Pings all over the place

[Temperal]

Not really sure how to describe this but here goes. Recently when i open programs or play online games my ping seems to shoot through the roof. I'm on a cable connection with a 3mb download and 256 upload speed. I have not had any problems with this in the past. Plus the speed is fine when i'm not doing anything significant(Per Norton System Doctor). The only thing that I have changed that i can figure is, downloaded the 2 new security updates for XP from windows update, and installed new video drivers. I've since uninstalled the security updates and have gone back to the old video drivers. I have noticed that this happens most frequently in Americas Army, when a lot is going on, but somtimes seems to happen for what appears to be no reason. I am behind a router and use Norton Personal Firewall. One other thing I've noticed is that it seems to take a much longer time for Norton Speed Disk to defrag my hardrive. My stats are...

MSI Nforce motherboard - using the built in networking
AMD athlon xp 1900
2x256 pc2100ddr memory
GeForce 3 Ti500 vid card

Any ideas would be appreciated, thanks in advance
Temperal

 

[Geffy]

try disabling the firewall and test

also maybe its a bug with Americas Army or something

 

[Temperal]

Have tryed disabling the firewall, no go. Just noticed that I have tryed to defrag my disk with speed disk 3 times now and it won't defrag all of the way on top of taking forever. It keeps listing a file "C:\windows\system32\logfiles\wmi\trace.log" as being very fragmented. This file is 6,083,008 kb and gets bigger each time I click on it in file manager. What the heck is this and can I delete it? When I tryed to open the log file with MS Word i get a "serious disk error on file trace" message. Thanks again...
Temperal

 

[Geffy]

try using the normal winxp disk defragger, its actually one of the best Windows defraggers as its made by the people that do Diskeeper

 

[2z]

Originally posted by Temperal
"C:\windows\system32\logfiles\wmi\trace.log"

thats bootvis

cant see it affecting your pings though
uninstall it see how you go

 

[jonifen]

scan your system with adaware or spybot s&d - its possible you've got some spyware or something... a mate of mine had terrible ping trouble for a while, I told him to try adaware and it found well over 300 objects (there was about 80 bits in the registry if i remember right )

 

[Krux]

you said you updated your video card drivers, often high pings are caused by stress on the machine while running a 3d app its not so much that your net can't handle it, its that your computer is using to much cpu time and video card power to have time for other things. try rolling your drivers back to the previous ones or turn off some effects like FSAA or the likes.

 

[jonifen]

good advice Krux - didnt think of the newer drivers making a difference

Temperal - did you manage to sort the problem out ok in the end?

 

[Temperal]

Well I am still having the same problem. I reformated and reinstalled windows. Turns out my room mate and myself are both getting about half of our total potential bandwidth, 1.5kbps versus 3kbps. Called the cable company today(Cox.net) and they don't seem to have a clue. They say that everything is fine on their end. My room mate has the same downstream and upstream readings as me, so it would appear that it is not isolated to my computer. We have turned the cable modem off and back on again, and have turned the router off and on again. We have our 2 computers behind a wired router. The strange part is when I first get into an online game my ping is fine, then it periodically will shoot up to dial up speeds. I have done a tracert but i'm not really sure what the outcome numbers mean. If someone can tell me how to copy and post them and can help me interperet them it may help me with Cox if that is where I need to go next. I still need to try the older video drivers and see if that helps. That is the only other thing I can think off. I have cleaned my startup and disabled processes to limit memory useage. I have 512mb of ram so I don't think that is the problem. I'm wondering if maybe I've got 2 seperate problems. I would think 1.5kbps would be plenty for Americas Army or Battlefield 1942. This is driving me nuts, any other suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for the help up to this point. Temperal

 

[Tuffgong4]

just an idea...does your router have a built in firewall....usually the built in firewalls are good enough...it's good that you have the other firewall installed on your comp but I think you should completely close down your firewall installed on your comp when you play...when at school use a router and my ping is always 85-100...at my p's house I disable the firewall I installed and use no router here and have ping of 20-40...just my info...hope everything goes well for ya

 

[Tuffgong4]

oh i only disable the firewall installed on my comp when I play games