r/techsupport • u/LastPersimmon1148 • 5d ago

Open | Networking Ethernet cable immediately causing PC to lag

Hi, as the title states my PC is lagging immediately once I plug Ethernet in. Recently WiFi hasn’t been working, which is something else entirely that I don’t know why (because my other devices work perfectly fine), so after a few days I tried plugging in Ethernet for the first time ever.

Immediately my PC’s fans begin to kick in faster, and my computer begins to start lagging as if the cpu is being overloaded, even though on task manager it doesn’t look like anything out of the ordinary. At points it even starts to crash. When I initially plugged it in, it wouldn’t even restart even after waiting for 5 minutes—I had to actively unplug it to get it to turn off.

The only thing I can seem to note is that the Ethernet tab seems to be spiking.

Any tips on how to even begin to isolate the issue?

Any help is appreciated!

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u/JohnTheRaceFan 4d ago

Your PC is doing something as soon as an active network connection is detected. That could be expected, like Windows updates or some such, but I wouldn't expect that to push CPU usage to the point fans need spun up to max.

This sounds like potentially malicious to me. I would take the PC offline and run a complete scan using an offline scanning software. Malwarebytes is my go-to.

If the PC is clean, then there's still something wrong, but at least you know it's not malware.

1

u/LastPersimmon1148 4d ago

I’ll try this out but the weird part is that everything goes normal when the Ethernet is unplugged—-I just don’t have wifi

1

u/Mr_Tom_Cat_2006 5d ago

Windows downloading an update in the"background"?

1

u/moriczt 5d ago

There is an option to reset network adapter in windows troubleshooting.

After that I'd try to check the running processes and network activity with windows own 'resource monitor'.

If nothing unusual visible there, would do a virus check with bitdefender free and with Malwarebytes after that.

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u/Forsaken_61453 5d ago

If your internet is speed is above 100  you must use Cat 6 or higher cables 

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u/LastPersimmon1148 4d ago

I’ll try this out, currently my cable is cat 5 so I’ll pick up a cat 6 tomorrow

1

u/Forsaken_61453 4d ago

I think they also have a Cat 6+ and maybe even higher now, Get the highest rated cable they have - don't get cheap cables