Persistent small blips in my broadband connection

I wonder if anyone knows what's causing this little problem?

We pay for the best broadband our service provider has to offer. They describe it as super-fast etc etc, all the bells and whistles. However, I keep getting small blips in service at almost regular intervals, and this has happened whichever quality of service we've used.

I cannot go a full hour without my broadband being interrupted, just enough to throw out whatever I'm doing, but not long enough to warrant getting up and doing something else. I can't watch an episode of a tv show without a blip at some point, I can't play an on-line game without getting booted just as I'm getting into it, I can't write a long forum post without having the worry of a shut down the moment I press send, I can get shut-off while listing items on ebay, not knowing what's actually gone on sale and also disrupting my ending time pattern.

I'll hear this slight churning from my pc tower, the dreaded circle of doom appears on my screen, a small yellow triangle appears inside my taskbar internet icon, the PC tower churns some more, I have to wait between 30 seconds and 90 seconds, and everything is back to normal.

Most of the time this can be first world problems, but because of it's persistency, every day, every hour (randomly, not a specific time), never ceasing, it's like a dripping tap torture, each drip more frustrating than the last, and then, every now and then, it disrupts something really important, like missing an auction I'd waited all week for, or snapping me out of a really atmospheric movie at a crucial moment, all emotional build-up destroyed by the time I get back etc etc. It's kind-of insanity inducing. It actually prevents me from playing some on-line games because there's no way I can complete the game, such as various multi-player activities, which is verging on a human rights violation in the gaming world, in that I am physically prevented from competing.

There's a chance it could be something wrong with my tower. There's a chance it could be something wrong with my broadband service. There's a chance it could mean my system's virused/hacked/under surveillance. There's a chance it could be that my software has trouble reading too much data and is self-knotted somehow.

What's your experience of why this might keep happening?

Perhaps try SysInternals Process Monitor?

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb545021.aspx

You could watch what is going on when the blip actually happens and see if something activating is causing it.

Heres a guide to use them as they are quite powerful and useful.

http://www.howtogeek.com/school/sysinternals-pro/lesson1/

If its hardware related then the tools will not tell you anything useful tho but if some sort of Ad thingy is popping up then Process Monitor will let you know for sure.

1. Set power plan options to Maximum Performance so windows doesn't turn off network resources assuming that are not in currently use.

2. Recheck your drivers. Both soundcard and network! Did I just go crazy? No. If chips there are both Realtek's, outdated driver can cause either network problems or static on speakers while there is no actual sound that should play.

3. Uninstall MMOs.

Do you have just the PC on the network? If you have a WiFi router, you can check it with different tools.

I used to have wireless connection but changed to ethernet in an attempt to solve the problem, unfortunately it made no difference.

Basically, Everything between the phone socket and the PC has been changed since the problem started, leaving me to conclude its either in my PC or something from the phone socket and out into the world.

We do have a crackly phone line, we've always had this (well for donkey's years). Whenever we phone to complain they just send us new intermediary equipment (from the socket to the pc) because they're going through a standard routine. The only next step is for them to come and check the line, however, if they don't find a problem externally and the problem is internal, they'll charge $400 for the pleasure - and we have had the engineers out before.

So I've got to try to figure out what in the computer might do this or what between the phone socket and the external (street) connection might do it before I call them out (again).

For malware, the list of top 10 warning signs I can check off:

1. Slowdown - I have no other issues and do not experience any slowdowns.
2. Pop-ups - I do not get any pop-ups.
3. Crashes - I do not get any crashes.
4. Suspicious hard drive activity - I notice nothing out of the ordinary in Task Manager.
5. Running out of hard drive space - nope, plenty of that left.
6. Unusually high network activity - possibly, wouldn't know.
7. New Browser home page, new toolbars and/or your browser opens unwanted websites - nope.
8. Unusual messages or programs starting automatically - nope.
9. Your security solution is disabled - nope.
10. Your friends say they receive strange messages or e-mails from you - nope.

I can't really test with another computer as I don't want MS sending Win 10 spam to my gaming laptop and keep my laptop permanently off-line and switched to not autoupdate should I briefly put it online. But if I must I guess this would be the best way of checking the PC side of it.

What between the phone socket and the street connection might cause this issue do you think?

You need to test with another PC. That will tell you if its specific PC related or line related. You can disable the PC from doing anything Win 10 related by uninstalling the update from MS that enabled Win 10 spam. I can't remember which update it was atm but just do a google search.

If you have the stuffs to setup up wireless and you don't want to test with another PC you can also test with your smartphone....

Anyway if you do hear a "sound" from your PC each time it happens, my bet is some problem with your PC.