Internet experiences brief interruptions during gaming sessions?
Internet experiences brief interruptions during gaming sessions?
Hello!
I've been experiencing intermittent internet issues where it drops briefly and then restarts, especially when playing games like League of Legends and Valorant. It's been frustrating because these moments can disrupt gameplay. I noticed the connection seems to work for a while before cutting out again, sometimes within minutes or even hours. The randomness is puzzling, and I've checked Event Viewer, finding only one error related to a media capture service timeout. Any help would be really appreciated!
Welcome to the forums, newcomer!
We're going to need a little more info. Please list the specs to your build like so:
CPU:
CPU cooler:
Motherboard:
Ram:
SSD/HDD:
GPU:
PSU:
Chassis:
OS:
Monitor:
include the age of the PSU apart from it's make and model. BIOS version for your motherboard at this moment of time.
How are you teetered to the www? Wireless or via Ethernet?
Sorry I'm just starting out with this.
CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600 6-core
CPU Cooler: Not sure
Motherboard: PRIME B450M-A II
Ram: T-Force Vulcan Z DDR 4 32 gigs
SSD: WDC WDS500G2B0C-00PXH0
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060
PSU: Not sure
Chassis: CyberpowerPC Black Eclipse P418R DRGB ATX Mid-Tower High Air Flow Gaming Case + 3x 120mm ARGB Fans (Included)
OS: Windows 11
Monitor: Sansui 27" monitor 120hz
The PC's overall age, excluding the GPU, is about four years.
Bios Version(MSinfo32 Bios Version/Date) American Megatrends Inc. 2409, 12/2/2020
SMBIOS Version 3.3
I'm connected to the internet via an ethernet cable.
It seems there might be a network problem between your PC and the game server. It could be temporary, but it's often something you can't resolve on your own. Consider trying the free Cloudflare WARP or VPN service. You can find more info here: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_q...flare+warp
Start by testing simple commands in a command prompt. Keep the test running quietly. If you notice problems in the game promptly, switch to another task and verify if any packets are missing. This suggests potential issues with your computer, connection cable, or occasionally the router. If nothing appears, it’s likely outside your home network.
Repeat the same process but this time use 8.8.8.8 instead. This checks basic internet connectivity. If you see no problems here, the difficulty increases because you can access Google but not the game company.
If you encounter issues with 8.8.8.8 next, try tracing the path to 8.8.8.8. This won’t usually reveal the problem. Your main aim is to confirm the router’s IP is part of the route. Now, ping the ISP’s router first—this should show a hop or two. Run a ping to that IP. If you see problems there, it likely indicates an issue with your home connection.
Finally, perform both pings simultaneously: your router’s IP and the ISP’s router’s IP. This helps gather evidence for the ISP to investigate the matter, not your personal device. Before contacting them, ensure you’ve rebooted the router and your computer completely so they can review your ping results instead of assuming a local fault.
I managed to resolve the internet issue by checking it in the cmd prompt. It looks like when the connection drops, the ping to my router works normally, but the request to 8.8.8.8 fails with a timeout. I haven’t tried the troubleshooting steps yet, but I think I should only do them if there are problems with that site.
You should conduct additional testing to demonstrate to the ISP that they must address the issue. If you contact them immediately, they will likely attribute it to a Google problem. It’s important to figure out whether the connection to your home is failing or remains stable despite unreliable pings. You’re particularly concerned about the house connection since you can perform basic tests within their network and they may still point the blame to Google. Running tracert for 8.8.8.8 with a hop of 2 usually shows the first router in their system, which should respond to ping commands. If you proceed to hop 3 or beyond, the information becomes less helpful as you move deeper into their infrastructure. The technicians on level 1 have specific tools to assess your connection or dispatch support, but they lack access or expertise when troubleshooting further inside the network.
i was finally able to catch it with the ping running. the command prompt was pinging each hop from 2 to 8, skipping the first one because its my IP and i know it stayed connected. starting from the second hop, whenever the internet cut, it would say request timed out. apologies if this seems repetitive, as i'm new to all of this and not sure how it works.
It clearly indicates the internet link to your home is not functioning properly. The challenge now is to persuade the first-level technician at the ISP. Occasionally I wonder if AI possesses greater intelligence than some of these professionals.
You might examine the modem’s signal strength, but regardless of what you discover, you’ll find no solution. This should be within the ISP’s expertise. It merely confirms there’s a problem with the physical connection leading to your house. A small loose connection between your home and the cable company’s equipment box, or perhaps some moisture or debris in a port, could be the cause. The technicians dispatched are equipped to detect such issues.
If it’s a fiber connection, it’s more likely an internal electronics fault in the box, directing the fiber from your neighborhood. This could involve a crack in the fiber, though fiber usually performs reliably or completely fails.
It's possible this could relate to the Ethernet connection on your PC. I noticed some issues with devices like the mouse and keyboard disconnecting briefly before reconnecting, which might be connected to the network port rather than a single device.