For months now, I've been having an issue with my internet that I'm incapable of solving. The most basic way I can explain it is: If I am downloading at high speeds (70MB/s and higher) or uploading and downloading at the same time (Streaming to Twitch and watching YouTube at the same time, for example) my internet drops out. Web pages will still load, I am not kicked off the internet entirely, but whatever connection I had to that server is timed out and will take a couple seconds to re-establish.
I'll put a LOT of details and troubleshooting I've done below the fold. I am truly at my wit's end. If you can help, I'd appreciate it.
Some primary details.
Here is my dxdiag. My router is an ASUS RT-AX82U and our internet is gig fibre from Telus here in Vancouver, BC. Speedtest result, Fast.com result.
Quick Info (For summary reasons, please read until the end, the problem is likely not listed here.)
- This issue has been going on for approximately six-to-seven months. It's very possible the issue was present long before this but time is really hard to figure out within the past couple years. It's been an issue forever but I can't pinpoint a precise time frame. Some computer upgrades were done in that time, some hardware changes, etc. A lot has happened both related to my computer and not.
- It happens at all times during the day, every day.
- It does not affect my wife's computer who is on the same network. Our computers used to be relatively identical in hardware, yet only I had the issues. I've since upgraded my computer and the issues persist. She continues to have no problem.
- The internet does not "cut out" the way it does with severe dropout issues. I can run services like Speedtest/Fast.com without issue, also. These test services show no issue on their end.
- This happens when I bypass every step of our network and plug from my PC directly into the wall.
I will update additional information here if I come across it.
- I do not run a VPN on this computer.
- It's mentioned below but for clarity's sake I have changed the ethernet cable. Both were Cat.6
- My wife's computer is on wifi but we hard-wired it to test and in both cases she had no issues.
- The issues happened on wifi and wired for my old computer. My new one no longer has wifi capabilities.
- It's not DNS. DNS has been changed to 1111/1001 and the DNS was flushed. (And steam cache cleared for good measure.) The issue remains.
- It's not ipv6, I disabled it and the issue remains.
- Once the problem is triggered in Steam, it cannot redownload until ??? magic happens. I don't know how else to explain it. Repeatedly clicking the retry button in the Downloads screen will not even start the download, it will just constantly tell me "no internet connection". Like it's just blocking the download before it can try.
- Some webpages take a suspiciously long time to load. As in, a few seconds instead of instantly. The way it manifests looks like when I try to load a webpage without an internet connection. (On Firefox, it's just a blank screen with "Connecting to..." in the bottom left)
- It's not Windows' NCSI issue or WPAD/PADS. Both were checked.
- It does not seem to be ipv4/ipv6 related, both inherently and more granularly to things like checksum offloads. (A few of these options were tested with no results.)
- I can't remember if I've said this below but for posterity's sake: synching in Dropbox (up or down) gives me no noticeable issues. Unfortunately Dropbox provides me with no real detailed readout of network traffic so it looks like things are smooth sailing. Unlike Steam, however, the traffic never outright stops/fails.
- Logging into a new user account on Windows provided help, the issue happened there as well.
- A Wireshark test shows connection loss somewhere between the computer and the router. It's hard to pinpoint the exact cause because of how the problem is manifesting but currently the likely culprit is the ONIC.
The Internet
The Problem
As stated, I have gigabit fibre from Telus. It was installed into our house because the current/previous owners of the property are on a different ISP (Shaw). This is what I thought would be the first problem since internet in Canada notoriously sucks.
Troubleshooting
- Every point of issue was addressed.
- They changed our modem, no change.
- They changed the actual terminal that connects us to the fibre drop, no change.
- They flushed our IP and did a full reset of our system, connection, and all that on their backend. No change.
- As far as I can tell, this is not an ISP issue. Everything they can check from their end shows absolutely zero problems or flags from their end all the way the plug in our house.
- This led us to the conclusion that, since my wife was not having issues, my network card was the problem, however...
The Hardware
The Problem
My dxdiag is provided above but most issues I face, I face with software instead of in my PC experience itself. This morning, I could not log into Dropbox using email because the authentication would immediately drop. Logging in through Google worked, I'm not sure why.
My computer is also, now, mostly new. These issues started on my old computer and as mentioned above, thought the network card was the culprit. Since it was an onboard network interface, I upgraded a few things alongside the motherboard. The only parts that I kept are the CPU, the RAM, the 500GB NVMe main drive, a 1TB SSD secondary drive, and my CPU cooler (a Corsair H600 something or other. it's an RGB liquid cooling one). Everything else, I upgraded.
The old motherboard was a Asus Prime X570-P. Both my old and new motherboard have a Realtek network card.
Troubleshooting
- Motherboard upgraded. I went from an Asus one to an MSI board, the problem persists.
- The ethernet cord I am using is the same as my old PC but that was also changed from an older one that had the same issue.
- The keyboard I'm using is a Cooler Master SK622 and last night when testing things, unplugging it mysteriously solved the problem for hours. I switched to an old keyboard and thought by some insane reason the kb was the issue. However, the problem came back. I don't think the keyboard is the problem but there was something that gave me hours of relief when doing that and maybe the answer is in there.
