Cause of Packet Loss ?
Cause of Packet Loss ?
Hello,
last week I purchased a new PC but have been facing significant packet loss lasting about one second in most multiplayer games (PUBG, CS 2, Warcraft 3). This typically occurs every 15 to 20 minutes. I’ve checked the Ethernet cable and router issues, as my previous setup worked perfectly and the second PC connected also functions well. All drivers are up to date.
My PC specifications: 9950x3d, RTX 5090, 1200w Asus PSU, Corsair 64 GB RAM, Asus ROG Strix B850-E gaming Wi-Fi, 2 TB M.2 NVMe.
https://imgur.com/a/BZi38iF
Are you sure the BIOS is current for your motherboard?
Have you connected the PC via Wi-Fi before?
Is the firewall configured as private instead of public?
Are the firewall and LAN drivers up to date?
Did you use a different Ethernet cable?
You shouldn't dismiss the cable just because your previous PC functioned. Every Ethernet adapter varies. I'd begin with a brand new, factory-made, round cable made of 100% copper, either Cat5e or Cat6a.
You're using a Realtek multi-gig Ethernet adapter. The exact model isn't specified, but the RTL8126 (5Gbit) is likely your LAN adapter. You can find a driver from May on their website: https://www.realtek.com/Download/List?cate_id=584.
I recommend testing that one first.
Asus tends to install unnecessary bloatware through their drivers. I haven’t checked in a while, but I think they might have added a kind of gaming network software. It used to be a version of CFOSSPEED. Remove any programs that promise to prioritize specific traffic or offer QoS features. To confirm if a cable is the problem, run a basic constant ping to the router’s IP in the background. If your game has issues, you can check Windows for problems. You might also try pinging 8.8.8.8; no loss there suggests no router issue, but absence of loss to that server points to a PC-level problem rather than a hardware or driver fault.
Hi guyz,
first of all, thanks you reached out and trying to help.
Drivers: I checked all the drivers and are up to date, i actually did that as the first thing.
BIOS is the newest one.
WiFi: i tried it and its really bad, i have router in the next room so signal is quite scuffed but even if i take router closer its not stable at all.
Cable: i got a new one CAT5E UTP 100% copper but its the same, i even tried external LAN card to USB to try if my LAN port on mobo isnt faulty but its the same.
Firewall is set to public (recommended) it says.
Now, i pinged 8.8.8.8 and when i got big packet loss spike it showed request timed out otherwise it was fine , next i pinged my router and this even with packet loss never showed that request timed out it was completly fine.
https://imgur.com/a/oshT5TE
So test again, I would leave ping to the router and ping to 8.8.8.8 running at the same time just to verify this.
This basically means the issue is likely outside your house. BUT just buying a new pc does not affect things outside your house. It also should impact the other pc. I guess you could run ping test on that one too and see if both machines experience problems simultaneously.
You need consistent test data. It also depends on how much loss you get in the ping commands and whether it always aligns with issues in the game. You often see ping loss here and there across all connections. If it starts getting close to even 1%, it can cause major problems with games.
The normal next step when you suspect it’s your internet is to run tracert 8.8.8.8. This usually doesn’t show anything in most cases. What you’re aiming for is identifying the routers along the path. The second hop is typically the first router in the ISP network for most users. You’d want to test this point and check for loss. If you ping 8.8.8.8, the ISP would simply blame Google.
It could be considered that the problem lies elsewhere—perhaps internal to the game or software on your PC, indicating packet loss.
The key step is to conduct further testing to narrow down the cause.
Adjusting the firewall to private and turning off Wi-Fi didn't resolve the issue. I performed more pings simultaneously on both routers and PCs, and the results were nearly identical. The second PC showed slightly less packet loss for over two hours, and tracert displayed normal activity. Later, when testing CS2 on the second PC, it experienced the same packet loss. However, a month ago with the old PC and the same router and fiber connection, everything worked fine.
Packet loss beyond your home is nearly impossible to fix without altering the route. However, simply switching routes might not completely resolve the issue.
The recent test outcomes indicate there are no real network problems leading to packet loss. It might just be that the 8.8.8.8 server seemed eager to respond during the ping test. Servers enforce limits on the total number of pings they receive from all sources each second, as a measure to avoid denial-of-service attacks using the ping command.
There are now two potential explanations. The first suggests a problem on the game company's side—perhaps with their network infrastructure, the connection between your ISP and their servers, or even the server hardware itself. This issue is beyond your control, so it may not be worth investigating further.
The second possibility points to the game itself being inefficient. It often experiences high latency rather than complete packet loss. The so-called "ping" might actually be delayed by other processes running in the game. When the game sends a ping and waits for a response, it could be busy with tasks like video rendering, which causes it to delay reading the reply. This leads the game to attribute the delay to network issues instead of acknowledging its own processing load.
Some users on forums suggest adjusting video settings as a workaround. Alternatively, switching to a different game server in another data center or using a VPN could help, though these solutions are not guaranteed and depend on specific conditions.