Check what is using your network connection

Belix · Post by **Belix** » 26 Feb 2007, 14:37

Hi Folks
Every two seconds, my network card shows some communication. It not long. Just a quick flick of the light on and off again. On and off. On and off. Can't think what is it or how to find what is doing the communicating. I've killed what processes I think are the usual suspects and obviosult have closed al email and internet applications, as well as anything that would communicate with the server that I know of, but it still flicks 2 seconds on...and off ...and on... and off.

Anyone have any idea about how to find what's causing it?
Thanks

Rayne · Post by **Rayne** » 26 Feb 2007, 14:38

Mine does as well.

Ain't it normal? 8O

Gromit · Post by **Gromit** » 26 Feb 2007, 14:39

Netlimiter is a good place to start.

Post by **Anthro** » 26 Feb 2007, 14:55

http://www.nirsoft.net . . . get yourself SmartSniff . . .

WiK1d · Post by **WiK1d** » 26 Feb 2007, 15:27

I think that is just when the ISP checks connectivity or something.

TCBW · Post by **TCBW** » 08 Mar 2007, 12:38

Windows can show you what is using connections.

Get up a command prompt and type NETSTAT -a This will list all open connections on your machine. The listen stuff are servers on your PC, the time_wait are idle connections.

It maybe that your PC is just doing what it is supposed to.

rustypup · Post by **rustypup** » 08 Mar 2007, 14:46

it's meant to do that... if your card never sent the odd packet, your 'idle' ip will be flushed from the network...

this is done to prevent "ghost" connections through power failure... if a remote machine connected to the network shuts down without closing the connection through normal means, the server/workgroup will flush the connection if it fails to submit a packet within a specified time limit... it's built into TCP/IP...

your card will also flicker if it recieves a packet not intended for it.. most often these are UDP/broadcast packets... although your card receives the packet, if your mac/ip is not in the specified broadcast group, the packet will not be passed up the stack, simply discarded...

finally, depending on the network type, your machine will also receive various notifications about the network and resources on the network... (mapped drive which disconnected/reconnected, spool services started/stopped, workgroup joins/disconnects, etc...). these are non-intrusive by design... you'd probably go nuts if you received a notification every time something happened on the network...

mind you, it's never a bad thing to be suspect..

Pollynator · Post by **Pollynator** » 16 Mar 2007, 20:13

Gromit wrote:Netlimiter is a good place to start.

Sorry Gromit but this software has spyware in it, i know i have used it.

With regards to yr bursts of info, if u are worried that there is large amounts of info traveling onto the net then i suggest using adware to scan for spyware or adware. Just the other day i notice that my GF's pc was using a unusual amount of bandwidth. Turned out she had tracking cookies which were using ubout 8mb's an hour, and that the cookies had owned 100mbs off my 3gig cap.

U can ulso use DUMeter to keep tabs on network traffic

Website · Post by **hamin_aus** » 16 Mar 2007, 20:17

Pollynator wrote:
Gromit wrote:Netlimiter is a good place to start.
Sorry Gromit but this software has spyware in it,

No, it does not.

zerubabel · Post by **zerubabel** » 17 Mar 2007, 03:15

Pollynator wrote:
Gromit wrote:Netlimiter is a good place to start.
Sorry Gromit but this software has spyware in it, i know i have used it.

With regards to yr bursts of info, if u are worried that there is large amounts of info traveling onto the net then i suggest using adware to scan for spyware or adware. Just the other day i notice that my GF's pc was using a unusual amount of bandwidth. Turned out she had tracking cookies which were using ubout 8mb's an hour, and that the cookies had owned 100mbs off my 3gig cap.

U can ulso use DUMeter to keep tabs on network traffic

You must have downloaded Netlimiter from a dodgy site..
Netlimiter is great.