Solved Random "ping spikes/connection resetting" on computer's end, not route

[misterkay2]

Random "ping spikes/connection resetting" on computer's end, not route

Make and Model of Wi-Fi Driver and Laptop:
Wi-Fi Driver: Intel(R) Centrino(R) Ultimate-N 6300 AGN (Driver version 15.9.0.5. Last possible version for Win7, apparently, as support ended)
Laptop: Dell Latitude E6530

tl;dr: Large "ping spikes" on computer end. Not at fault of the router or anything from what I've tested. Wondering if some of the ideas I've got in mind are safe/worth trying. Also using this thread to log anything else I've tried, so that maybe if I fix this issue beyond "just use ethernet lol", I can archive it for any future users with this problem.

Context: Bought this laptop used off of Amazon for a decent steal, it's been working great for probably a couple of years now.
I wanted to upgrade to Internet Explorer 11 (so I could try out a very dumb flash emulator for an old MMO... long story, doesn't matter, didn't work out).
However, upon upgrading to Internet Explorer 11 at the time, my wi-fi has been having some very odd issues. Anything that was "streaming" worked just fine such as Youtube, Twitch, Discord, etc.
However... websites/applications that don't use whatever "rollback" (I guess that's the term?) these popular sites do, tend to constantly disconnect. Websites that limit download speeds to kilobytes per second, for example, or smaller, browser-based IRC stuff.
Alongside this, sometimes my browser just flat-out stops connecting for a bit. It'll be loading an image and then the image will just stop, or sometimes opening a link on a new tab just brings me to a blank page. Any error codes from Chromium told me that the "connection was reset".
Now normally, a smart user would just use System Restore to roll back before the updates. But for some reason or another, the "updates" installed with having Internet Explorer 11 didn't exactly register in Windows Update, so, it didn't automatically make a restore point, so I pretty much had nothing to fall back on.
However, at the same time, I noticed that Avast had planted its pretty little icon on my desktop despite not having it there before, maybe making me think that a recent update it had might also be part of the problem. I know Avast constantly probes at my internet, be it for its shield or for other reasons.
After some testing between router settings and my wi-fi driver settings, I've 100%, without a doubt, found it to be the latter. Going to router settings and pinging Google brings back stable results, meanwhile going to my command prompt and doing the same brought back this:



What I've already tried:
-Reverting back to IE8 and uninstalling updates related to IE11 (that i knew of... only problem was, after doing that, trying to load Windows did some weird stuff. like booting up with nothing at all but the background and the spinner for a while, then resetting before going back to normal)
-Power cycling router and modem
-Toying with driver settings (turning 802.11N mode off, changing wireless mode to 4 instead of 6, lowering roaming aggressiveness. changed everything back to normal once i realized it only made things worse)
(Note about changing wireless mode: Ping spikes were "lessened" in milliseconds, but, same problems occurred. This is why I put "ping spikes" in quotes, since I don't think ping spikes are the problem here... maybe.)
-Trying to find an older version of the driver and installing it (all it did was remove my driver entirely... had to do a system restore and pray for the best)
-Trying to update with the same version of the driver from archive.org's Dell backups (still didn't work, had to do another system restore)
(Note about installing drivers: Computer forces me to install through Intel's program)
-Checking what programs connected to the internet (forgot the exact command), only "hidden" ones were Avast and a core dell program.
-Setting Avast to passive mode (haven't fully uninstalled yet)
-Uninstalling any Avast shields that I think would connect with the internet (such as web shields, etc.)
-Installing pretty much every important/optional Windows Update that I think might improve stability, just in case
-Used ipconfig to flush dns and all that.

What I'm probably gonna try next:
-Uninstalling Avast through Control Panel -> Uninstall Program and just getting free MalwareBytes or something.
(normally this would be common sense, but... in my experience, programs don't uninstall all the way like I want them to. plus, it seems like uninstallers just get worse and worse and don't just delete the program)
-Giving up and going with an Ethernet cable... and tripping over wires, likely

What I'd really prefer not to do:
-Completely uninstall the driver and try to install the latest version I can find again (support's entirely ended for my driver... and with my past experience as I've noted, I'm kinda scared of just losing my wireless for good here)
-Reinstall windows (Don't exactly have a disc for that, aside from like, my external hard drive, but I've never really tried it before.)

 

[samuria]

Welcome to the forum Avast is well known for giving problems and you must uninstall then goto their website to download the removel tool to get rid of other rubbish it leaves behind.
Ping tlls you nothing as its a form of DOS and a lot of sites will drop thinking its being attacked

 

[misterkay2]

Welcome to the forum Avast is well known for giving problems and you must uninstall then goto their website to download the removel tool to get rid of other rubbish it leaves behind.
Ping tlls you nothing as its a form of DOS and a lot of sites will drop thinking its being attacked

Thanks, I'm gonna try that and then mark this as solved if it works -- is MalwareBytes (free version) known to give any internet problems like Avast does?

