Something seems to be eating my bandwidth

Something seems to be filling up all my bandwidth, and I can't figure out what it is.

I'm on a cable (1800/256) connection.

I'm running a newsreader and Kazaa (well, and IE), but those should be the only things using my connection. According to the newsreader and Kazaa (and from my own judgment) they are only using maybe 80kBps. This is unusual because normally I get 160kBps from the newsreader alone. They are both far slower than normal. My internet browsing is slow as well.

But for some reason, my bandwidth meters both report a DL speed of around 170kBps (up is around 15kBps). Using DU Meter and Net Activity Diagram.

Is there a utility that breaks down my bandwidth usage so I can see what's going on? Or does anyone have any idea what is happening?

What's your os ? don't run any of the programs either and see if it's still being used"the bandwidth".

Also, try putting in ZoneAlarm. It's free, and any time a program tries to access the internet, you can tell it whether or not to let it through.

This way you can track down the guilty program.

you are on cable, your branch of the line, might be geting saturated, and others are eating in to your bandwidth. then again it might be something on your end, are you folding? i know when i fold, that because the CPU is maxed out, some of my network utils run slower, and if i am recording with my capture card, everything on my system slows down alot. just a few ideas on what might be slowing down your link.

dagamore said:

you are on cable, your branch of the line, might be geting saturated, and others are eating in to your bandwidth. then again it might be something on your end, are you folding? i know when i fold, that because the CPU is maxed out, some of my network utils run slower, and if i am recording with my capture card, everything on my system slows down alot. just a few ideas on what might be slowing down your link.

Click to expand...

I would agree, but if that were so, dslreports wouldn't be giving him 170kB/s download speed...I'm guessing there may be a program loading your CPU or RAM that causes your end of the line to slow down like dagamore said. You might also want to check your NIC settings and see what you're set at. The only other thing I can think of is the modem...

Possible virus? Some viruses force your computer to assist in a Distributed Denial Of Service DDOS attack, where it would use your full upload bandwidth, and a little bit of your download bandwidth. Using all your upload bandwidth will result in crappy download speeds.

I agree with the congestion of Cable idea mentioned earlier..

With Kazaa, you can only recieve as fast as other people send, so I wouldn't use that as a benchmark of your network. Try benching it at www.dslreports.com and see what you test as.

I just realized that the DL rates he gave weren't from dslreports....Why did I think they were???
Oh well, yeah...bench your speed on dslreports.com

Kazaa has spyware/adware...those background programs could be sending/receiving data.

I found a week or two ago that almost everytime I was online here at the forums (I know they aren't the guilty party) my shared network folder was being downloaded from by various people around the world. My modem lights were on all the time. Don't know what loophole that was in windoze, but zonealarm showed me what was up, and their IP's, and that loophole is now gone.
I'd traced the IP's for an evening, but decided they were probably bogus, so I simply went to work plugging winholes, but I didn't see any that specifically dealt with home networking bugs.

You have a drive shared on your home network? Password it? Got the security patches for windoze?

Hehehe, hope they enjoyed my son's book report...that's what they were downloading.

Also, get Ad Aware to rid yourself of spyware. This can also lead to sluggish bandwidth.

QoS? it reserves 20% of your bandwidth in newer windows versions... check your services