Connection issues Connection issues are one of the most difficult things to troubleshoot . There are a myriad of things that can affect your connection , some of which are completely out of the hands of Blizzard and you . Here are a list of things you can do to help troubleshoot your issue , and hopefully get it resolved . The first thing to do when you ' re having connection issues is to reboot everything . Turn everything off . Computer , router AND modem . Then , in the following order , turn the modem on . Let it come completely up and sync with the network . Then turn the router on , again , letting it sync with the network . Then turn your PC on . Check to see if the issue persists . Wireless Connections . If you ' re having connection issues , one of the first things you should do is hardwire your system directly to the modem . Does the issue persist ? If not , check the following . Routers . When you ' re having connection issues ( wireless or hardwired ) , you should check your router to ensure it has the latest firmware installed . Also verify that the following TCP ports are not blocked : 3724 , 1119 , 4000 , and 6112 - 6114 . As for port 3724 , if you use the built in voice chat , you ' ll need to ensure 3724 UDP is also opened . Computer . Some things to check on your computer . Is your firewall set to allow the game client through to the network ? Have you tried with the firewall off ? Some software packages claim they allow you to turn the firewall off , but in reality , it ' s still active in the background . Norton is famous for this . If you ' re having issues , you may want to just remove it from your machine until you ' ve narrowed the issue down . Better yet , get rid of it totally and get something better . Sometimes , the DNS cache on your computer gets corrupted , or something changes on the Internet and conflicts with the DNS cache on your machine . What you ' ll need to do is flush the DNS cache . To do this , click on Start , go to your Accessories folder and open the Command Prompt ( note : if you ' re using Vista or Windows 7 , you ' ll need to right mouse click on the command entry and select Run as Administrator ) . Once the command prompt is open , type : ipconfig / flushdns Bear in mind , this will often drop your Internet connection , so a machine restart may be in order . There have been some issues with the Windows firewall and Netgear routers . If you run this combination , turn the Windows firewall off and see if the issue clears up . Network Interface Cards ( NICs ) . Most users will go their entire life without seeing an actual network interface card . With today ' s PC , they ' re built into the motherboard , and they tend to last as long as the PC does . However , I ' ve seen those " onboard " NICs go bad for one reason or another . ( I had one go due to a transformer explosion around the corner of the house . Rest of the PC was fine , NIC was toast . ) It ' s always a good idea to have a spare NIC or two on hand for troubleshooting purposes . They ' re not expensive at all ( 10 - 20 bucks on Newegg ) . There are times where Tech Support may have you modify the settings of your NIC . We ' re not going to get into that here , but we will show you how to bring those settings up . Go into the Device Manger and expand the section " Network Adapters " . You should see some type of Ethernet Adapter listed there . If you double click on that entry , you ' ll then see something like this : Click on the " Advanced " tab and you ' ll find the settings that Tech Support wants you to check and / or modify . Some network cards not have any settings like this in Device Manager , so don ' t panic if you don ' t see the same thing . Traceroutes . Often , a user will be asked to provide the results of a traceroute . This is useful to determine if there are any issues between the user ' s computer and the realm servers . Users should bear in mind that even if your trace looks good , that doesn ' t mean there isn ' t a network issue . Networks utilizing packet shaping on specific ports will not show as having issues with the Windows version of traceroute . Your typical traceroute will look like this : The timeouts from hop 18 to 30 are normal . You ' ll also notice that the actual realm server IP is never shown at the end of the trace . In fact , some traces will show the IP as " unreachable " . This , too , is normal . ICMP packets are often blocked or dropped at the server level to help mitigate DDoS attacks . As far as this trace is concerned , it ' s fairly normal . It ' s showing a slight issue at hop 15 and 17 , but it ' s not something to be overly concerned about . Notice hop 1 ? All the times are less than 1ms . This is a good thing , and your trace should show something similar . ( And this is on my wireless connection , too ! ) If you ' re showing anything higher than 5ms on your first hop , you need to work on getting that lowered . To do a traceroute , do the