Just like the title says, every once in a while (two or three times per map) I will run into a complete lockdown due to lag. I can't put in any inputs, can't move or anything... But I CAN type messages and have people read them and reply.  I can also watch everything around me move, watch people run up to me and shoot me, and all of that... And if I go spectator everything works fine.

My ping always shows roughly 100 as per usual, but the only way to get rid of it is to exit the server and relog.

I'm run wiser2, I've reinstalled the game, I've benched my cable connection to see if that was the problem, and I've tried it both on and off of my Linksys router.  All to no avail...

Rate is set at 10000, newest drivers for all my hardware (nic especially) and I have XP updated to the wazooo... I can't think of anything else that would cause this.

Any suggestions now people, Raven crew, your input is very muchly appreciated!

HELP!

This usually means your upload bandwitdh is stressed to the max.

Perhaps someone was using the 'Lag out the enemy cheat'.

Trust no one!

...or it could be what Apoxol said.  I've had that happen a few times as well and run a good box with good connect.  A few friends I game with are on the same ISP as me and generally experiece the problem at the same time I do.

I recommend you get a pot of coffee, a good book, and call your ISP's tech support.

goto www.speedguide.net they have some tweaks for OS and internet connections.

I'm a trained technician, so I'm pretty confident that I have my box tweaked as little or as much as I need.

It may be that there's something running in the background that I'm unaware of (*ahem* here comes AdAware and Norton) but other than that I know that my upstream is 160kBYTE capable, and there's NOTHING but SOF2 that's authorized or known to be using it when I'm playing.

Quick update, I've run Adaware and found no spyware chewing through upstream.  I've run Norton and haven't found a thing.  I've got a netstats program running with a bandwidth monitor and have found no unaccounted for upstream or downstream usage.

This problem happens on any server I play on, and will usually happen (now, used to be longer intervals) within 5 mins of play, thusly rendering any map pointless for me.

As a last resort I'm going to nuke my autoexec.cfg and sof2mp.cfg and see if those help.. If not, I'm stumped.

And even after redoing my cfg, I still get the lag...

So I'm completely stumped... Does ANYONE have any suggestions?

System specs?

AMD Athlon 1800+ XP
512mb PC2700 Samsung DDR (Shikatronics Rebag)
40gb Maxtor 7200rpm
Asus A7V-333 Motherboard
LiteOn 48x12x48 CDRW
Visiontek Geforce 4 Ti4400 (*pout* no more Visiontek)
Microsoft Intellimouse Explorer Optical
Logitech Internet Navigator Keyboard
Logitech z560's 4pc Speakers (400w RMS)
Shaw Cable Internet (10mbit Down, 4mbit Up)
Linksys 4pt Router
MS Windows XP Professional (new install now!
SOF2 1.01
Roger Wilco (latest version, not the issue as it's rarely running)

No other services, programs, virii, or applications running without authorization, verified with AdAware, Norton 2k3, netstat live, network monitor tools pro 3.0, and checked all XP Pro services to make sure nothing funky was running. QOS Packet Scheduling was disabled upon install, and I've run benchmarks on my cable service with assorted web tools to check that.  I've run both with and without the Linksys Router to see if it was possibly goofed up, and that's about all of it...

So...?

(bearing in mind that the current lag issue is on ANY server I play on, happens within 5 minutes of play, and makes the game unplayable for any length of time.  I can still see what happens around me, can see people come up and kill me, and my ping does not change).

I think that covers most if not all of it

Using a router? Does this happen on all servers?