Why is my internet dropping when I play Valorant?
Why is my internet dropping when I play Valorant?
I used to get ping scores between 10 and 45 when I played Valorant. Honestly, I live very close to the servers, so my connection was always fast. One night while playing a match, suddenly I started getting lagging in real life. After finishing, I checked the server list for Valorant and found that my nearest server, Bogota, had the worst score available. That meant it should be the slowest place to play on. I cleaned up my computer, reset all programs, and reinstalled Valorant again, hoping this would fix things but nothing worked. I tried using many different apps like TCP Optimizer or changing my internet settings to no good effect either. Finally, I went to Riot Games and asked for help. They told me to install their Windows "repair tool" (RRT) and then run a command that checked network routes. When I ran that command, here is what it showed:
1: 362 ms
101 ms
79 ms
2
27 ms
5 ms
2 ms
3
29 ms
14 ms
10 ms
4 * * * Request timed out.
5
4 ms
4 ms
6 ms
6
26 ms
59 ms
44 ms
7
19 ms
9 ms
5 ms
8
309 ms
175 ms
104 ms
9
348 ms
206 ms
561 ms
I did the same thing again, formatted my PC and reinstalled Valorant once more. The problem was still there even after I tried hard rebooting my Wi-Fi router. Does anyone else have this issue? It only happens with Valorant; I can't play any other game without lagging too.
This trace looks weird, like the issue keeps flipping on and off. Hop 7 doesn't have problems, but Hop 1 does. Taking out the IP addresses makes it worse because your own address never shows up at all. You already said you live near Bogotá and that's all we know from other numbers. It doesn't really matter in the end, though what matters is Hop 1: is this your router or the internet company's router? Usually it's your router, but if you plug straight into a modem, it could be their router at the very end of the cable coming to your house. If Hop 1 is your router, then something is broken inside your home. Are you using ethernet or wifi? This happens often when you use wifi and get signals bouncing around from interference.
Riot Games told me about the same thing regarding the tracert lol. The agent that helped me showed me their tracert too and the first hop was all 1ms and the rest looked normal. I took out my IPs for privacy reasons, but if they can help me then I'll send them the whole tracing result. Yes, I don't have a LAN cable at home, though I'm thinking about getting one soon. Since the router is in my living room, I don't know where to put it. I've always used normal WiFi without a cable and my ping has always been good and I never had packet loss ever, The problems started 6 days ago.
The main problem with Wi-Fi is that it works okay sometimes and bad other times. This happens because of how online games deal with errors, which makes it hard to use the same method for both. Most other apps are not affected much by this issue. That's why everyone says you shouldn't play games on Wi-Fi. It could be just one neighbor got a new router and is using the exact same radio channels as you. Almost always, it's really difficult to tell exactly what's causing these problems because there are many things going on at once. Running an ethernet cable is usually the best choice, but if you have coax wires in both rooms, you could try MoCA. Or you might look into powerline network devices instead.
To be honest, I've never had an issue with WiFi before, except for once back when there was way too much packet loss but then suddenly it worked better. I'm planning on buying a LAN cable and putting it in my room to see if that helps things get easier, even though honestly I don't think this is the main problem because other games run fine. My ping stays around 50ms for R6, 70 for Fortnite, and Valorant is the only one throwing off my connection. I've also been thinking about buying a WiFi extender and plugging in a LAN cable to it. Do you think that would actually work?
What makes a wifi extender special? You aren't really doing much, just buying a small box that connects to your router via ethernet. It's still using wifi from the little box to your router. That doesn't change anything much compared to swapping out an old usb card with a new one and adding a cable. If it's only one game missing, you probably can't get this fixed because you already have windows installed on your computer. The problem is likely somewhere between you and the game server. If there are issues between two internet providers, they aren't actually your customers, so calling them might not help right away. Even though your traceroute shows a problem in your house, it should affect every single game since that's where the signal is broken.
Okay okay. I'm going to buy a LAN cable for sure. By the way, I tested CSGO's internet speed and got a max of about 90-100 milliseconds, which means only Valorant is having trouble too. So here was my cool idea: I connected my phone as a hotspot and used it to act like Wi-Fi just for a little while. Once I turned on that hotspot, opened up Valorant, and went to check the server list, my nearest server (Bogota) came right up at the top. It said if I played on Bogota servers I'd get 47 ms ping. So then I tried it out on some deathmatch matches and got about 40 milliseconds of ping all the way there. Now I know for sure that the problem is my internet provider, right?
It sounds like the game company or their ISP has trouble reaching your connection. This could happen even if it's a direct line between them. If only one specific game is broken, it might be because of something on your computer instead. Sadly, you can't control how ISPs are linked together. Usually, the best fix is to use a VPN, but those can sometimes have their own problems too. So, you'll just have to test a few different options until one works.
Hmm okay, I'll see if express vpn works, So what I have to do is like contact my ISP and tell them about it or..? I'm also gonna leave the full tracert in case that could maybe work. 151.106.249.1 Game Servers (SCL): Tracing route to 151.106.249.1 over a maximum of 20 hops 1 362 ms 101 ms 79 ms 192.168.101.1 2 27 ms 5 ms 2 ms 172-0-20-1.lightspeed.iplsin.sbcglobal.net [172.0.20.1] 3 29 ms 14 ms 10 ms 10.0.40.1 4 * * * Request timed out. 5 4 ms 4 ms 6 ms 192.168.100.1 6 26 ms 59 ms 44 ms 172.16.3.60 7 19 ms 9 ms 5 ms 172.16.3.3 8 309 ms 175 ms 104 ms lag-106-64.ear4.Miami2.Level3.net [4.15.158.49] 9 348 ms 206 ms 561 ms ae2.2.edge1.Lima1.level3.net [4.69.207.190]