- - - Updated - - -

snip

I completely uninstalled Avast using the uninstall tool in safe mode, and that did not seem to fix my issue -- I even tried turning the Roaming Aggressiveness of my driver up to Medium-High and that didn't solve anything either

- - - Updated - - -

Alright, this is a very dumb question but you guys are the better experts: If I create a system restore point, then manually uninstall the wireless driver from Device Manager... then let's say I install that "driver update" from an archived dell page ( Downloads for Intel(R) Centrino(R) Ultimate-N 6300, Dual Band ) and it fails.
Will doing a system restore have a 100% chance of bringing back my old driver? I've looked it up and the answers were dodgy at best (from "it'll keep it" to "it's wiped from the face of the earth", so, sorry again if it's a dumb question.

 

[Alejandro85]

The first thing I would try is to test the very same ping, but to the router instead of internet. If you found out that pinging from the router doesn't have the problem, then the sudden lag may be due to the wifi connection. I would try with a wired one if possible.

I doubt a driver update would fix anything, but in case you try it out, don't rely on system restore as a backup. Have your current driver installer in case of emergency, or ultimately, take an image as a backup (it's one of those rare cases where they are actually useful).

 

[misterkay2]

test the very same ping, but to the router instead of internet

Yeah, that's what I recently tried -- pinging through the router itself brought back stable results, but on my computer end it brought back flat-out connection drops. I've got an ethernet cable supposed to be coming in on Wednesday, if it fixes my connection issues I'll try re-installing my wireless driver and see where it goes.

 

[misterkay2]

Got the ethernet adapter and... it's still got the same problem. At this point I figured that maybe I had picked up a bitcoin miner or some kinda trojan, so I decided to run a full MalwareBytes scan, and what's interesting is that because the deep scan was using up CPU power, it seemed these problems became more frequent during that scan.

So, it's leading me to believe that my internet dropping has something to do with whatever's randomly spiking up my CPU -- whether it's a bitcoin miner that only managed to start working once I got the update to get it working, or maybe some dumb Windows Update that's trying to phone home to somewhere at Microsoft way too much. I'm still trying what I can to figure it out, but any more ideas would be appreciated.

 

[Alejandro85]

I seriously doubt CPU usage can cause such spikes, specially since network connections don't use the CPU at all (the networking program connecting does). Unless your computer is severely limited in resources (your specs suggest otherwise) I wouldn't think of it as a first suspect.

A bitcoin miner, that's a very specific infection. It would be trivial to spot it by looking at the CPU usage at task manager, anything constantly higher than expected would become suspect.

But that lead me to think of a new suspect, given you mentiones Malwarebytes and Avast previously, have you tried to fully uninstall them both? Antiviruses are widely known to interfere with computer operations, and their network scanning may be delaying some packets while they're scanning their content to "protect" you from viruses.
Try uninstalling them (not just disabling) and try again.

 

[misterkay2]

snip

That's kinda the thing. I tested my connection right after I uninstalled Avast using its uninstall tool (before I even installed MalwareBytes), and the problem still persisted.
Except, I still seem to have leftover files from Avast in my winsxs folder. Not exactly sure if I should even touch them.

And, I've also been using Avast Secure Browser (a chromium clone)... and I thought it didn't do anything until I decided to check my Event Viewer, and learned that for some reason or another, it seems to be messing around with the Brave browser (also a chromium clone). That, and, the Avast Secure Browser also seems to have had a recent update, so I'm starting to wonder if I've got a case there. Granted, I'm not sure if it's related to my problem, but just throwing in any possibilities at this point.

So, I'm gonna uninstall Avast Secure Browser all the way and see if it fixes anything, if it doesn't I'm also gonna try uninstalling MalwareBytes, but in the meanwhile, surely deleting Avast files from my winsxs folder is a safe thing to do, right? I've never touched it before and I was always told it's dangerous.

UPDATE:
Avast Browser uninstalled, problem still there, also noticed that Avast itself is still in my Registry files. Surely it's safe to delete everything there too, right?

Edit 2:
Alright, I'm SUPER pissed -- not at anyone but myself really, 'cuz for whatever reason IPv6 seemed to be the problem behind my very specific problem here. I guess something in the Windows Update to update to IE11 must've like, done something do it, or, I dunno. Either way, disabling it fixed my problem. But, I did learn a lotta good stuff here, so thanks for helping me out.