Latency Spikes - Want to the cause

In recent weeks for online gaming i have experienced some very odd and a very reoccuring problem. My internet (lag/Latency) has been spiking During online Game play.



Game in question, Halife Mod - Natural Selction (use Steam to connect)

Router Wireless N Gaming Router Linksys - Opened the Forwarding ports needed to run
halflife directly on the router, even tho it automatically does it for you.

No virus's/trojans/spyware as of yesturday.

My Latency connection starts off at 20-30 connection ping. Then i spike above 300+ every few seconds.


My question is, how do i find out what is causing that spike? Or if something is running in the background and sending out information, how do i determine what is doing it?

Any help is appreciated
Dennis

 

Do you have a firewall?

 

Windows Firewall enabled

 

If you check your firewall logs, you should be able to see any extra activity attempting to come or go from your computer.

You could also try running a selective startup from your msconfig (open "msconfig" with the "run" application) which is on the general tab when you first open msconfig.
Then click on the startup tab and choose "Disable all". Apply and OK, restart is required.
Click ok on the message when you reboot.
Attempt your connection and watch for spikes.
If they are fixed, some startup app is affecting you, and if not, go back into msconfig and re-check the "Normal Startup" box and click ok to restart again back in normal mode.

Do you have any anti-spyware / virus/ etc running at the same time? And what about Windows Updates?
Alot of software will try to update itself, or at least look for updates, without asking for permission.

 

Or just install another firewall, I don't trust windows firwalls too much.