCI Slot, I could get a PCI NIC Card and it would work.

Can anybody help? Maybe somebody had this issue before and can fix it?

 

[Ethereal_Dragon]

Well, unfortunatly, in your situation, you have cable internet. Your ping times, from what you are saying sound perfectly normal.... 60 - 100+. With cable internet, you have to remember that you are using a SHARED medium. You are SHARING bandwidth with anyone on the same node. If you run speed tests on your internet during 'lag peaks' and then late at night, I can gaurentee you will see 2 different things. My internet is from Comcast. I get about 1.5Meg daytime, and 6 Meg at night.

Also, the ping is directly affected by which servers you play on. The more hardware the data has to travel through, the higher the ping times will be.

I am sorry to say that what you are experiencing sounds perfectly normal.

 

[Law]

It could be many things. The network card is one solution, your Ethernet cable, modem, OS, ISP, game server.

You can switch to a PCI network card for better throughput or if the build-in one is defective.

Change your Ethernet cable, maybe to a shorter one or a brand new one if the cable is old.

Check for spywares on your Windows, disable any firewall/security application temporarily. Just to test the connection out. Check for any application that could be updating in the background, like Windows update or the virus scanner.

Not sure what else you can do with the modem, but with Cable Internet, you need to make sure the modem has it's own coaxial cable coming in, or don't have it split more than once.

Can't do anything to the ISP except buying a faster connection plan

Can't do anything with the game server, choose a closer or one with a lower ping.

 

[Cappo619]

Hey guys, thanks for the quick reply..

The thing is though before this happened a month ago, I was pinging on a bad day 40's...Now On a bad day I ping 400!..

I changed my Ethernet Cable, and I am thinking about getting a new NIC Card. I cannot change my ISP because there are no other for my area, and I am at the highest I can get currently...

I guess it could be anything now..