BEFORE you contact Tech Support

One of the things that I noticed when I was having lag issues is that the support department will ask you copious questions about your computer: speed, RAM, connection, network, firewall--all those good things.

Also, someone has suggested that you should 'ping' some sites on the 'Net to see if it's your connection.

A handy site for testing ALL of the above is:

http://www.pcpitstop.com

I would suggest a visit there before you send in a support request and include the information that you gain from the site.

Hope this is helpful.

Tech support is a joke, they simply go over a check list.

No, its not my connection since when I get lag, everyone in the server gets lag so unless I am running the european server of Guild Wars ...

Hence the reason that I posted the site address: To eliminate the need to explain that it is NOT your connection. Enough reports from sites like PCPitstop indicating that connections and people's computers are not at fault, then perhaps tech support will get the picture.

You can copy/paste your test results into an email. Empirical evidence to the contrary will force them to look up the cause of the problem.

Off topic... hey Aniewiel you could have replied my PM you know

Good find on this site, I hae other methods of checking my PC, but for those who don't know how to this site is a good start.

Most ISPs will not block channels, however I like to note that Guild Wars isn't that much of a bandwidth hog once the game is running, so really I feel the cause of lag for most people would be those who download things using WinMX, bittorrent or whatever.

You playing? you should really turn them off.

Not an issue. GW is the only thing running for me. It's not the lag that gets me, its the rubberbanding or whatever you call it when you *think* you are walking up a set of stairs only to find out that you completely missed the stairs.

Good advice Aniewiel.

With regards to running other programs... I have nothing running besides AV, firewall and Guildwars and still suffer from bad lag spikes recently. I am on a 2Mb ADSL line so it is not my connection. Also the fact that everyone in the PvP battle confirms they have just suffered the same, does kind of point the finger towards the servers. They last for around 30-45seconds and have many times prematurely finished the match/mission off as a result. It happens alot recently (maybe coincidence but since latest patch) on the European servers and I am hoping this is not due to our school children finishing school for the summer as I cant bear with this for 7 weeks or so. Hopefully ANet will come and investigate in game on the Euro servers during peak times, as this was never the case for the last 8 weeks.

The lag I experiance is definatly not because of my connection, my ISP, or running other programs in the background, if it was does A.Net think I wouldnt know?

The fact I use taskmanager to manage my PC resources, as well as turn OFF my firewall and AV (yes I know risky, but nothing a C,D and F format wont fix), as well as numerous other little things such as setting all my programme resource allocations, graphic card settings blah blah blah, before I even start to do anything on my PC means its not really going to be 'a compatibility or resource problem'. I know how to solve those iv been playing PC games for years.

This 'rubberbanding' and complete gameplay freeze up combined with no change in pitch of the sound from my PC unit, as well as no spikes in my Processor Usage, network usage, leads me to believe its not really a problem with my PC not being able to handle the game.

I can tell you now its not. Every other one of my games works fine, and any lag I get on other online games is nothing different from the Norm.
This recent 'from nowhere' uber lag that I get in Guild Wars isnt annoying, its mission/competition RUINING.

I walk out a portal - game freezes. I get into a tricky fight - game freezes. Im walking along a path - game freezes. It occure about every 20 minutes, and it can easilly lead to a complete wipe.

Now sort it.