Latency issue with Steam

Vice93 · Oct 20, 2014

I've had this problem for quite a while now and I can't for the life of me figure out how to fix it. The problem is that I disconnects from steam entirely for about 10-15 minutes while playing CS: GO. In-game I just completely freeze for around 30 seconds, then it "refreshes" position, like I got insanely high ms (which seems to be the case http://imgur.com/NavjBQX ).

The thing is, it isn't only steam that disconnects, well I also temporarily lose connection to skype and utorrent (seems to be a p2p issue?), however I have tried so many things and don't have any idea what to try anymore. Router isn't the issue, tried many different routers yet the issue persists.
Ports are forwarded, uPnP enabled, no firewall (disabled both on router and system).
Restarting router solves the problem for 10-20 minutes until it's back. My ISP is the best one in my country (which is Norway, ISP is Telenor).

I really don't know what to do anymore...

cirdecus · Oct 20, 2014

I'd leave your firewall on when using P2P torrents. Could be malware, try downloading malwarebytes free edition (not trial) and run a scan. I'd also run steam with all software and non-critical background processes disabled to see if that's causing the problem.

Could, of course, be a network issue on the ISP's side of the world, but you'd need to monitor the entire connection, not just steam or P2P applications. Does the provider use any kind of throttling for P2P traffic?

Vice93 · Oct 20, 2014

cirdecus :

I just reinstalled windows 7 to see if that was the issue, yet the issue persists.

Most of my irl friends are using the same ISP and they have no such issue. There are no throttling done by any ISP in Norway afaik.

What do you mean monitor the entire connection? I have no issues with normal webbrowsing. I think spotify goes offline though, and a few other online games like Path of Exile. It's really wierd this one....

DelroyMonjo · Oct 20, 2014

Since it's p2p, maybe it's your computer hardware, not the network. In other words, you are lagging behind the other players and are getting timed out by their faster systems.

Vice93 · Oct 20, 2014

DelroyMonjo :

My system isn't that bad, AMD FX-8350 8-core 4ghz, 8GB ram, Nvidia Geforce 660 2gb video ram, game running on SSD, 64 bit windows 7 ultimate.

DelroyMonjo · Oct 20, 2014

Seems your rig should keep up in p2p. Why are you running utorrent in the background during gameplay? Maybe that's an issue.

Vice93 · Oct 20, 2014

DelroyMonjo :

I'm not running anything in the background, everything is disabled. It's just that I tested different programs to see if the issue lied with steam only, which wasn't the case.

It only appears when steam is running, and only when I'm playing an online steam game, well, I only play CS on steam anyways.
However once the issue has appeared, I can't use any applications like utorrent, my skype call disconnects (I can hear my friends for like 1 minute, but they cant hear me, then I disconnect from it), and other online games won't work neither.
Applications I've verified doesn't have an internet connection when this happens;
Spotify
uTorrent
Steam
All Blizzard Games
Skype
Path of Exile.

Normal internet works, youtube, twitch, facebook etc.

DelroyMonjo · Oct 20, 2014

Have you tried a different Steam server location?

Vice93 · Oct 20, 2014

DelroyMonjo :

No, I will try that then. It's late here, will update tomorrow how it goes.

Vice93 · Oct 21, 2014

So I tried changing the server location, but it seems it did nothing good. It happened again 3 times today.

bill001g · Oct 21, 2014

You want to run a continuous ping to your router from your PC. If you get packet loss or high latency doing this you have a issue either with your PC or the router.

If this is fine then run a tracert to some address. You want to open multiple cmd windows and let continuous ping commands run to the first few hops in the list. Your goal is to find the first one that the problem occurs at. Generally the first is your router, the second is the first ISP router and then it gets complex since you are internal to your ISP network. If you have errors talking to the ISP router then it is likely some issue with the wires coming to your house but it can be modems or splitters or a number of things. Now if you find the problem in the network past the first router then it is not just your connection that has a issue the ISP has a internal network problem. You can try to figure it out but unless you can get past the level 1 phone droids at the isp who have no clue what traceroute is you will not get real far.

Vice93 · Oct 21, 2014

bill001g :

Thanks for such an elaborate answer. I will try everything here, though one question before I do: What would you consider high latency when pinging my router? Do I look for the same kind of ping I get to the steam servers?

bill001g · Oct 21, 2014

Normally ping to your router is less than a couple ms. You start seeing even 10-20 and things aren't good. Of course if it is wireless you can easily see outrageous numbers. Some here and there are normal for wireless. Consistently high means you have a interference issues.

Maybe I missed it in this thread, you want to always test on a ethernet cable first to eliminate the wireless as the cause.

Vice93 · Oct 21, 2014

bill001g :

Previously I've been using ethernet, but as I've moved rooms I can't use cable anymore. Router is simply too far away. I'm currently using my laptop as a wireless receiver and share that connection to my desktop with a cable. Don't fret though, the issue was there even when I was connected straight to the router. I will wait until the issue appears again and see how the ping reads then. Currently it's just at a stable 1-5ms, occasionally rising to 70 (only one line though), in around 1 minute timespans.

Vice93 · Oct 22, 2014

bill001g :

I've had the cmd window ping while gaming today and when the issue occurred (however briefly) my router ping was unaffected.

bill001g :

I don't quite understand what I have to do, I ran a trace on a couple of steam servers: http://imgur.com/Ld7qJCY
However the problem haven't occurred yet so I haven't tried the address that gave me 14K ms. Could you look at that image and see if you see anything out of the ordinary?

EDIT: oh and the "timed out" as #2 on every window is my laptop I think. As I said earlier I'm sharing my laptops wireless with my desktop.

bill001g · Oct 22, 2014

Everything looks fine in these. That is how it ALWAYS works never shows up when you are trying to debug it.

What I would do now is ping the 10.0.0.138 address and 88.91.62.1 constantly from 2 different minimized windows. Now you just have to wait until the problem occurs and quickly check both these windows. If you see no issues in either then it is way outside your control. Your ISP may have a issue someplace.

You have a network setup that is going to be prone to random error. Wireless and then use a laptop as a router both add very common points of failure. If you see issues pinging 10.0.0.138 then you need to check these.

Using a computer as a router is quite the waste. If you actually attempt to use the computer at the same time you can degrade the other machines. It does not take much. Anything that spikes the cpu to 100% even for a short period of time will prevent the computer from responding quickly to traffic from the other connected computers.

Vice93 · Oct 22, 2014

bill001g :

Okay I will try that then. "Hopefully" the issue comes back soon...

In regards to the laptop->desktop setup im running, I said this earlier in a post, but I were previously connected with ethernet straight into the router. I had the same issue then. As much as I believe you when you say it causes problems, I hardly believe that to be the issue here. I will monitor those two pings for a couple of days and hopefully I get some results.

Thanks for all your help mate, it's been invaluable to me!

EDIT: Just had the issue, pings are stable tho. Think it's out of my control this one :/

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