Wireless internet periodic lag spike?

Hi guys! I'm new here--if this thread happens to be in the wrong forum, please put it in its place? Thanks!

I am experiencing a problem with wireless internet in which the connection seems to stop functioning for 1-5 seconds on a very predictable interval. I've timed this interval to be around 35 seconds; it's repetitive enough that I am able to call the next manifestation of its effects to within one second of their appearance.

The effects of the network stoppage are most evident during continuous usage of the network by applications such as video chat and file downloading. Video chat and downloads will freeze for the duration of the stoppage. Continuous pinging (of the router) gives an anomalously high time or the request times out. Watching the network usage in Task Manager shows a very obvious periodic dip. (See command prompt output and task manager screenshots below~)

The appearance of the dip and of the disruption of ping are most evident when the network is in continuous use, such as during video chat or file downloading. The level of use does not appear to be significant.

Booting into Safe Mode with Networking gives significantly different results; the network lag problem seems to disappear completely. Testing with different devices (a WiFi-enabled cell phone) seems to support the case that the problem is with the computer I use and not the network, router, or ISP.

The problem appeared sometime between April 15 and April 17. Before April 15, no obvious manifestations of the issue occurred; after April 17, the lag problem was occurring as it occurs now.

I have attempted a number of solutions suggested on the internet, including:

• Rebooting
• Disabling WLAN autoconfiguration
• Disabling firewall/antivirus/numerous other services
• Updating display/wireless adapter drivers
• Booting into Safe Mode with Networking

They're vague because I have tried a very large number. I have not tried them in combination. I am starting on checking into every update and installation conducted in the April 15-17 period.

Safe mode has been the only one to stop the problem, but it hardly counts as a proper solution. However, its effect does imply that there is something running when the computer is running normally which causes the problem to occur--the services that I have tried stopping evidently are not the correct services, or I have not stopped the proper combination of services simultaneously.

I'm wondering if it would be safe to try shutting down services wantonly until the lag problem disappears, then turning them back on to find which permit appropriate function?

I am running Windows 7 Home Premium version 6.1.7601 (Service Pack 1 build 7601) on an HP Pavilion dv6 Notebook PC. Does anyone have any suggestions/hunches/guesses as to what the problem might be and what I might be able to do to solve it? Please let me know if there is any more information that I should provide, or if there is a specific entity to contact regarding issues such as these.



Images and text below:

Examples of periodic lag as seen in Task Manager network usage graph:
During video chat, with downloading toward the end:

During video chat:

Only downloading:


Examples of downloading during Safe Mode:


Command prompt output for ping -t Google
Pinging Google [74.125.224.176] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=11ms TTL=250
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=10ms TTL=250
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=18ms TTL=250
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=10ms TTL=250
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=9ms TTL=250
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=8ms TTL=250
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=12ms TTL=250
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=9ms TTL=250
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=23ms TTL=250
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=19ms TTL=250
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=79ms TTL=250
Request timed out.
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=761ms TTL=250
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=17ms TTL=250
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=11ms TTL=250
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=10ms TTL=250
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=9ms TTL=250
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=29ms TTL=250
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=10ms TTL=250
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=13ms TTL=250
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=15ms TTL=250
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=9ms TTL=250
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=13ms TTL=250
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=10ms TTL=250
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=12ms TTL=250
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=8ms TTL=250
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=10ms TTL=250
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=11ms TTL=250
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=10ms TTL=250
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=11ms TTL=250
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=11ms TTL=250
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=17ms TTL=250
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=9ms TTL=250
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=10ms TTL=250
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=9ms TTL=250
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=13ms TTL=250
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=10ms TTL=250
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=11ms TTL=250
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=12ms TTL=250
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=12ms TTL=250
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=10ms TTL=250
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=9ms TTL=250
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=17ms TTL=250
Request timed out.
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=603ms TTL=250
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=11ms TTL=250
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=15ms TTL=250
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=9ms TTL=250
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=10ms TTL=250
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=9ms TTL=250
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=13ms TTL=250
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=10ms TTL=250
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=16ms TTL=250
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=10ms TTL=250
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=10ms TTL=250
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=10ms TTL=250
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=11ms TTL=250
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=10ms TTL=250
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=9ms TTL=250
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=10ms TTL=250
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=10ms TTL=250
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=8ms TTL=250
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=10ms TTL=250
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=9ms TTL=250
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=13ms TTL=250
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=9ms TTL=250
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=11ms TTL=250
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=11ms TTL=250
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=10ms TTL=250
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=9ms TTL=250
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=10ms TTL=250
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=9ms TTL=250
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=15ms TTL=250
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=10ms TTL=250
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=11ms TTL=250
Request timed out.
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=156ms TTL=250
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=9ms TTL=250
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=31ms TTL=250
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=10ms TTL=250
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=9ms TTL=250
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=10ms TTL=250
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=11ms TTL=250
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=18ms TTL=250
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=14ms TTL=250
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=13ms TTL=250
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=9ms TTL=250
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=13ms TTL=250
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=13ms TTL=250
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=9ms TTL=250
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=10ms TTL=250
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=9ms TTL=250
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=11ms TTL=250
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=11ms TTL=250
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=11ms TTL=250
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=13ms TTL=250
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=9ms TTL=250
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=9ms TTL=250
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=10ms TTL=250
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=14ms TTL=250
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=45ms TTL=250
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=8ms TTL=250
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=12ms TTL=250
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=24ms TTL=250
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=9ms TTL=250
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=8ms TTL=250
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=20ms TTL=250
Request timed out.
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=13ms TTL=250
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=19ms TTL=250
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=10ms TTL=250
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=8ms TTL=250
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=10ms TTL=250
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=9ms TTL=250
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=12ms TTL=250
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=10ms TTL=250
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=9ms TTL=250
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=10ms TTL=250
Reply from 74.125.224.176: bytes=32 time=9ms TTL=250

Ping statistics for 74.125.224.176:
Packets: Sent = 119, Received = 115, Lost = 4 (3% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 8ms, Maximum = 761ms, Average = 25ms



Thanks, everyone!