Ping occurs every 5 to 10 minutes?
Ping occurs every 5 to 10 minutes?
Almost every 5 to 10 minutes, ping will increase to around 800ms for a brief moment. It appears at 800 on the ping plotter and occasionally in the cmd prompt, depending on when the ping happens. I checked Hop 1, Hop 2, and Google; this has been happening for about three months. ISP agents visited more than three times, the modem was replaced three different times, cables were swapped and tested, but the 800ms still shows up randomly—sometimes at hop 1, other times at hop 2, 7, 10, etc. I also tried it on a wireless laptop and an Ethernet desktop, redirecting the laptop to the gateway instead of using Ethernet, but the problem persisted. Whenever these spikes happen, everything freezes, especially during multiplayer games like League Desync, making things even more frustrating. I’m trying everything, but I’m sure I’ve already checked all possible causes since the ISP doesn’t seem to understand what’s wrong.
These shouldn't create too many problems.
A 200ms delay is quite small; usually you notice a very brief delay, not a full freeze or disconnection.
Losing one packet usually doesn’t affect the game much, though it can happen.
If you see two or three packets in a row, that becomes more noticeable.
Be cautious with pingplotter and regular ping commands.
Pingplotter, for instance, might claim a 100% loss on hop 4, but actually shows no loss on hop 5 and beyond.
This isn’t realistic because data must pass through hop 4 to reach hop 5.
The real concern is users using ping to launch denial-of-service attacks against routers.
Most internet routers are built to handle ping responses poorly, often limiting how much they process per second.
You should be aware that extensive testing failures can occur with ping.
It’s hard to suggest anything specific.
Replacing the modem is usually the first step, but it rarely solves the problem.
Many years ago, certain chipset issues existed, but they were resolved and newer, faster chipsets are now common.
Do you own just a modem or a modem/router combo?
If it’s a combo unit, you might try switching it to bridge mode.
Connecting a PC directly without NAT is ideal, though unlikely to help much.
This isn’t a cable or signal issue—those simply cause packet loss and are easy to fix.
Latency spikes usually happen when a device handles more traffic than it can manage, causing data to be stored in memory instead of sent. This is known as bufferbloat, but the root cause lies with ISP equipment, which you can’t control since your traffic mixes with others.
I’m a bit puzzled why the ISP even pays attention to this.
They don’t guarantee low latency, and most physical connection problems result in packet loss rather than latency issues.
It's not only the 200, what I usually encounter is this;
https://imgur.com/KnQOdBh
Seeing it here: https://imgur.com/KnQOdBh
Generally, when I play, everything freezes, and then I check my CPU and this to verify if the freeze was detected. That's usually what it shows, though sometimes it displays 200, other times 700-800. The CPU doesn't indicate any spikes in usage, and after testing three different devices, the issue persists across all of them.
This morning I checked the router settings and extended the DHCP lease on the TP link router from 120 minutes to 2880 (maximum). Still, the same spikes appear even though everything was renewed/released, but they seem less frequent now. I also looked at my Nighthawk CM2050V settings, but there aren't any options to adjust it at all. I observed that through DHCP it appears to happen less often, but it still occurs (possibly due to a mix of router and modem DHCP updates). It happened with the ISP's gateways before I got my own modem. I noticed it doesn't sync when it happens... each device reacts at different times, but this modem doesn't have Wi-Fi, so I assume it would just combine them all from the TP-link router unless I'm misunderstanding how DHCP works.
I recorded the occurrences using the command prompt:
10:13AM - Ethernet Desktop 300ms
-- Tinkered with the TP-link's DHCP lease duration around halfway.
12:03PM - Ethernet Desktop 605ms
12:19PM - MSI laptop 900ms
12:34PM - Ethernet Desktop 201ms -- 31 minutes from before
1:05:23PM - Ethernet Desktop 677ms -- 31 minutes from before
1:36PM - Ethernet Desktop 266ms -- 31 minutes from before (watching for 2:07)
1:43PM - MSI laptop 726ms -- ping plotter didn't detect this while cmd did.
1:46PM - MSI laptop 130ms (probably irrelevant)
1:49PM - MSI laptop 1775ms -- new peak, not seen on pingplotter, watching for 1:52)
1:52PM - MSI laptop 1009ms
1:53:58PM - MSI Laptop 923ms
ignoring the laptop for now
2:07:21PM - Ethernet Desktop 786ms -- nearly the same second mark, likely the next.
2:23PM - Ethernet Desktop 507ms -- breaks the pattern, still expected to see what at 2:38.
2:38:23PM - Ethernet Desktop 476ms -- 31 minutes from the 2:07 mark, probably the midpoint.
There appears to be a consistent 31-minute duration, but the nighthawk modem event logs don't record anything at those timestamps while the router DHCP was set to 2-day intervals. Just now after observing these spikes, I changed the DHCP pool to just one IP address.
