Frustrating Computer Problem (Wow lags out my computer)

[Deleted]

First off here's my system spec;

CPU: Intel dual core E6600 2.4Ghz
RAM: 4GB DDR2 Corsair Ballistix 1066mhz (4x1GB sticks)
Graphics Card: nVidia 9800GTX+ (512mb)
Power Supply: Enermax 1000w
Board: DFI Infinity 975x (latest drivers installed for all board components)
Operating System: Windoews 7 64bit Ultimate
Resolution: 1920x1080
WoW Settings: Full Ultra
Wireless NIC: WMP54GS Linksys Wireless G card (latest drivers installed)
ISP info: Virgin Media ADSL up to 8mbps (speedtest.net showing 2-3mbps download speeds)

My problem is this:

Approximately a week ago I logged into wow and noticed that "Receiving character Info" took ages to load. I logged in at 1800 (GMT) to prep for an evenings raid so it was peak usage as far as my ISP goes. I've been living at current address for over 3 months and have never had this kind of issue before, so i put it down to a one off bug and quit wow (it got stuck at loading character info for more than 5 minutes). I reload Wow and again i hang at receiving Char Info, however this time it took more like 30-45secs to get passed. Once my characters loaded, I proceeded to enter realm with selected character. Progress bar was moving along at normal speeds, then at 100% loaded (full blue bar) It hangs again, I also notice that people on vent lag out and stop talking, the internet radio station im listening to stops playing music, so I figure i've lagged out. I restart wow again and the same thing happens, long hang at receiving char info, then disconnect this time after waiting 2-3mins at 100% loaded progress bar.

I presume its bad network traffic with ISP so i go downstairs, cold reset the router (switch off for 30 secs, then back on again). I come back upstairs and restart my computer too, by the time i restart the wireless is all working again, my browsing is fine (websites load as fast as they should for a 2-3mbps connection). So i load up vent, appologise to people for the DC and attempt to relog into wow. The same thing happens during log in, hang at receiving char info and then after waiting for well over 1min at 100% progress bar, i zone into orgrimmar. Latency in wow is at 2000ms according to the info you get when you mouse over micro menu info button, but all abilities are working fine (warriors shouts, mounting, talking to NPC's etc) so i figure the long hang at progress bar was lag and this 2000ms reading isnt accurate. 30 secs later im down to 80ms again (my usual ms during on peak wow gaming hours).

I queue for a heroic (tank, instant queue) and am on a progress bar stuck at 100% for 1-2mins, during which time, ventrillo has completely lagged out. I alt tab away from the progress bar and try to load google chrome to do some searching, find out if any known addons or processes or viruses could be causing it, and my web browser has totally frozen on me. I tab back into game and have "you have been disconnected from server" on screen, back to log in page, sometimes i even get crit errored after 100% bar hang for 1-2mins. I try again and ensure all addons are disabled... still same problem. (from this point onwards i have all wow addons disabled, but read on and you'll see more problems persist that addons have no part in)

I repeat the log in process and try to zone into heroics / raids for a few hours and it keeps happening. I miss the nights raid due to the inability to log in properly. I recently torrented an old game I used to play, still have the box for but no longer am able to find the installation disc of, a thought pops into my head, Maybe i have a trojan? I perform full virus/spyware/malware scan and find nothing but a few spyware / adware threats that are all low threat anyway. I check task manager to see if any virus/trojan looking processes or services are running, totally normal looking set of processes are running, nothing malicious appears to be loaded. I now have 2-3 hours spare in my evening seeing as i've been benched for the raid due to the inability to log in so I attempt to do a windows roll back to before when i torrented the game. Takes a while but its eventually done, completely successful roll back. I try to log into wow again, and vent lags, and my browser fails to load anything when i try to log in or go through a progress bar, the roll back did nothing. Turn PC off and decide to try the next day.

