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I've been playing Rocket League with my brother recently, who lives in the same house as me and games on a different PC connected to the same router. We both connect wirelessly and are roughly the same distance away from the router.
However, I experience intermittent connection drops and sudden spikes in lag while gaming, while he does not. I have tried multiple games (such as Team Fortress 2) and find I still have the same issue, that every so often my connection while go haywire and I will be stuck with several hundred milliseconds of lag (>600ms and up usually) for a variable amount of time before going back to normal.
Me and my brother have swapped the wireless adapters that we use, and it is still me that gets the issue, indicating that it is not the WiFi adapter that is the issue. Being as we are connected to the same router (and are often playing at the same time, yet it is still only me that gets the lag spikes) I believe that the router is not at fault either.
I am running in Windows 7, and have already turned off the Power Management options in the Control Panel on my Wireless Adapter (an ADD-NWU281).
Is there any chance that the issue I am seeing is a problem with my PC itself rather than the Wireless Adapter or my network? By this I mean to ask are there any processes that would be using up all my PC's available bandwidth without actually using my WiFi? How can I troubleshoot this?
Dr R Dizzle
Posted 2015-08-24T21:21:01.400
Reputation: 121
Is it a laptop or desktop PC? If it's a laptop, does the issue happen when plugged in? – That Brazilian Guy – 2015-08-24T21:35:06.943
@ThatBrazilianGuy It's a desktop PC. Probably worth mentioning that this is a recently new issue - it started shortly after I upgraded to Windows 10, but I went back to 7 since and the issue is still here. That may or may not be a coincidence though. – Dr R Dizzle – 2015-08-24T21:39:15.140
on wireless it could be many reasons. you've swapped wifi adapters but you should actually swap physical locations also (you might be approx the same distance from the router but that doesn't mean you are the same distance from the neighbors router (interference factor #1) or maybe the fridge or something else is in the way--half my deck is a deadspot because of the fridge in the kitchen (interference factor #2). You might try a different channel on the router. It might be as simple as not all laptop antennas are created equal, try turning your laptop on the table 90 degrees. – Tyson – 2015-08-24T21:43:53.657
@Tyson After running
netsh wlan show networks mode=bssidin CMD the only other Wireless network withink range is set to a significantly different channel to the one my router is using, so I don't think it is that. I can't rule out the other issues, but this is a new issue, and the layout of the house hasn't changed. – Dr R Dizzle – 2015-08-24T21:51:32.663Another factor is channel width, 20 vs 40mhz. also unless channels in use are limited to 1,6, or 11 there could be overlap. You really need a tool like inSSIDer on both computers to optimize the signal – Tyson – 2015-08-24T22:00:02.897
How feasible is it to use a wired connection for a few days to see if the issue persists? – That Brazilian Guy – 2015-08-24T22:21:42.157
@ThatBrazilianGuy Completely unfeasible, I simply don't have the room to put my PC downstairs. – Dr R Dizzle – 2015-08-24T22:47:38.527
Process Monitor– ssnobody – 2015-08-25T01:25:46.113Try this: http://superuser.com/questions/783518/new-laptop-with-intel-dual-band-wireless-ac-3160-has-inconsistent-wireless-conn
– qasdfdsaq – 2015-08-25T14:51:28.733@qasdfdsaq I'll try that next time I am on my PC. If you want to post that answer here, I'll upvote it and if your solution works I will accept it. – Dr R Dizzle – 2015-08-25T14:55:02.313
@qasdfdsaq I made the change that you suggested in the link you posted, and I think (although I have't yet confirmed) that it has fixed the issue. – Dr R Dizzle – 2015-08-27T09:04:50.300