Question WiFi - drivers, ping, everything fun

[low to high ping]

A couple days ago my WiFi adapter (Ralink RT5390R 802.11bgn Wi-Fi Adapter) seemingly disconnected, with error code 45 (currently, this hardware device is not connected to the computer) . I tried various fixes but nothing seemed to work and I couldn't get the drivers re-enabled. I'm not an expert and soon gave up and ordered a USB WiFi adapter to plug into my PC to get the missing hardware/drivers.

I can now use WiFi again and I tested my ping but seem to have a series of low pings followed by one seriously high ping / time out and then another series of low pings. Results copied below from the command prompt.

Could someone direct me to help with all these internet issues. Is there a way of fixing my original WiFi adapter? Is the new issue of an irregularly high ping caused by the USB WiFi adapter? Any help would be much appreciated. Thank you!

Pinging 8.8.8.8 with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=10ms TTL=60
Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=10ms TTL=60
Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=10ms TTL=60
Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=8ms TTL=60
Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=1716ms TTL=60
Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=10ms TTL=60
Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=10ms TTL=60
Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=10ms TTL=60
Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=10ms TTL=60
Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=54ms TTL=60
Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=9ms TTL=60
Request timed out.
Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=15ms TTL=60
Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=11ms TTL=60
Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=19ms TTL=60
Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=9ms TTL=60
Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=847ms TTL=60
Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=9ms TTL=60
Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=12ms TTL=60
Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=10ms TTL=60
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=10ms TTL=60

 

[Brian Boru]

Welcome to the forum

You might get more answers at Tom's Hardware, where they specialize in PC hardware parts-we specialize in PC game

Is the new issue of an irregularly high ping caused by the USB WiFi adapter?

I doubt it, more likely that's just the variable nature of the internet under huge load worldwide all the time. There will be peaks and troughs in that load, and the peaks will cause congestion and delays at some points along the route.

I see your pings are all to Google DNS, which is generally very reliable. I don't know if they have any guard in place against repeated pinging of their servers—I imagine most servers do, especially DNS servers. When I ping 8.8.8.8 I get 4 iterations, not 23 like you have.

I used an USB WiFi adapter for years without any problem, so unless you got a bad part, that shouldn't be an issue.

Who's your ISP?