Following day i back up important files to external hdd, and reformat PC (delete system partition, format new drive and install windows 7 ultimate (legit)). After hours of painfully boring downloads and updates and driver updating, I'm ready to transfer my backed up copy of the 30GB of data that is/was my WoW folder. I log in faultlessly, i play for a few hours (2-3 hours) and get a lfd pop up (i signed as dps). The loading bar hangs at 100%, my vent lags out, no browsing aloud. I can't believe it, after a reformat and clean install of windows, i still get the problem? sigh. Someone on vent (i can hear vent now that i've closed wow down) tells me to delete cache/wtf etc... so i do, and i log in instantly! i zone into a dungeon/raid INSTANTLY!... then 5mins later i zone in again and 100% progress bar hang + vent dies + no browsing again.

So I totally uninstall WoW and everything wow related, i back up my updates folder for wow so i dont have to go through patch process (8.9GB of data isnt a fun download). I get my discs out and install wow vanilla from disc, then tbc, then wotlk, finally cata (all from retail discs). I transfer updates folder to wow directory, and start launcher.exe ... "8.9GB remaining" is what im greeted by. Currently download speed "50-100kbps". Estimated download time 202 hours (8.4 days). Sometimes the download speed drops to 0-10kbps. Whilst the launcher is loaded and is downloading the data, i am unable to do hardly anything on the internet, Its as if i was connected to the internet via a modem SLOWER than a 56k modem. Even though it takes me ages to load the page and do the test, i perform a speedtest.net test, and it says 82ms (ping), 2.04Mbps (download) 0.1Mbps (upload).

I ring Virgin Media and talk to a technician and tell him pretty much everything i just wrote out here and he tells me he'll ring me back after investigating. Its been 3hours since that call.... i'm about to ring them back and say "wtf where was my call back?"

I pay £40 a month for UNCAPPED broadband + phone line rental (free @ weekends to landlines only). Is it time i raged at them for being douches? or is it me? does a full reformat + clean install of wow not resolve everything that could be wrong at my end?

So can anyone help? First off... why do i have to download 8.9gb of data AFTER installing cataclysm from disc? and WHY didn't my update data back up work?
Secondly, What the hell is going on with the lagging on progress bars / receiving char info / downloading 8.9gb of data? (the high latency is present on all devices connected to my network, Virgin media have done line tests + router tests to ensure there's no fault and im assured there's nothing going wrong there either...)

SOME ONE HELP ME ! (please <3 <3 )

[Deleted]

I have rubbish pc so I dont really know if this helps. but im on virgin media and peak times I get very high latancy some times jumps to 1k ms or sits around 350ms. some times even peak times it can be fine i personaly think its virgin. I rang them up a little while back and asked if there was any way to improve this and they sed to put your router upstairs in your rooms where you game. but i havent done that abit of hassle. and my pc is not the best so I thought i'd just let it go. tho it has improved not so laggy lately. its normaly around 250ms

[Deleted]

Awesome wall of text, didn't bother to read through it all. So you're using WLAN. Search no more, it's probably at fault. See if plugging your computer straight to modem via cable helps.

[Golden122]

Go to your task manager > performance tab > Resource Monitor > Under the network tab do you have anything odd running?

[Deleted]

I have rubbish pc so I dont really know if this helps. but im on virgin media and peak times I get very high latancy some times jumps to 1k ms or sits around 350ms. some times even peak times it can be fine i personaly think its virgin. I rang them up a little while back and asked if there was any way to improve this and they sed to put your router upstairs in your rooms where you game. but i havent done that abit of hassle. and my pc is not the best so I thought i'd just let it go. tho it has improved not so laggy lately. its normaly around 250ms

Thanks for responding but there's no real useful info in there for me mate. Running the launcher to download game data (8.9gb of it) and its only downloading at 10kbps-100kbps... at peak times i can download files at 500-750kbps, even faster than that if im lucky, off peak or on peak, 10kbps download is stupidly slow, yet its acting like its using up all my bandwidth. I dont know what to do I cant physically play wow at the moment, at all times of the day

[Deleted]

Sorry it's not very helpfull, but i know how frustrating it is. mine was acting exactly how you have discribes for about 3 weeks monthish. but seems fine now so maybe they are doing work on the lines or w/e it they do.

