stuttering and lag spikes in games, P170SM w/ AC7260 & GTX 770M

On the 20th of this month I received a new laptop (P170SM/NP8275 from CLEVO) that has the following specs:
Windows 7 Home Premium x64 Core i7 4700MQ CPU Nvidia GTX770M GPU Samsung 840 EVO 120GB SSD (primary) Intel 7260 AC Dual Band wireless card
The issue is - while my FPS in dota2 never drops below ~65-70 every few minutes I get a harsh lag spike paired with stuttering. It makes the game unplayable for me and I have no idea why it occurs.
Things I have tried:

• Updating Bios
• Updating (via clean driver install) Nvidia Drivers
• Updating (via clean install) Wifi Drivers
• Turning off the wifi card and using the external USB wifi card from my desktop (that has no lag)
• Physically removing the wifi card
• Numerous fixes related to vsync via nvidia control panel/msi afterburner
• Disabling vsync altogether
• Turning graphics options down to the very minimum
• Moving the game off of my SSD and onto a secondary drive
• Using the IGP on minimum settings
• Disabling of firewall

Playing via ethernet seems to fix the issue but that isn't really a reliable fix considering my location and lack of access via ethernet. When playing via wlan every so often the stutter pops up and a net_graph 3 shows a moderate (going from 110 to 130-190) ping spike as well as packet loss, it'll then go back to normal for a random amount of time.
nothing in the above has done anything to fix the issues. I'm using no autoexec.cfg on a brand new installation of win7 atm with nothing installed other than the barest possible drivers + steam&dota2. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

It sure sounds like 7260 is at fault. My new almost "favorite" card (AR828x are still worse than this one).

Are you connected to the router using 2.4GHz band? Because if you are, you are going to buy a new router (or a card) or sue Intel.
Intel 7260 doesn't work on 2.4GHz band for all practical intents and purposes.

If you have a dual band router use 5GHz band - this is likely to solve the problem.

 

How can the AC 7260 be at fault when I said in my post that I removed it physically from the system and used a usb wifi device and got the same issue? The same wifi device that I use on my desktop without issue, connecting to the same router from the same position.

 

That part led me to believe that turning of the inbuilt Wi-Fi and using inbuilt one results in no lag. Seems to be a misunderstanding.

To get the full picture, what's the rest of the setup? Router, security settings etc.

 

Netgear DGN2200 DSL Modem/Router with no security. It has worked for dota on my desktop fine for 2 years with my USB wifi card (Netgear WNA3100) so I don't think its the router, or the wifi card. Also, I tested it at a friend's place last night, not sure what model router they were using but it was on 5ghz band, (showing 300mbps in wireless properties) but the stutter was still an issue.

 

Do the test again with both 7260AC and the Netgear USB WiFi. This time, turn off USB selective suspend in the power options. Also, there maybe DPC latency issues with the 7260AC which can cause stuttering in games. On my 7260N, I get no massive ping spikes nor lag due to ping. Ping spikes with 7260N or 7260AC shouldn't occur if the band is 5 GHz and no dpc latency is observed.

 

I already checked DPC latency (one of the first things I checked when I got the system) and its all in the green. I've already turned off usb selective suspend.

 

Have you tried pinging the router / AP and see if you get ping spikes with it. I just did mine with my 7260N and if it works fine you should get results something like this:

Code:

Pinging 192.168.1.101 with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 192.168.1.101: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.101: bytes=32 time=2ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.101: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.101: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.101: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.101: bytes=32 time=2ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.101: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.101: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.101: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.101: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.101: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.101: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.101: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.101: bytes=32 time=2ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.101: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.101: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.101: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.101: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.101: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.101: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.101: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.101: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.101: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.101: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.101: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.101: bytes=32 time=2ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.101: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.101: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.101: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.101: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.101: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.101: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.101: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.101: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.101: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.101: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.101: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.101: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.101: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.101: bytes=32 time=10ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.101: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.101: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.101: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.101: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.101: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.101: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.101: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.101: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.101: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.101: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.101: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.101: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.101: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.101: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.101: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.101: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.101: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.101: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.101: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.101: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.101: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.101: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.101: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.101: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.101: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.101: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.101: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.101: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.101: bytes=32 time=10ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.101: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.101: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.101: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.101: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.101: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.101: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.101: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.101: bytes=32 time=2ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.101: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.101: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
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Reply from 192.168.1.101: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.101: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.101: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.101: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.101: bytes=32 time=4ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.101: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.101: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.101: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.101: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.101: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.101: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.101: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.101: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.101: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.101: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.101: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.101: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.101: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.101: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.101: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.101: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.101: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.101: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64

Ping statistics for 192.168.1.101:
    Packets: Sent = 400, Received = 400, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
    Minimum = 0ms, Maximum = 10ms, Average = 0ms

View attachment sss.txt

 

The ping spikes are still there. I tried both the USB card & the internal card and both got several ping spikes. Both of them went something lke 1ms 1ms 1ms 54ms 201ms 1ms 1ms (1-2ms variance in the spikes between the two cards)

 

That's the reason for your stuttering. 201ms is huge. Interference at 5 GHz possibly. I do get ping spikes at 2.4 GHz but none at all at 5 GHz. Maybe you have a device that produces noise at around 5 GHz which causes ping spikes.

 

wouldn' that also cause spikes when using the USB card @ 5ghz on my desktop? I get no such spikes on my desktop in the same spot, when I swap that card over. Also the spikes happen at both 5GHz and 2.4GHz

 

It sounds like a power management issue to me. Well, disabling USB selective suspend, PCIE link-state power management and a "balanced" power profile works for my laptop plugged in. If I use the battery, I do get a slightly higher pings as part of power saving feature. Try setting the roaming aggressiveness to lowest and see if you get ping spikes when pinging the router at least 400 times.

 

Well, I clean installed windows (again) today after trying to see if the internal card would work any better under linux (it did not) however, with my current windows install the netgear USB wifi card...0 issue. No spikes. no stutters. I have no idea why but now it works fine. Guess I'll find out about getting a different wireless card if this one won't work for me.

 

I had the same issue with the 7260 in AC mode and discovered it is because of the wzc service periodically scanning for networks.
You can replicate the lag spike issue if you have a ping running in the background while you "refresh" the list of wireless networks available.

I fixed this by installing a program called WLAN optimizer.

Home-WLAN Optimizer - Optimize wireless gaming, audio and video streaming...

Enabling streaming mode will fix the lag spikes though after having the program open for a while sometimes streaming mode gets turned off again. You'll need to restart the program in order to enable streaming mode again.