- I am on a fresh Windows install and a lot of my old drivers are not reinstalled yet.
- The ones that are, that are out of the ordinary at least, are for my audio interface which is an Arturia Minifuse 1. This is one of the devices I switched out months ago but it was purchased after we changed routers.
- We changed routers. As mentioned above, we have a ASUS RT-AX82U but the issue happened before we got this one and the issue also happens when networked directly into the modem.
- Every drive and every device was plugged or unplugged to see if it was an issue. The problem persists.
- About 7 months ago, I changed my CPU cooler. I switched it out for the same model but I had to because the little fan inside the liquid cooling heat sync was rattling. Since switching it, that rattling has stopped but the fans have definitely been louder. Like they're working to cool a lot more than they have to. It would make very little sense to me that the CPU is overheating and causing it to drop network connections considering this would be so much more obvious if this was the case. I wouldn't be able to play games (I can), I'd be kicked off Discord calls all the time (I'm not). I doubt it's this, but I should point out this part changed anyway.
Steam
The Problem
When downloading from Steam, it will start downloading at full throttle and last a few seconds before cutting out. The download sharply stops and provides no information other than "Content Servers Unreachable" or, more often, "No Internet Connection".
If the connection is feeling especially unstable, it won't even synch Steam Cloud save files.
Here is a snippet of a log from Steam showing whatever issues arise when downloading.
Troubleshooting
- Clearing the download cache gives me a momentary fix, though by momentary I mean anywhere between one second and one minute. It's the only thing I can do that provides a certifiable lapse in issue, restarting Steam does little to help.
- I've tried downloading to other drives and this does nothing. Downloading to a brand-new NVMe SSD has the same problem as my old USB-C SSD drives.
- Reinstalling Steam did not fix the issue.
- Reinstalling Windows did not fix the issue.
- Since this happens with other software, I figure Steam is not the issue anyway.
OBS / Twitch / Discord
The problem
I don't have any screenshots to provide for this but any regular viewer of my streams will know what happens. My stream will just cut out if I try to do "too much internet stuff" at once. I stream at about an average of 3500kbps upstream. Our internet is rated for 1GB/s up & down so, again, not sure I'm really testing the limits of my network here. However, if I'm streaming, opening something like a youtube video (often just loading YouTube itself) will crash the connection to Twitch and YouTube. The stream will cut out and after a few seconds, it will resume. If I stop the stream manually in Twitch, I won't be able to re-start the stream until I give it a while because it gives me an error saying it cannot connect to Twitch. Streaming music from Apple Music will very rarely make this happen but it's almost always streaming from YouTube. Trying to stream the Capcom Showcase had about 4-5 disconnects at varying intervals.
Here is a 'stats for nerds' readout of YouTube if you need it.
The same thing happens in Discord. Streaming a videogame at 720p30 is fine! I've never run into an issue. The moment I try to stream something I am watching at the same time, however. Streaming a show to some friends a few weekends ago produced the same result where I was able to stream it for a good hour or two until the issues settled in and it would disconnect at completely random intervals. I would not get fully kicked off the internet and my wife, who was also in the call, did not disconnect at all. On my end, the stream I was watching would start buffering and Discord would be unconnected but it's probably important to point out that I was never dropped from the call at any point. Just a "ah, you cut out for a bit"
Here is an OBS log of when I was able to replicate this issue.
Troubleshooting
- There's very little troubleshooting I could do here. I looked at some things in my router settings at the time that this started and I couldn't really find anything, and I'm not knowledgable enough about networking to touch anything without fearing breaking something. Like I said, though, this happened even when I wasn't connected to our router.
Other Bullshit
The Problem
Trying to solve all this stuff has me at a loss. There's so much other stuff I tried that provided no solution.
Troubleshooting
- As I mentioned earlier, I'm on a fresh Windows install. Very little carried from the previous install, my C:/ drive was wiped clean and as far as I know Windows only carries your theme/personalization settings.
- I took a glance at Windows Firewall and didn't notice anything out of the ordinary. Temporarily disabling it to let a download through did nothing.
- Streaming stuff works fine. I can watch Youtube, Twitch, Netflix, etc etc with no issues and the only time I do encounter issues, it's generally a service or actual internet hiccup.
- Downloading things work fine. I can download files off browsers without issue and I frequently snatch files from a private seedbox through FTP without issue. The browser files go at whatever general internet speeds are, my FTP files transfer much faster but again: without issue.
This is all I can think about to summarize and explain this issue.
I've tried everything. Something about this setup is the issue, it's absolutely absurd the problem is happening on two computers which share just a handful of parts and more importantly do not share the one managing networking. I can't think of what the problem could be. I've tried what I can with the time and energy I have. I have work to do and the shock this is causing to my mental is too much. I spent too much money hoping this would have been solved.
If you have any information that could help, if you have any troubleshooting steps I should take that I have not outlined above, please for the love of god tell me.
I need this internet for work. I paid for the fastest speeds because I need them to do what I do without worrying about issues and I'm now facing the worst of it. If this doesn't get fixed, I'm considering opening a bounty on this because I just don't know what else to do.
