Bandwidth Usage

[katydidit]

Hi Forum Members:

I hope I have the section for this discussion.

Would like to open the topic of "bandwidth" and Internet Service Providers measuring uploading and downloading usage.

My levels increased almost 4 times my normal limits over the months of July, August and part of September. Going from less than 20 GBs per month to over 60 GBs per month.

Don't download movies or use my computer for online games, don't stream radio, etc. I do upload and download some mp3s but not that many.

Question: what could be sucking up by bandwidth usage?

Thanks,

[Lord of the Rings]

I left LW running 24 hrs or near to it for 3 days over the first two weeks of this month. That's used up 2/3 of my peak hours usage. lol So I am going to be restricting my peak hour usage until next month & instead mostly only using LW during off-peak hours (which has 60% higher bandwidth usage total); 25/40 MB/mth peak & off peak plan. I upload at anywhere up to 95 KB/s. Downloads much faster. I share all types of files including videos.

Good question about how to monitor how much you use. I check my ISP daily & monthly totals.

Whilst you say you only share music, sometimes people download files very quickly from you & it's not easy to see how many files have been uploaded unless you have LW set to not clear uploads. I have it set to clear so they don't clog up the window lol. If you click on each of your shared folders in your Library window, it will show a column beside the shared files which shows upload totals for each file.

LW changed their options. They did have a Statistics option to show all total uploads, etc. They do now have a Logging window which shows what people have done, such as browsing you, selected to download files from you, etc. This window can be found via View options.

I haven't checked these options in such a long time. I will ask some others about it.

[katydidit]

Hi Lord of the Rings:

Thanks for the input.

I've been using Limewire for years but it is only recently that our ISP is measuring bandwidth (last September). I've never seen Limewire ever use that much bandwidth unless something has changed????

I went back to check my records (one year) and my average for uploading/downloading is about less than 20 GBs per month (a lot less). My recent monthly average has risen to 75-80 GBs for the month of August????

I download and upload old radio files (large than songs in mp3) but still that's a lot of radio programs at 55-60 GBs extra per month. As mentioned, I don't download movies or video games.

I have the NetMeter installed and I'm monitoring it myself now from my computer.

Any suggestions as to how accurate the ISP is in its measuring?

Thanks,

[Lord of the Rings]

I discussed it with a fellow mod.

I run LW Pro 24/7/365 and as a leaf with full mojito and sharing 2K+ unpopular pics, my monthly totals average about 60 GB for LW. So, I figure LW uses less than 1 GB / day for connections and searches, since I transfer about 1 GB/day in files. ... I can't see how the the poster could get those kind of bandwidth hits just from running LW with minimal transfers. But since s-he is running XP I'd wonder about whether the machine has become a bot, and I don't know how to check for that.

Have you checked for outgoing bandwidth & is it all coming from LW?

[katydidit]

Hi Lord of the Rings:

I'm not too sure where it is coming from?

I did leave Limewire running a few times (but I've done that in the past and had no problems) and it is the only program I can think of that might use a lot of downloading/uploading bandwidth. I also experimented with RadioTime to record radio but only did that a few times and it never worked properly. Didn't have Realplayer and I think that may have been causing some problems.

Nothing else on my system that isn't the norm. As mentioned, I did some uploading and downloading of old radio program but not 55-60 GBs worth (about 17.5 GBs upload and downloads are 57 GBs). These uploads are to secure sites, e.g. 4shared, Rapidshare, my website at ning.com, etc. Same goes for downloading from these types of sites.

Checked for viruses, spyware and ran a Hijack this file and it came back clean. Also changed by password for my 2wire router and removed my wireless. I have only one computer and it runs off an ethernet connection.

What is a "bot"?

Is it possible that someone could be stealing the bandwidth or the ISP is clocking mine and someone else??? Not too sure how they measure.

Thanks katy

[Lord of the Rings]

Yeah something like a virus ... a program that could potentially be secretly communicating outside of your computer sending information.

I guess the trick will be to try to measure approximately yourself. Check the daily usage, try not using LW for a day & see how much it jumps up. Then use LW & see how much difference it makes.

Are you running in Ultrapeer mode? Are you using LW Pro? Pro connects to an extra two UP's but that shouldn't make too much difference. Ultrapeer mode means many more messages coming in, etc. but still should not make a dramatic difference.

[katydidit]

Hi Lord of the Rings:

I was just reading up on bots and zombies. I use TrendMicro PC for firewall, etc. I run my virus and spyware program at least twice a week.

May be I should run another on my system -- off site version.

Will keep you posted, thanks,

katy

[katydidit]

Hi Lord of the Rings and Forum Members:

Update on my bandwidth problems. Well it turns out that someone was using my bandwidth via the wireless connection. It is part of my 2wire router. So I just disconnected it completely because I don't need it.

I've been monitoring my uploading and downloading carefully for about one month. And, I've also had problems with Limewire connecting properly (see thread in Connection Problems). Followed birdy's instructions and got it up and running again with using the "start up" check box and reconfiguring my ports in the router and security program.

I don't know if this problem existed before or not. If it did it is only recent in the past 2-3 months since I've been having other problems with Limewire and bandwidth usage. Once I fixed Limewire it has gone "crazy" as far as Hits for each song title within my Library. Within 1/2 hour every one my small list of songs had 1500 or more hits??? This old material -- nothing new!

Example: Tonight I'm uploading one song at 6,500 KBs. It has taken over one hour at 2KB/s to upload. Secondly, I watched my bandwidth meter and downloading this song has taken 15 MBs.

I've been using Limewire for years and I don't remember Limewire ever using this much bandwidth for one song.

Any idea what is causing this problem or any suggestions.

Thanks a bunch,

[birdy]

'Hits' just shows the number of times that one of your files has appeared in someone else's search results.
Say if you were sharing a file called 'the black cat sat on the mat'...every time that one of those words appears as a search result will be a hit. It doesn't mean that someone's looking for your file specifically - if someone searched for a file called 'the cat sat' or 'the black mat' or 'the cat mat' then your file might show up in their search.

So the number of hits that you see doesn't really reflect the number of people who are searching for your exact file

Are you sure that other people can't access your network? I've replied to your other thread here about router security: http://www.gnutellaforums.com/connec...tml#post329646 - have a look in your router's manual & see whether you can add a WAP or WEP key as extra security.

If that's not the problem, then I don't know. Someone else might have more ideas.

[katydidit]

Hi birdy:

I've disconnected the wireless part of the 2wire router and that solved that problem. However, I need to see if programs might be sucking up bandwidth and so far it appears that Limewire is doing this as well.

I would assume that it shouldn't take about 20 MBs of downloading/uploading for one song at 6,500 KBs?

Something is wrong and I hope they might have a suggestion.

Thanks