Does this mean I have a virus?  My ping is usually 20-30, but the last couple weeks I've been getting spikes of 500 or more.  Or I won't even see a rise in ping, but it starts getting choppy.

stop the mods, chams, hacks. you haxz0r!!!!

lol, check your internet, might be working on it in your area.

Turn off your aimbot.

your neighbor is downloading porn off your wifi

Pause the pr0n downloads

Girlfriend or wife is doing a cam show in the TEAM forum.

Every fucking thing on a Windoze computer wants to do automatic updates. You have to turn them all off and do it manually when you aren't gaming. Sometimes you may also need to turn off virus scans and other automated shit. Also check other devices on your network for the same behavior.



There are also other causes of lag that you can't do jack shit about, like a fucked up server, or problems on the route between your computer and the server.



Sometimes just poor programming by the game devs can be an issue. Starcraft 2 was doing this to me 2 updates ago, as soon as the game was launched my ping would go to the 800ms range. COD Black Ops 2 has also had this problem recently after an update fucked things up.