I experienced the same issue three or four years ago. There was a sudden spike in ping that caused me to disconnect from my games every five minutes, and both I and my wife were removed from our work servers. I battled with my ISP for weeks over this problem, they sent three technicians to test my connection (and they billed me for the visits). They replaced the modem, but I realized it wasn’t the issue because I already had another one functioning the same way.
One morning I became really frustrated and informed them I was no longer participating in their troubleshooting, which I had done ten times before. I asked for the issue to be resolved immediately. They told me they couldn’t help at the moment due to an outage in my area. Shortly after, we lost internet for several hours, and when it reconnected the problem was fixed. Was this coincidence? Maybe.
I understand how annoying this can be, but don’t keep complaining to your ISP. Eventually, they might tire of you and take action.
Yesterday (after handling some router adjustments) I attempted the following steps:
- Ensuring every device was fully powered off, testing each individually to eliminate any single device causing network problems; all units showed the same issue.
- Disconnecting the Ethernet cable from the router completely and connecting it directly from my desktop to the modem, just to exclude router or modem-to-modem connections; the problem persisted. I also checked the ipconfig while connected to the modem, but no relevant variables were found, even the lease timing didn’t match.
The spikes appear to follow a somewhat regular pattern—every 31 minutes, it’s consistently within about 30 minutes or at the midpoint (sometimes nothing for 15 minutes, sometimes it happens).
Back to modem → router → desktop;
11:10AM – pinging to Google via hop 3 and hop 1; hop 2 didn’t respond, the request failed.
Spike measured as 800ms on Google, 500ms at hop 3, hop 1 wasn’t active during this test.
11:26 – 429ms on Google, 92ms at hop 3, no response on hop 1.
11:41 – 50ms on Google, 642ms at hop 3, no activity on hop 1.
11:41 – 50ms on Google, 642ms at hop 3, nothing on hop 1 (possibly due to timing sync issues).
12:12PM – I recorded the event in advance for visual reference; the video is here: https://youtu.be/Erm3s_7_aCY
1:19 marks the spike occurrence, and 1:20 shows the effects. My inputs aren’t perfectly synchronized, so it’s unclear.
The spike duration is around 800ms at Google, 500ms at hop 3, no activity on hop 1. This likely indicates timing discrepancies.
I’m trying to contact the ISP with as much detail as possible to aid their investigation.
There is no response on hop2, but you should appreciate the kids who must "win" even if it means attacking an ISP router. The person they don't like connects to is the one you're dealing with. Hop3 is probably the same ISP.
This situation will be challenging. You understand the issue likely lies within the ISP network. It's not just a simple problem like a damaged cable or dirty connection. There might be some electronic device causing delays in data transmission. The ISP can also send ping commands. They may be able to reach hop2 even if it doesn't respond. There could be other equipment along the path that isn't visible through a trace, which the ISP can access and test. It depends on whether you find an ISP technician ready to conduct the tests. Most ISP technicians prefer closing tickets quickly rather than resolving them properly.
Do you have any alternative options for the ISP? I could try both fiber and spectrum coax. I thought spectrum might offer better service when ATT arrived, but they remain costly and their network still has ongoing issues.
I visited an office in another town (about a five-minute drive away) using one of the laptops, which shared the same ISP. When running tracert there, the only common hop was 5, meaning hops 1 through 4 were unique to me. I experienced a ping spike at home at 7:55 PM and again at 8:26 PM, still within the 31-minute interval. I went to the office to check if I could detect a spike at 8:57 PM, but found nothing. I stayed for two hours without any issues. Out of curiosity, I pinged the IP that appears as my home's hop 3, and it also showed no problems. I couldn't reach hop 2 because the request timed out.
I've tested every device one by one, disconnecting them from Wi-Fi, plugging the desktop directly into the modem, but issues persisted. This suggests whatever the hop 2 connection is, it might be linked to hop 3, which was fine from an external source. However, when I ping hop 3 from home, the 31-minute cycle spikes appear. When I try hop 1, there are no visible problems at home. The problem seems to lie between hop 1 and hop 2; although the modem is likely still functional, it's hard to rule out completely since this is my second modem. The cables between these points don't seem to be the cause if they're consistently reliable.
I have a technician scheduled for tomorrow at noon, hoping they can explain what hop 2 refers to and offer alternative solutions beyond what others have tried with their setups.
Final update; this was finally resolved on the 21st or 22nd. I was getting ready for the 7th appointment, but it got postponed after I provided my verification code and received a very late reply due to after-hours hours. They then informed me there was 'maintenance on the node servicing the house' and asked if I noticed anything unusual. The issue completely disappeared after that maintenance, and now we've had nearly a week of perfect clean latency. Now I'm just wondering what exactly this 'node' is, especially since they replaced the transmitter and rewired the cables before.