Huge Lag Spikes while Gaming

Hello, I have recently been experiencing large amounts of lag while playing both Battlefield 3 and League of Legends. I usually get around 80-100 ping, but around every 5-20 seconds, everything will stop for a while, perhaps 2-5 seconds at a time, and my ping will shoot up to 1500-2000. I haven't really felt anything wrong while simply browsing the internet, but it makes playing either game impossible.

This occurs whether or not I am the only person on the network, and no matter the time of day, even extreme-late-night.

I'm connected wireless-ly to my network, the router is a WRT54G Linksys.

My wireless card is a Realtek RTL8188CE Wirless LAN 812.11n COMBO PCI-E NIC.

I've run a ping -t google.com tests for about 5 minutes:

Ping statistics for 173.194.43.2:
Packets: Sent = 109, Received = 85, Lost = 24 (22% loss)
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 39ms, Maximum = 51ms, Average = 42ms

I've also run a tracert to google.com:

1 6ms 16ms 3ms 192.168.1.1
2 27ms 27ms 27ms 10.6.3.1
3 40ms 28ms 29ms ge-0-3-0-0.PITT2-CORE-RTR1.verizon-gni.net [130.81.8.189]
4 33ms * 50ms as2-0.RES-BB-RTR1.verizon-gni.net [130.81.20.92]
5 36ms 157ms 36ms 0.so-2-0-2.XL3.IAD8.ALTER.NET [152.63.30.17]
6 36ms 33ms 34ms TenGigE0-6-0-0.GW7.IAD8.ALTER.NET [152.63.32.190]
7 70ms 74ms 71ms google-gw.customer.alter.net [152.179.50.106]
8 36ms 36ms 36ms 216.239.46.248
9 43ms 42ms 41ms 209.85.249.10
10 * 48ms 41ms 209.85.252.3
11 41ms 40ms 43ms 72.14.239.252
12 40ms * 41ms 1gal15s29-in-f3.1e100.net [74.125.226.227]

Trace complete.

I've tried resetting the router multiple times, re-installing my wireless adapter, restarting, everything I can think of. Is the router the issue? A different computer that I've tried a ping on only had a 4% loss of packets, which still seems rather significant.

 

Test with Ethernet cable to compare results.
It may be a Wi-Fi issue (overcrowded 2.4GHz band)

 

With the ethernet cable, I only had 5% loss on first test, 12% on second, and 7% on third. They all had about the same min-max-avg ping, except the third which had a max of 504. It's a better rate, but still, I would think that connections should have much closer to 0% loss, especially wired. I can check on another computer soon and post results of that, if needed.

 

How old / decent is your router? Sometimes that's the culprit. Also, sometimes the wiring in your house could cause some issues from your house to the outside connection.

 

Looking at your trace seems to be Verizon is at fault?
Try using a different dns to generate a different routing path or give Verizon a call.

 

12% ON THE SECOND TEST?

I get 1%, 3% second time. That's insane, I would suggest a new router.. unless you know how to replace parts (which I don't suggest doing if you've on bare ground)

 

You seems to have 2 IP classes on your network (192.168.x.x and 10.x.x.x). I just gathered some information on your wifi router and this shouldn't happen on hard reset (factory default). Maybe it's a bug ?

We can see on the trace that there's a route hopping between class A and C adressing oO.

 

Maybe he is behind 2 layers but the packet loss and spikes didn't occur there.
They occurred somewhere between in hop 4,5,10,12 which seem to be already outside of what he could do beside calling.

 

You mentioned you've got a WRT54G Linksys.

I would suggest maybe tapping into it, and by that I mean logging into the mainframe itself and checking out if something has manually or automatically changed it self.

The login screen should look something like this:


You should after the login be at this point:

Spoiler

Check some settings, maybe something went wrong

 

Well, it went away on its own for a bit, which is why I sort of abandoned this thread (sorry!) but its back with a vengeance. But instead of getting massive packet loss on tests, I'm just getting huge ping spikes ever 5-15 packets. And by huge I mean 1500+. This renders any online game completely unplayable, as I rubberband across the map or simply stand around and watch myself die. Nothing changed when it went away, and nothing changed to have made it come back. It seems to be acting with a will of its own, without rhyme or reason. I've checked the channel its on, nothing is interfering or anything. I've gone through the settings, and everything looks alright. Why is it being so terrible?...

 

I have a little bit more info, just really something I noticed during an attempted play session. The lag seems to be all upload-related. For instance, in Battlefield 3, when I start spiking, I'll either rubberband all over the place or just freeze, but everyone else on the map moves/shoots/does everything normally. Does this mean its an upload issue? My logic is that I'm not sending quality data, so I'm rubberbanding all over, but the downloaded data is okay, hence everyone else behaving normally. If this is the case, why is it happening?

 

Have you update the Router's firmware..?