My connection briefly froze today. I could still hear my friend in voice chat, but my microphone stopped working and the game completely stalled. It only recovered after I unplugged the Ethernet cable from my PC and plugged it back in. I have also noticed occasional minor stutters despite using a Ryzen 7 5700X, RTX 3060, 16 GB of RAM, and an ASUS Prime B550M-K motherboard. An AI suggested that the motherboard's built-in network adapter might be failing and recommended installing a dedicated internal network card. I recently changed internet providers, replaced the Ethernet cable, reinstalled Windows, and updated the drivers. Could the network adapter really be the cause, or should I test something else first?
2 Answers
Run hardware stress tests with a tool such as AIDA64 or OCCT and watch which test triggers the freeze. Also try using your phone’s USB tethering temporarily as the network connection. If the problem disappears with tethering, the Ethernet adapter, cable path, or its driver becomes much more suspicious. If the entire computer still stutters, the cause is probably elsewhere.
Before buying a network card, check the health of your storage drive. A failing drive can cause the whole system to hang briefly and may look like a network problem. It is worth running a drive health check and reviewing the system logs for errors.
That makes sense. I’ll try the stress tests and USB tethering before replacing any hardware.