Its all wired, but I did notice the 100% flickers to another number consistantly and then back to 100%.

This sound like network collisions.
Do you have people connecting externally, or is it all LAN?
If all your connections are LAN you may be creating a problem by port forwarding when it's not needed.

Most people play via the internet, I'm the only one on the Lan and get the lag too like everyone else.

UPDATE: I am also getting the lag on the pc that runs the server now, so it seems independant of location now.

the computer may need to go down while you do some file maintenance. Sounds possibly file fragmentation.

I would recommend Pagedefrag. This utility will defragment the page file on a startup. Also fun a more traditional defragment utility such as: http://www.tucows.com/preview/505489
or use whatever suites your fancy... I use those both with very good results

I'll give that a go, but strange that if it was lookup/page problems that it wouldn't be more consistant. But, I'm willing to try anything at this point as its a realy bummber...and unique to me for some reason.

your expecting consistency from Windows?

Try a crossover cable between server and computer next to it.

(edit: try different network cables to all machines first too, maybe a bad cable?)

A couple issues this could uncover:

Bad router if the speed is fine.
Bad NIC drivers if speed still is bad
Driver conflict if you have more than one NIC in the server. If speed is still bad.
Bad NIC or NIC settings if speed is still bad.

Also is this a motherbaord integrated NIC on the server? If so and these issues are not resolved by a crossover direct link. Try a PCI NIC and disable the onboard.

Is there any noticeable latency in any other real time environment on either the server or client machines?

Give all that a shot, let us know what happens.

The deep defrags did not help.

Would the crossover do anything, since even logged in on the same machine I get loot lag?

I mention that to make sure it isn't the router and possibly the cable going to the router.

I have a router that does some weird tricks similar to your odd slow downs and sometimes it outright refuses some apps on ports that are set to be open. I replaced the router and all was ok.

If you're running a Virtual Machine for either server or client & are using a bridged network connection, then yes. Otherwise, no.

BAM, fixed.

So, I went into my mysql performance stats. Notices there 100k's of page searches, not using indexes. So i found what query was being used a lot, it involved timers. Well, it had no key. So there where tons of dupliactes, of course no lookup capability. Fixed that, and boom..all problems solved!

that's interesting, was it an EMU table and query or some other project you have going on?

Awesome, glad you got it fixed. I guess I missed that part where you said it was lagging on the same machine too. (I post usually when tired lol)

I second the question if it was something defaulted with the emu that caused it. I haven't personally had this issue. But if someone else does, this thread could serve as a help to them.