Random Lag Spikes please help

This has been goin on for a while now, happens usually once a day. During the eveneing my internet will just be really slow, my ping is normally like 60 in ventrilo then it jumps to like 500 and usually gets as high as 2000, even been 5000 before. It lasts anywhere from 10 minunte to a few hours, but its usually like a half hour to an hour then my internet is back to normal. Ive tried doing power cycles multiple times but it doesnt help at all, I have a Linksys router and a 5mb cable internet. The times it happens is usually like 8pm or so but sometimes it happens late at night. I would like any help you can give

Have you checked to see if any programs are running updates at that time? Does this happen after a period of continuous usage? are there any other people in the house potentially stealing all the bandwidth?

it is possible your cable provider may be bandwidth limited. 8PM is pretty much the start of the peak internet usage time. Use a speedtest service (speedtest.net speakeasy.net) to document speeds and times as well as the latency you see. Then take the information to your ISP and see what they can do.

I had comcast a few years ago and every now and then their pings would just spike up to 4000ms without reason or cause. We called and complained multiple times and then ended up replacing them when they did not respond.

it usually happens when im playing a game, such as wow or starcraft 2 beta