Network Problems

[The Red Comet]

I've been having some internet problems that have been extremely frustrating. Whenever I play TF2, the game spontaneously freezes every maybe 5-10 minutes, and the disconnect timer counts down. Sometimes after 10-15 seconds the game just comes back, while other times my connection actually fails, and I have to reset it (usually taking longer than the disconnect time, so I get dropped). I actually got dropped from a scrim today, and couldn't rejoin because the server had filled up while I was gone.

So, does anyone have any idea what's wrong and how I can fix it? Thanks.

EDIT: This does not occur while I'm browsing the web or anything, strangely enough. Only during online games and (with less frequency) when I'm downloading.

 

[Lafinass]

The nature of client/server communication in video games makes it inherently more sensitive to network connection issues. If you lose your internet connection for 10 seconds you wouldn't notice it while browsing unless you happen to send a page request during that time. Is this a new problem? If so, how long has it been going on and what has changed (hardware, software, etc), if anything, on your end?

 

[The Red Comet]

I'm pretty sure I've had this problem for a long time, but I don't recall any hardware/software changes that could've affected this.