Random Bandwidth Problem

Bonavox

Hi there,

I'm with Digiweb broadband, but something strange is happening. For the past week or so there have been some tremendous uploading on my account, one day in excess of 6 gigs. I don't upload much, the odd YouTube video, and I don't know where this is coming from at all. I've check my computer for programmes which could be causing this, and anything else around the house as well. I've changed my password to my network but the problem persists.

Is there any known reasons for why this might be happening, or anything I can do to help it?

Thanks

Spear

Bonavox wrote: »

Hi there,

I'm with Digiweb broadband, but something strange is happening. For the past week or so there have been some tremendous uploading on my account, one day in excess of 6 gigs. I don't upload much, the odd YouTube video, and I don't know where this is coming from at all. I've check my computer for programmes which could be causing this, and anything else around the house as well. I've changed my password to my network but the problem persists.

Is there any known reasons for why this might be happening, or anything I can do to help it?

Thanks

Wireless router using WEP?

Bonavox

Spear wrote: »

Wireless router using WEP?

Yep. Changed the password three times this week and nothing.

Spear

Bonavox wrote: »

Yep. Changed the password three times this week and nothing.

Not that changing the password will have any impact with WEP. Change to WPA (WPA2 would be better).

Bonavox

Spear wrote: »

Not that changing the password will have any impact with WEP. Change to WPA (WPA2 would be better).

Thanks, changed and everything, hopefully that'll solve the problem. Thanks Spear!

Bonavox

Nope, still not stopped.

Another 500 megs uploaded over the past hour and definitely not uploaded by me. I'm nearing my monthly cap and it's really annoying when my speeds get throttled.

Any help on this is appreciated.

Spear

Bonavox wrote: »

Nope, still not stopped.

Another 500 megs uploaded over the past hour and definitely not uploaded by me. I'm nearing my monthly cap and it's really annoying when my speeds get throttled.

Any help on this is appreciated.

Check the router status page, find the list of DHCP clients or the ARP table. See how many entries there are.

Alternately your PC is the source of the trafffic. Time to run checks for malware/trojans. Run HijackThis, Spybot S&D for a start.

Could you have left a Torrent client or similar running in the background?

Bonavox

Spear wrote: »

Check the router status page, find the list of DHCP clients or the ARP table. See how many entries there are.

Alternately your PC is the source of the trafffic. Time to run checks for malware/trojans. Run HijackThis, Spybot S&D for a start.

Could you have left a Torrent client or similar running in the background?

Okay, my DHCP Client List currently lists:

Robert-PC
iMac

Both of these belong to me, but there's an unknown device with no name. I use other devices on the network, such as my PS3, could these devices be the unknown client? Also, I've made sure things like torrent programmes and such are all closed. I'm literally at my wit's end now!

Thanks for all your help Spear, it's really appreciated.

Spear

Bonavox wrote: »

Okay, my DHCP Client List currently lists:

Robert-PC
iMac

Both of these belong to me, but there's an unknown device with no name. I use other devices on the network, such as my PS3, could these devices be the unknown client? Also, I've made sure things like torrent programmes and such are all closed. I'm literally at my wit's end now!

Thanks for all your help Spear, it's really appreciated.

Any device will show the MAC address, so a PS3 would easily account for that, but not a name since it won't support SMB/NetBIOS.

Have you tried the malware checks?

It might be worth raising it with Digiweb to if they can identify the protocols/ports or destination of the traffic.

Bonavox

Spear wrote: »

Any device will show the MAC address, so a PS3 would easily account for that, but not a name since it won't support SMB/NetBIOS.

Have you tried the malware checks?

It might be worth raising it with Digiweb to if they can identify the protocols/ports or destination of the traffic.

Done checks for everything like malware and stuff, everything came up clean. Will give Digiweb a call tomorrow, this is a joke. Is there anythig else I can do that you can think of?

Improbable

You can use MAC address filtering to allow only your devices to connect if you're still unsure whether it is one of your devices or not. Some software firewalls will keep a log of all incoming/outgoing information with the name of the program listed as well so you could try one of those if it is one of your machines.

Spear

Bonavox wrote: »

Will give Digiweb a call tomorrow, this is a joke.

Did you manage to get any info out of Digiweb?

corkcomp

if you can rule out bandwidth theft you need to check exactly what is being uploaded - do you run any peer to peer file sharing programs or torrents what would be uploading to others?

Bonavox

Spear wrote: »

Did you manage to get any info out of Digiweb?

Rang them, explained my situation, and they got engineers working on it. Still waiting (since noon yesterday) and they refused to lift the cap until they've sorted it. Feel really annoyed that I'm suffering because of an error on their part.

corkcomp wrote: »

if you can rule out bandwidth theft you need to check exactly what is being uploaded - do you run any peer to peer file sharing programs or torrents what would be uploading to others?

Nope, had no P2P programmes running. I unplugged my modem and router last night as an experiment, and when I woke up another 750 megs had been uploaded.