following . Click on Start , go to your Accessories folder and open the Command Prompt ( note : if you ' re using Vista or Windows 7 , you ' ll need to right mouse click on the command entry and select Run as Administrator ) . At the command prompt , type : tracert xxx . xxx . xxx . xxx ( where xxx . xxx . xxx . xxx is the IP address of the server you ' re tracing to ) . WoWpedia has a complete list of realm servers and IP addresses . However , these IP addresses can change and you may be tracing to an IP address that no longer belongs to the realm server you play on . To determine the actual IP address of your realm server , do the following . Start WoW and log into your realm . Once you ' re logged in , press Alt - Tab and go back to your desktop . Open the Command Prompt again using the procedures listed above . Once it ' s open , type : netstat You should see something like this : Notice the entry that shows : TCP 192 . 168 . 1 . 100 : 55190 206 . 16 . 118 . 164 : 3724 TIME _ WAIT The port number : 3724 is what you ' re looking for . The set of numbers just before that is the IP address of your realm server . Another excellent program is 3D Traceroute from www . d3tr . de . You can leave this program running in the background , and it will provide a graph of your latency between you and the target server . Very useful for determining if there ' s an issue between you and the realm server . You can save the images and provide them to your ISP as proof there ' s something going on . While it may not be on your ISPs network , they ' re still required to pass any issues up the chain as a peer partner . Speaking of ISPs , don ' t try to argue with the Tier I script monkey . If you ' re seeing network issues , insist on speaking with Tier II . THOSE are the guys you ' ll want to deal with if you ' re seeing any issues on the network itself . And again , this isn ' t just for issues found with your ISP . Remember , as a peer partner , they ' re required to pass any issues found up the chain until it gets to the proper provider . And no , this is NOT the responsibility of Blizzard . Packet shaping . As mentioned earlier , the Windows version of Traceroute will not always show there ' s an issue with your connection . The reason for this is traceroute sends the packets using ICMP ( Internet Control Message Protocol ) . This is a special set of instructions designed to query for errors on the network . And with the Windows version of traceroute , you can ' t specify the port you wish to trace to . Bear in mind , just because you have a good trace to the server , doesn ' t always mean that everything is fine . Your ISP could be using packet shaping on port 3724 which will kill your latency to the realm server . Packet shaping is used for a few reasons , the primary reason being bandwidth throttling . By using packet shaping , an ISP can allow unfettered access to webpages via port 80 , yet delay the connections on port 3724 , resulting in extremely high latency in game , and trace after trace will look just fine . Most ISPs won ' t tell you if they ' re using packet shaping ( although some university campus IT departments will ) . Comcast was one of the most recent providers caught doing it , although they vehemently denied it . It ' s rumored that some Australian providers also use packet shaping . The Glasnost Transparency Project can be used to assist you in determining if you have an issue with the higher ports on your connection . College networks . Many universities have locked down the required ports needed for game play due to file sharing issues . Many are under the misconception that they must lock these ports down , or face loss of federal funding . This is not the case . The Digital Millennium Copyright Act and the Higher Education Opportunity Act require universities to actively seek out and punish those who participate in illegal file sharing practices . However , instead of doing that , many campuses just block all peer to peer ports in an effort to comply with the law . And even though the ports may be open , they may enforce packet shaping on them . This will result in higher than normal latency between you and the realm servers . And this practice isn ' t limited to just campus networks . Some ISPs have been known to utilize packet shaping as well . The problem is , you can ' t determine if this is the case by a simple traceroute ( unless you ' re using Linux ) . ICMP packets are sent differently and are usually allowed unimpeded through the network ( although some campus networks will block ICMP packets as well ) . About the only thing you can do is approach your campus IT department and inquire if they use packet shaping . If they do , Blizzard will work with them to open the required ports for traffic destined to the realm servers , while leaving the rest of the packet shaping intact for all other traffic . Some IT departments are open to doing this , others are not . Your mileage may vary .