Obligatory: You should ditch windows and install Linux instead
Now, with that out of the way:
Sounds like a hardware problem. Is this a stationary or a laptop? How have you ruled out overheating? Keep in mind that there are more things than the CPU that can overheat.
I’ve used that type you see on the left there. They’re awful and dangerous.
It’s better to bring an adapter specifically made for the plug you have and the sockets where you’re headed.
When flat They’re mostly fine, but those “universal” ones have so little grip in them to cater to all plug types, that when wall mounted, the plug usually is left hanging half-inserted, exposing the live conductors.
Last week I was peer pressured into trying out Helldivers 2 (yes, this is relevant, trust me), so I downloaded it, installed it, and fired it up with no issues. Set up my preferred control schema with no issues. Played the torturial with no issues.
Then came time for joining my friends in multiplayer. Issues! No matter what I did, I couldn’t seem to join them. Nor could they join me.
I verified the installed files, I tried to connect via my phone to rule out ISP issues, and I tried all of the different versions of proton, but the result remained the same. I simply couldn’t join my friends.
I don’t remember what caused me to go down the right path of troubleshooting, but I’ve always dosabled IPv6 on my linux installs. So I re-enabled it. The problem remained. Then I realized that I had it disabled in the kernel via grub command line flags, so I cuanged that and gave my PC a reboot. Success!
So, despite networking being a large (maybe even the largest) part of my vocation for the past two decades, last week was the first time ever I actually NEEDED IPv6.
Can you claim that you don’t have a smartphone? Then they’d either have to provide an alternative authentication method, or provide you with a phone.
I’ve been part of the Microsoft Bad crowd for well over 25 years now, but there are a few things that I will concede that MS has done well. Authenticator is one of them. I haven’t looked much into the privacy aspect of it, though.