Something is downloading onto my laptop and I don't know what it is.

Overblood

When I download files, my laptop makes a distinct noise that only happens when I'm downloading.

I can hear that noise now, and youtube won't load properly. Everything is gone slow. I'm not downloading anything, but something is being downloaded in the background. It might be some stupid update or something but I want to make sure. Is there any way of telling what programs are connected to the interweb right now?

Junior #8

Overblood wrote: »

When I download files, my laptop makes a distinct noise that only happens when I'm downloading.

I can hear that noise now, and youtube won't load properly. Everything is gone slow. I'm not downloading anything, but something is being downloaded in the background. It might be some stupid update or something but I want to make sure. Is there any way of telling what programs are connected to the interweb right now?

well, firstly (Im assuming youre using vista or XP) hit ctrl+shift+esc and look at errand processes running on you computer. Open where these are located, and see the problem. You may have some kind of malicious hardware code running. Then if you can get your hands on a trial for nod32 and run a scan (the best on the market imho)

All else fails, Windows 7 beta release for the win.....
good luck

Overblood

On xp. Yeah I hit Ctrl Alt Del, nothing out of the ordinary. It doesn't tell you which one is using the internet anyway.

Got my hands on NetLimiter 2, gonna give that a shcazz.

kippy

Could be:
Windows updates.
Antivirus updates.
Updates for other pieces of software.
Limewire/Torrents autostarted in the background.

If you want to narrow it down, check here for ways to figure what is using the connection:
http://www.troublefixers.com/how-to-check-which-application-or-software-is-using-internet-connection/

Junior #8

Overblood wrote: »

On xp. Yeah I hit Ctrl Alt Del, nothing out of the ordinary. It doesn't tell you which one is using the internet anyway.

Got my hands on NetLimiter 2, gonna give that a shcazz.

Yeah do what you can, its just the skiddies who write these things tend to have ways around it.
But yes, post above is also true, and is probably the problems.
do you use Azereus, uTorrent or bitTorrent?
It could be a bot. This is chewing up your bandwidth and processor (your now part of a DDoS attack if this is the case)

marco_polo

Install a firewall like Comodo, it tell you exactly what programs are connected to the Internet and also make you explicitly give permission to processes to connect.

Just looking at mine now and 100% of my traffic is firefox.

Cuddlesworth

Overblood wrote: »

When I download files, my laptop makes a distinct noise that only happens when I'm downloading.

I can hear that noise now, and youtube won't load properly. Everything is gone slow. I'm not downloading anything, but something is being downloaded in the background. It might be some stupid update or something but I want to make sure. Is there any way of telling what programs are connected to the interweb right now?

Lol, I hear a noise. And four replies which tell you to check for programs downloading because you said it was that. Unbelievable.

Its your hard-drive, so something is happening on your hard-drive. Anti virus scan perhaps? On older single core machines virus scans will decimate performance.

kippy

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

Lol, I hear a noise. And four replies which tell you to check for programs downloading because you said it was that. Unbelievable.

Its your hard-drive, so something is happening on your hard-drive. Anti virus scan perhaps? On older single core machines virus scans will decimate performance.

What did the OP ask for in his post?
I'll refresh your memory:
"Is there any way of telling what programs are connected to the interweb right now?"
What answers did he get?

From your assumptions, what would make you think that the Virus scan runs ONLY when he is downloading data?
OP says this:
"When I download files, my laptop makes a distinct noise that only happens when I'm downloading.

I can hear that noise now"

rocky

ah, that hypnotic download noise...

KokaNoodles

9 times out of 10 its porn, just sit back and enjoy
But seriously, my laptop makes that noise when theres a disk in it or when its over heating.

marco_polo

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

Lol, I hear a noise. And four replies which tell you to check for programs downloading because you said it was that. Unbelievable.

Its your hard-drive, so something is happening on your hard-drive. Anti virus scan perhaps? On older single core machines virus scans will decimate performance.

Do you know for a fact it was HDD noise? Any explaination for why his HDD would magically slip into silent mode when he is not downloading anything?

Interference noise is not completely unheard of from certain brands of wireless card for example.

Is there any particular reason not to take the OP at his word that is only happens when data is being downloaded?

Cuddlesworth

marco_polo wrote: »

Do you know for a fact it was HDD noise? Any explaination for why his HDD would magically slip into silent mode when he is not downloading anything?

Interference noise is not completely unheard of from certain brands of wireless card for example.

Is there any particular reason not to take the OP at his word that is only happens when data is being downloaded?

You can try pick a fight all you want. But if somebody told me remotely that their "download" noise was on when they were not downloading I would immediately question the source of the noise and ignore the download part. On a laptop, during downloading the most obvious would be a very audible hard-drive. Which could be set off by anything else which would run the hard-drive continuously while the system is on. In order to diagnose the problem(which there doesn't seem to be), telling the person to do steps that are inherently pointless is pointless in itself.

Tallon

Can you tell us what type of noise are you hearing?

Hard-disk running?
Fan running?
System beeps?
A bear eating a dip dab with his fingers?

Effluo

ohhhhhh
the computer is now downloading noise...

It goes something like this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOxsNAjeN-A

kippy

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

You can try pick a fight all you want. But if somebody told me remotely that their "download" noise was on when they were not downloading I would immediately question the source of the noise and ignore the download part. On a laptop, during downloading the most obvious would be a very audible hard-drive. Which could be set off by anything else which would run the hard-drive continuously while the system is on. In order to diagnose the problem(which there doesn't seem to be), telling the person to do steps that are inherently pointless is pointless in itself.

What was the question that the OP asked?

Cuddlesworth

kippy wrote: »

What was the question that the OP asked?

You read, I want to know what's downloading?