[Deleted]

TL;DR
You say your speed is like 10kb/sec? Well, that's not much. I suggest contacting your provider, AFTER you made sure nothing's wrong with your wireless lan adaptor/router.

[prankstar]

have you tried disabling your firewall and anti virus they could be causing the issue also try using yout router through the wired connection

[Dammagia]

Plug directly into the router via cable, if that works, then get some 200mbps homeplugs and connect like that.

Wireless is fail for gaming.

[xStevooo]

You're PC is very similar to mine, i just have better GFX and it's quad core, I'm with Virgin Media to ... and the last time i had an engineer he said there's pretty strong caps at various times of the day. You might wanna post on the technical support forums as they get back to you very fast and if needed they get an engineer out within a few days. They will check the logs on your modem to see if there's been any unusual activity. The last time i had latency problems (crazy spikes of lag, random dc's) it was due to my modem exceeding the normal power caps (or something like that been a while) he used his little computer thingy to adjust the signals i was receiving and it's been perfect since.
I also needed a new splitter put into the box outside of the house, since then I've been on a rock steady 30m/b download, 3.5-4m/b upload during all times of the day.
Sorry i couldn't of been more helpful but i'd seriously imagine it's internet related.
(p.s. virgin's tech support over the phone is pathetic, forums is the way to go)

[Deleted]

Sorry for taking ages to respond, a lot of things have happened il try keep it brief:

- re installed wow from discs
- after installing cata from DVD, had to download 8.9gb via launcher, download speeds were 10 - 100kbps, took 3 days to finish. Whilst downloading, Internet connect for all devices on my network had immense lag (even google would time out when loading)
- after patching, logged into wow with clean install. Same hang at "receiving char info" and same hang at 100% progress bar at loading screen.
- contacted blizz, performed trace route to eu blizz server, resquest time out at hop 7/30. Blizz said contact ISP.
- contacted Virgin media, put thru to tech support. Told phone operator about trace route time out at hop #7, she admitted she had no idea what I was talking about and I spent the next 2 hours talking to "tech support". After being told time and time again the line is fine and it was blizz problem, I gave up. I know what the issue is. WoW game traffic (data) is the same as p2p now, virgin media red flag it and limit/cap/block/give it v low prio on lines enough to lag me out.

My solution, cancel contract with VM, join Plusnet.

The problem: VMedia want me to pay £100 for cancellation. I still have fine Internet as long as I don't touch wow. Thing is wow is the only thing I need internet for, no wow, no need for Internet... So iv gotta wait for the tech guys at VM to confirm there's nothing they can do to solve it then the fee should get taken off.

Checking the ADSL broadband forum on vm's site, there's a 500+ replied to thread with hundreds of ppl in the uk with wow issues related to the way vm treat wows p2p like traffic I've their network. And the only solution ppm have found is, leave vm and join better ISP that doesn't dick around with p2p traffic. (plusnet).

Ps. Hard wired in to router didn't improve anything, same slow speeds during d/l, same hanging at log in / loading screen 100% progress bar.

[bladesong]

I believe that this is a windows 7 TCP issue .. By default windows 7 is configured to automatically negotiate TCP window sizes in a much more agreessive way than previous versions. This causes issues for a number of applications that make not http connections to the Internet when behind certain routers or firewalls that do not support this new method of TCP window negotiation. To disable this feature in windows 7 go to command prompt (must run cmd as administraor) then manually disable it by using:

netsh interface tcp set global autotuninglevel=disabled

verify that it is dsabled using:

netsh interface tcp show global

[Deleted]

Wlan and network problems aside there is no way you can run full ultra at 1080p with that hardware and not encounter fps lag too. Your computer is pretty ancient but should still be playable and just a heads up BT have proven to be really great ISP for me i had WoW port issues they fixed them asap and more recently with Rift beta they done the same.