Thread: Vista Wireless Network Lag/Spikes

Basically, I get random spikes and lag every 30 to 60 seconds (sometimes even less) on a wireless connection in Vista.

Does anyone know how to fix it? Online gaming is almost impossible, especially in WC3 (apparently it's a lag-fest when I host).

Apparently, Windows looks for a new access point every 30-60 seconds, thus giving me the lag/spikes.

I got up to turning off WLAN AutoConfig in the above link, but couldn't find where to manually input my SSID.

Using Vista x64 and D-Link DWL-G520 card.

Lags and spikes every 60 seconds as everyone all over the Internet mentioned. Tried VAL, WLAN optimizer, batch files to disable wlan service, nothing helped.

Then I decided to try the abovementioned advice to use windows xp drivers. Luckily, DWL-G520 has 64 bit XP drivers, so I could use those.

DO NOT INSTALL UTILITY (i.e. do not start setup.exe file)! It won't work with Vista. Instead, install only .inf file by using device manager.

Guess what? NO SPIKES, NO LAGS! Even without dlink utility! Not using VAL or WLAN optimizers - and problem is still solved! What's even more amazing is that I used to get 50 ms ping to my provider and now I get 31 ms all the time, and it STAYS 31 ms all the time!

So, to all x64 Vista users: try XP x64 drivers only, without utility. Good luck!

Hello, as a random act of kindness of whom ever googles vista wireless lag spike I will tell you how to fix it here as it took me awhile to find out.

Thanks to the genius of Microsoft, Windows Vista has a feature built into it that looks for another network to connect to that is more preferred than the one you are currently on. This feature runs every 60 seconds causing massive lag spikes as your computer runs a scan for other networks. Thankfully this is only a feature in vista and not XP or Windows 7. Currently the only work around I found in order to get this scan to stop was by going to: Start (windows button) > Control Panel > Network and Sharing Center > Manage Wireless networks (on the left side) > then right click on your Networks Name (SSID) and go to properties. Once in properties you would then turn off "Connect to a more preferred network if available". Then you would open up the command prompt and type in "C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe /k netsh wlan set autoconfig enabled=no interface="Wireless Network Connection 1" to turn off the scan and: C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe /k netsh wlan set autoconfig enabled=yes interface="Wireless Network Connection 1" to turn on the scan. I would like to note here that where I have "Wireless Network Connection 1" this would be the name of your OWN wireless connection. Turning it off allows you to go lag spike free for gaming or pinging or whatever else you need your connection to do.