Solved Stuttering/Latencies when LAN/Ethernet Driver active

I experience heavy video/audio stuttering when playing a video or general latencies when downloading a file when connected via LAN/Ethernet NOT when connected via WLAN/Wifi. According to my observations the stuttering only happens when the LAN network driver is somehow busy, which means preloading the video or downloading a file. As soon as the video is chached/loaded or the file is downloaded, the stuttering disappears. So in my opinion it is definetly a driver problem.


I recently updated the LAN driver due to suddenly occuring BSOD. The update fixed the BSODs but now the stuttering appeared. I already tried to switch to other versions of the driver or even use just the Windows driver, but the problem doesn't disappear.


With updating the LAN driver I also updated all the other drivers (BIOS, Soundcard, PCI, Chipset, etc.) because my system was a little outdated. Everything works fine and in games (like Borderlands) everything works like a charm. Just when the LAN driver is busy the CPU has a 90%-100% load. The process causing the CPU load is in these cases not Chrome, it's the System process according to the task manager. Another hint that the driver should be responsible.


The Graphic card is up to date and running on the latest beta driver from AMD (tried the normal driver too, no difference).


LatencyMon showed me that ndis.sys is causing excessive latency.


Malware Scans are negative with Malwarebytes and ADWCleaner.


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So as a summary:


The problems started when I updated my drivers! But I can't go back to the state before cause I don't have a backup and the restore points already got overwritten by current ones.


What I updated:
Practically almost everything that was outdated - used SlimDrivers.. maybe wasn't the best choice..
I remember:
- Chipset driver (not 100% sure but a lot of Intel drivers)
- SATA AHCI Controller
- Various system drivers like:
--- Intel(R) 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset Family PCI...
--- Intel(R) 5 Series/3400 Series-Chipsatzfamilie - Thermosubsystem
--- and a few others
- Audio Realtek driver
- PCI-E-Gigabit-Ethernet-Controller Qualcomm Atheros AR8151(NDIS 6.30)
- Broadcom 802.11n-Netzwerkadapter


What I tried so far:
- Try to go back by restore points --> didn't work
- Deinstall virus scanner --> didn't work
- removed all apps from startup --> didn't work
- tried to identify the causing process with process explorer --> the process causing the cpu load was either system or chrome, but chrome not to much (30-40%) so I guess its driver related..
- tried to switch back to the old drivers by installing the vendor drivers from acer --> didn't work (maybe there are some drivers missing that I updated via SlimDrivers)


What I found out so far:
- The latency and lags don't appear with Wifi/WLAN --> Just when connected via LAN/Ethernet
- The latency and lags appeared after the driver updates --> So nothing to do with malware
- The latency and lags are caused when streaming videos (only in the time when it's loading/downloading) and when downloading bigger files and probably also when loading a website, but not that strong --> So to sum up: Always when the LAN/Ethernet is busy


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My LAN card:
PCI-E-Gigabit-Ethernet-Controller Qualcomm Atheros AR8151(NDIS 6.30)
Current driver: 2.1.0.16 from Microsoft
Tried 2.1.0.21 from Atheros too.


My System:
Acer Aspire 7745G
Windows 8.1 64x
Intel Core i5
Mobility Radeon HD 5850
4 GB Ram
SanDisk 128GB SSD

What router mfg & model are you using? Also are you experiencing this problem streaming to another device, or just on the computer? If just on the computer, what websites and programs are you using? What resolution are you trying to stream at?

Router is o2 Box 6431.. But with the same router and same laptop I didn't have problems before. They just appeared after messing up the drivers.
And it happens for example on youtube videos.. When I watch them in fullscreen it stutters.

But all of this didn't happen before the driver updates!!!

Can you download Shaper Probe from ShaperProbe and post the results after you run it. It has to be ran in a Command window as administrator. Most likely it is going to be an ISP issue, not Windows.

As far as I understand the tool it checks if the ISP doesn't value every traffic the same which therefore can lead to bad speed with certain traffic, right?

But this is not the problem. My internet speed is fine. The problem is that windows is somehow freezing/stuttering which is best perceived when watching a video and it causes the audio to stutter and distort.

Anyway, the logfile of ShaperProbe:

Thanks for your help so far anyway! I really appreciate it!

At least you have decent speeds. That was what I was looking for. I know that there are still some people having problems with Youtube. Not as many as there were last year, since google stopped muddling with throttling certain ISP's users connecting to their sites.

I only use google Chrome & never have problems with watching videos at say 480p. Anything higher, I get the stopping of the video. This is whether I am on my laptop running Xubuntu 14.04, iPhone or Nexus 7 tablet. Even when I had Comcast before I switched back to ATT, I would get the same results.

