Periodic lag spikes and a Wireless FiXP replacement

Ever since we moved into the flat we’re in now, my wireless connection has suffered periodic lag spikes during online games. They were happening about every minute, and lasting around 5 seconds each. There’s nothing like a recurring lag spike during a hectic game to rain on your parade, so it had really been getting me down.

I’d searched the web about the problem, and it seemed to be caused by Windows’ “Wireless Zero Configuration” service doing something periodically. Every time it did it, I got a lag spike. So what was the solution?

The solution was to disable the service. But of course when I did that, my wireless LAN connection wouldn’t connect to any networks. So what was the solution to that?

Simple!

• Start the service.
• Wait for an internet connection.
• Stop the service again.

That’s not too bad, but a pain to do manually every time you switch on your PC. Apparently there was a script or program called “Wireless FiXP” which did it automatically, but I couldn’t find it anywhere. There are numerous links back to the original author’s page, but the original page is now a 404.

So after I knew what the problem was, it didn’t take too long to put together a replacement batch file. I present it here for anyone else searching in vain for Wireless FiXP.

@echo off

net start "Wireless Zero Configuration"

:retry
ping -n 1 www.google.com
if errorlevel 1 goto retry

net stop "Wireless Zero Configuration"

Drop that in your Startup folder so it gets run on each boot and you should be good to go.

So hopefully that’ll help someone else out. If so, enjoy your lag free gaming!