I read, I want to know what's causing that noise?

Here's the original post. I highlighted the important information from the post.

Overblood wrote: »

When I download files, my laptop makes a distinct noise that only happens when I'm downloading.

I can hear that noise now, and youtube won't load properly. Everything is gone slow. I'm not downloading anything, but something is being downloaded in the background. It might be some stupid update or something but I want to make sure. Is there any way of telling what programs are connected to the interweb right now?

"Distinct noise", Considering that on a laptop there are only four things that should make noise. The speakers, fan, cd drive and the hard-drive. Electrical components do not produce any audible noise which could be classified as distinctive. Now since I have never seen a program that plays noise through the speakers during network activity and I don't think I will ever see one since its a stupid idea. I make the assumption that the CD drive doesn't kick off when downloading, and the fan won't feel the need to kick on at something which isn't extremely strenuous. That leaves the distinct noise to be the hard-drive.


"I can hear that noise now". So the hard-drive is active.

"youtube won't load properly". Its been my experience that flash videos tend to not play to normal standards on crap laptops which are doing something which involves a decent bit of processing power. Like a virus scan. It could be as suggested something downloading. It could be another machine taking bandwidth. The least likely option in my mind, is something downloading. The things is, programs don't really do heavy downloading in the background any more. Windows happily points out its downloading as do all other apps now days. Malware doesn't download. Its pointless for it, its just a money making operation now.

"Everything is gone slow". You see, there's a bit of a leap in my mind to the internet slow, to everything is slow. At that point I'm straight back to the hard-drive, since the 5,400rpm drives in laptops are really incapable of doing two things at once. A download through a wireless connection would at best realistic be pulling down a network speed of about 14-15 megabytes. So even if he has one of the best internet connections in Ireland, he could really be only seeing sequential writes of about 1.4-1.5mbs. Even for a pitiful laptop hard-drive this is a bit of a pushover job. But a virus scan. Now that's a different story, random reads all over the shop, response times on hard-drives really come out of the wood work then.


For the most part I have no problems with this forum, I used to contribute a lot. I don't any more as I do enough of fixing problems during my day and a fair few weekends as well. What I can't stand is stupid or wrong advise. Perhaps some of you could learn something from the above.

Cuddlesworth

Junior #8 wrote: »

well, firstly (Im assuming youre using vista or XP) hit ctrl+shift+esc and look at errand processes running on you computer. Open where these are located, and see the problem. You may have some kind of malicious hardware code running. Then if you can get your hands on a trial for nod32 and run a scan (the best on the market imho)

All else fails, Windows 7 beta release for the win.....
good luck

I don't know if anybody else noticed, but if you choose to believe that a download is the problem and send them to the task manager, would you tell them to check their process's, blame malware/virus and tell them to install windows 7? Or just tell them to check the networking tab for any large amount of activity.

kippy

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

I don't know if anybody else noticed, but if you choose to believe that a download is the problem and send them to the task manager, would you tell them to check their process's, blame malware/virus and tell them to install windows 7? Or just tell them to check the networking tab for any large amount of activity.

Again,
What was the question the OP asked?
Sometimes making a mountain out of a molehill or over analysing the situation causes the person trying to help more anguish than it should.


I have absolutely no reason to suspect there are any issues with the HDD in this laptop based on what the user has said. Nor do I suspect any antivirus scan is running and the same time as the user goes online.

The thing is, I dont really understand why some people on this thread can see that the there is a major possibility that this "noise", is the harddrive, however what is causing it is a download of something in the background, and that finding out the source of this download will:
A) Reduce the noise (which isnt actually the problem)
Leave the HDD free to do other things on the laptop that the user wants it to do.

With the greatest of respect Cuddlesworth, (and those kinda playing around with the "You guys, its the HDD thats making the noise, theres a problem there. Downloading stuff doesnt make noise, its perfectly normal for laptops not to be able to play youtube videos and do something else processor intensive at the same time, applications do not download stuff any more without telling you")
What is your advice? Check your antivirus, its probably a scheduled scan (doesnt the AV make it fairly obvious nowadays when it scans??)

Has anyone here ever ran msconfig (and/or regedit,HKLM,SOFTWARE,MICROSOFT,WINDOWS,CURRENT VERSION, RUN), clicked the startup tab and seen exactly what programmes start when your PC starts up? A lot (and I mean A LOT) which regularily check for and download updates to that programme when you are online? Some of which actually download the update first then ask you if you want to install? All these programmes will cause "noise" from your HDD as it writes the downloaded data to it.
Of has anyone ever used a "downloader" for torrents or otherwise? You know, you think you've closed the application when clicking "X" but instead it minimises to the system tray where it continues downloading?
Feck it, it could even be the antivirus, downloading updates, or your local web filter/firewall etc, downloading definition or rules updates. Some of which do so without your knowledge or input (you may have agreed to it when installing the software).

So, really, is the OP's question and subsequent responses to it, that far off the mark? I really dont think so. But a lot would depend on what the OP got back with.
It is possible, he has a crap laptop and the 128 megs of RAM are being used up at start up. The swap file is flat out and buffering youtube videos using the swap is killing the machine and causing all the hard drive read/writes.
Who knows, but I try answer the question I am asked if it is obvious. Otherwise you need to garner a whole load more information for the asker to make a fully informed reply.

I too have worked with this kinda stuff for years, at this stage, I try keep it simple. (apart from this type of reply)


Anyway, OP, whats the story, theres a lot of us here wondering how the "NOISE" is going these days!


EDIT:

The networking tab, by the way, doesnt really ever show any "large" amount of activity over an average BB connection unless its connected to a large pipe directly and using the full of that pipe.(depending on the adapter sizes)