What does a traceroute show, if you open up a command window and enter the following: traceroute youtube.com Or use the IP for the closes Youtube server?

What happens if you change the DNS IP's on your computer to say google's for your country? Some ISP's in Europe and other countries have been known to throttle traffic on their network, even though Shaper Probe comes back not stating that it is being done.

Hi broe23.. Thanks again for help, but I guess you missunderstood my problem a little. I don't have problems with the video loading or something. The problem is: when the video is loading (or a file is downloading) it causes havey latencies/lags on my computer which are perceivable by the audio stuttering and distorting or the mouse movement lagging or just the video stopping for milliseconds ALTHOUGH the video is already precached lets say a few minutes.. so its really not a matter of ISP or download speed or something.. it's my computer lagging as hell when Ethernet card is busy.

Maybe I should record a video to show what I mean :/

Did a short LatencyMon test while watching a video. Hope that helps..

I am still thinking ISP issue. What ISP are you with? Anyone else you know with the same ISP, having the same kind of problems?

Can you post the Trace Route to youtube.com to show what is going on between you and their servers.

I have full speed and the videos are caching really fast. Thats really not the problem.
The full system is lagging when I download/cache at full speed. That's the problem.

But the ISP is really not the problem. Since everything was and still is good regarding speed. And the lags are lags causing the whole system to stutter.. even the mouse movement gets interrupted.

So when I download for example a huge file at fullspeed than the whole system lags. When I for example drag a window around then, then there are stutters and interruptions in the movement on the screen.

A speedtest is not going to show routing information, which I have asked for twice now. Now makes the third time, that I need you to run a Trace Route to Youtube from a Command Window. Without that information. This thread is finished.

If you are getting stuttering, etc. The Trace Route will show if it is an issue with your ISP, or outside their network.

Traceroute will not necessarily say anything interesting.

It might but we will see if he can be bothered to provide the info.

adamf said:

Traceroute will not necessarily say anything interesting.

It might but we will see if he can be bothered to provide the info.

Click to expand...

It will show where the problem lies when connecting to Youtube's servers. Without that info, there is nothing more that can be done.

Okay, I guess I'll search for help somewhere else then. I'm thankful for the help that I get and I know you don't have to help, but it's also annoying if you are not reading my posts appropriately.
I know that it's not related to internet problems since I don't have a problem with youtube or it's videos loading/buffering and my overall internet connection is awesome too. I can't emphasize this often enough. Furthermore everything was fine before the driver change so do you wan to say that changing the driver changed my overall traceroute to youtube and my ISP distribution?

To sum up: There is no loading issue with youtube so a trace route doesn't make sense. The lags also appear when I download a huge file with fullspeed. And with lags I don't mean lags reagrading the internet connection, but lags regarding my system. So Windows is collapsing when my Ethernet is really busy and loading something at full speed (youtube, file download etc.)

Thanks anyway for your help. Didn't mean to get anyone upset. I just wanted to report my problem and ask for help.

SOLVED!
Driver Verifier was enabled and caused the lags.
Typing in verifier.exe and "Delete existing settings" fixed it.

@Tomasch. I know you probably won't ever see this, but ty sir. I spent 35 hours trying to fix my screen stuttering and audio loss. I would run my pc for about 5 min and when I launched any streaming video it would stutter and the audio would be fully muted. If I would run a game the game would stutter and the audio would not play. I used Latencymon and Lenovo's diagnostic tool set to find a file named ndis.sys always running high and tripping the error in Latmon. I then went to work finding out how I could make it happen(the stutter). I found out that if I quickly loaded a video I could keep the stuttering from happening, and oddly switching my source audio(from realtek to steelseries) could stop it as well. Still though I would get intense mouse lag and stuttering but on a smaller scale. In gaming I would see huge frame drops right before the audio would stop playing again. On top of that, if I closed the game and ran a streaming video it would stutter with no audio. I was very frustrated. I reset my pc, ran every scan I could think of. I adjusted every video setting my rtx machine has to offer. Updated my bios and rolled it back. I even tried updating every driver I have one at a time until I found it. The issue was in my hardline connection. If I set my laptop to run on wi-fi it wouldn't happen at all. If I connected my ethernet cable and counted to 30 I got stuttering. I went back to searching and found this post. I ran the verifier 4 days ago and bam no stuttering. Not even a little. So, again thank you very much. Not sure why it worked tbh with you and if anyone can tell me why I would super appreciate it but still thanks alot.