Right im playing on counter strike source and on any serevers even when they are in the same country as mine (UK) my ping rises to around 300 - 500!

It will lower but it can take just like a minute to lower or sometimes 20 mins but by then im kicked from server, i dont run any programs in background like MSN or download but i have zonealarm and AVG dell support steam and thats about it.

Those are the programs running in the tray, i do have more background proccesses but i they are small. Ive done a recent virus / spyware scan and only 1 thing came up and that was low risk and deleted.

Also i do get the effects of ping rising i start to stutter as bad a gareth gates and like i move to a place and disappear to a different place.

Its annoying and recently i updated my RAM to 1024MB from 512MB and before i never used to lag on de_aztec and now i do! i dont know why please help!

i do the command 'rate 18000 or 15000' that lowers it for around 10 - 30 mins and rises again!

Please help!