Network Latency ??

I am working on a site that has all Cisco equipment for connectivity. I have an intermittant problem where I can ping just about any (random) device (PC or Server) between 4-9 pings before it responds. After it responds it will continue to respond for a period of time not yet determined. I have someone onsite checking into this for me. My question is what could be making these devices act like they are “waking up”? I am having the local ops verify these devices do not have Wake on LAN configured in the BIOS but I’m fishing now.

Any suggestions would be welcome.
Thanks,