Wi-Fi ping spikes every ~14 seconds on Windows 11 - caused by Location services (with fix)

Question

Wi-Fi ping spikes every ~14 seconds on Windows 11 - caused by Location services (with fix)

MichaelJ-4246 0

Sharing a fix in case it saves someone else hours of troubleshooting.

Symptom

Remote desktop typing lag and choppy video calls on a Windows 11 PC on Wi-Fi.
Pinging the router (normally 1-3 ms) showed bursts of 250-450 ms every ~14 seconds, each lasting about 4 seconds, with occasional packet loss.
Signal was 100% on 5 GHz at 433 Mbps, and hops beyond the router were fine (10-15 ms). The problem was between the PC and the router.

Quick test (1 minute)

Run in PowerShell. A healthy link prints almost nothing; this problem prints a cluster of slow pings repeating about every 14 seconds.

$p = New-Object System.Net.NetworkInformation.Ping; $gw = (Get-NetRoute -DestinationPrefix 0.0.0.0/0 | Sort RouteMetric | Select -First 1).NextHop
$sw = [Diagnostics.Stopwatch]::StartNew()
while ($sw.Elapsed.TotalSeconds -lt 60) { $r = $p.Send($gw, 1500); if ($r.RoundtripTime -ge 50 -or $r.Status -ne 'Success') { "{0,5:N1}s  {1} ms" -f $sw.Elapsed.TotalSeconds, $r.RoundtripTime }; Start-Sleep -Milliseconds 250 }

Cause

The Windows location service (lfsvc) was making the Wi-Fi service run a full network scan every ~14.2 seconds (Windows estimates location from nearby Wi-Fi networks). During each ~4-second scan the adapter leaves its channel, so traffic stalls.

Confirmed with a WLAN-AutoConfig trace (admin):

netsh trace start provider=Microsoft-Windows-WLAN-AutoConfig level=5 tracefile=%TEMP%\wlan.etl report=disabled
(wait 40 s)
netsh trace stop

Read it with Get-WinEvent -Path $env:TEMP\wlan.etl -Oldest: event 14040 "Scan for networks ... flush BSS list = true" (preceded by 14062 "RpcCall InternalScan from client 0") repeated every ~14 s, with scan completion (20023) ~4 s later.

Settings > Privacy > Location showed no app currently using location, which is why this was hard to spot.

Fix

Settings > Privacy & security > Location > Location services: Off
Settings > Time & language > Date & time > Set time zone automatically: Off (this uses location)

Result: 0 spikes over 45 s, max 11 ms to the router. To confirm before changing settings, run Stop-Service lfsvc -Force (admin) and repeat the quick test.

What did NOT help

Switching from a Wi-Fi 7 multi-link (MLO) network to a non-MLO network
Disabling the adapter's "Multi-Channel Concurrent" setting (Realtek 8821CE)
Forcing 5 GHz only (useful, but not the fix)
Closing apps: Steam, Teams, Zoom, OneDrive, Phone Link, NVIDIA overlay, etc.
Not a factor: the PC had well over 50 saved Wi-Fi profiles (none set to probe for hidden networks), and the spikes stopped with all of them still saved

Environment

Windows 11 Pro (Insider build 26300), Realtek 8821CE 802.11ac (driver 2024.10.141.0), Wi-Fi 7 router, 5 GHz DFS channel.

Has anyone else seen location services trigger scans this frequently? Is a ~14 s scan interval expected?

0 comments

2 answers

Your answer

Answer 1

Welcome MichaelJ-4246,

Thank you for sharing your detailed investigation and workaround. Your WLAN trace findings and comparison tests may be helpful to others experiencing similar Wi-Fi latency spikes.

Windows Location services can use nearby Wi-Fi access points to determine device location. However, I couldn't find official documentation confirming that a Wi-Fi scan every approximately 14 seconds is an expected interval.

Since you're using a Windows 11 Insider build, I recommend submitting your findings through the "Feedback Hub" (press "Windows + F"). Include your WLAN trace details, build number, Wi-Fi driver version, and test results so the behavior can be investigated further.

Windows location service and privacy

Thank you again for documenting your findings and sharing the workaround with the community.

Answer 2

Disabling Settings > Privacy & security > Location > Location services is a valid workaround for this reproduced case, but a full Wi‑Fi scan every approximately 14 seconds is not a documented normal Windows cadence and should be reported as a possible Insider-build or driver-specific regression.

What the evidence establishes

Windows Location Services can use nearby wireless access points and routers to determine location, even when no application is visibly using location at that moment. Location also supports Windows features such as automatic time-zone selection.^1^
Windows 11 links access to nearby Wi‑Fi network/BSSID information with location consent. Microsoft also advises developers not to request Wi‑Fi scans unless necessary and to throttle requests to reasonable levels.^2^
WlanSvc is responsible for scanning for wireless networks and managing profiles and connectivity.^3^
A normal Wi‑Fi scan operation is documented as taking approximately four seconds, matching the observed event 14040-to-20023 interval.^4^

The documentation does not define a 14- or 14.2-second recurring scan interval. Therefore, the ETW correlation and the immediate change when lfsvc is stopped or Location Services is disabled are strong evidence for this machine, but they do not establish that the cadence is expected across Windows 11.

One technical qualification: Windows’ Wi‑Fi driver specification says an existing connection should be maintained during scanning, with channels scanned in subsets and airtime returned to the connection between subsets.^4^ The 250–450 ms latency and packet loss therefore suggest that this adapter/driver/build combination is not handling the background scans smoothly; it is safer not to generalize that every Windows scan necessarily stalls traffic for its full duration.

Keep the workaround configured

Open Settings > Privacy & security > Location.
Turn Location services off. This device-wide setting is available to administrators.^1^
Open Settings > Time & language > Date & time.
Turn Set time zone automatically off and select the correct time zone manually.^5^

The trade-offs are loss of location-dependent functionality, including automatic time-zone selection and Find my device.^6^

Stopping lfsvc is useful as a temporary diagnostic comparison, but the supported persistent control is the Location page in Settings. Avoid disabling WlanSvc; that service manages Wi‑Fi scanning, profiles, and connectivity.

Report the undocumented recurrence

Because this occurs on Insider build 26300, submit it through Feedback Hub under Network and Internet > Connecting to a Wi‑Fi network and include:

Reproduction timestamps and the approximately 14.2-second cadence.
Windows build, Realtek 8821CE model, and driver version.
The before/after ping results.
The WLAN ETW trace showing events 14062, 14040, and 20023.
The result with Location Services enabled versus disabled.
The fact that MLO, Multi-Channel Concurrent, band selection, applications, and saved profiles were already ruled out.

Before resetting the network stack, deleting profiles, or reinstalling the driver, preserve those traces; Microsoft’s troubleshooting guidance warns that such changes can remove evidence or temporarily alter the behavior.^3^

In short: the location-triggered scan relationship is consistent with documented Windows behavior, and the four-second scan duration is documented; the approximately 14-second repetition and resulting latency are not documented as expected behavior.

References