Broadband throttled after 10pm

[Alexus1984]

I recently upgraded my broadband to ultrafast plus and have since noticed when online gaming that after 10pm I start to get massive lag spikes, which makes whatever I'm playing unplayable.

Does Sky throttle internet later at night? Or is this caused by something else?  It's difficult for me to measure this kind of lag/stuttering as any speed checks come up fine, but is it frequently happening.

[mae-3]

@Alexus1984 

Sky doesn't throttle connections at all, it is likely caused by a backup to the cloud drive for such products as Macs and iThings or Windows machines making a backup to OneDrive on a schedule that was set up by backup programs.

How long does the lag occur when this issue happens?

[Alexus1984]

Thanks for your reply, I'm on a Windows 11 PC.

How long does the lag occur when this issue happens?  It spikes repeatedly for around 10 seconds or so at the start of rounds (counter-strike 2) then randomly throughout the game, spikes lasting 2-3 seconds each time.  

If Sky don't throttle connections, then I guess I will have to do more testing, see whats going on with my PC at this time and maybe try other games. 

It just didn't occur previously before I upgraded, router is the same, PC is the same, no new software installed, no engineer came to my property,  just a switch over to the higher speed.  My phone/fibre line to house is very loose and in high winds can move a fair bit, could this effect connection?  (bit of a reach I know!).  

Thank you.

[mae-3]

@Alexus1984 

With fibre it usually isn't impacted by weather like fibre cables rocking, etc... So, it is likely caused by something on the LAN or PC that's new taking excessive upload capacity or an issue with Sky's system routing to the servers concerned.

It will be a difficult issue to isolate, I assume the Windows 11 PC is a really fast modern machine?

[Alexus1984]

Correct, PC is around two years old now, higher end spec, no hardware changes since then.  It will be a challenge to figure out the cause, no issues during the day or evening, only past 10ish do the spikes occur. 

Is there a way to see what devices are pulling bandwidth at any given time through the sky router?

[mae-3]

@Alexus1984 

Unfortunately, the Sky routers don't offer any facility to monitor traffic flow.

But what you could try is disconnecting everything except the PC you are playing the game on and see if it continues. If so, then it'll be the PC itself most likely, video drivers I've seen cause the issue anything driver-wise that has been changed on the PC, and it is a good idea to roll back updates for the period in question as a test on PC.

[Alexus1984]

That's a good idea, although everything connects to the internet nowadays, but will be worth investing the time to eliminate anything else other than the PC itself.  I generally keep video drivers and windows up to date, so could roll back and re-test!  Thank you.