Bandwidth monitoring help

[Rioe]

The last couple of months, my bandwidth usage has been going crazy and I'm exceeding my ISP's limits. Nobody in the house has changed their internet habits. Can anyone suggest a tool that will let me monitor what each individual device is doing, so I can try to pin it down? It has to be easy to use as I'm woefully uneducated when it comes to all things PC.

Much appreciated!

[Ferriciean Aetas]

prtg is your winner, rioe. you can have it monitor each computer's network usage

[Suntuz]

is your isp time warner? They have been accidently overbilling.

[Rioe]

is your isp time warner? They have been accidently overbilling.

No, I'm in Canada, so ours are different. It's not overbilling; it's billing me appropriately for exceeding my monthly limit, but I can't figure out why all of a sudden I'm going over so badly when nothing has changed.

I couldn't make head nor tails out of PRTG. I'm just not computer savvy enough to even set it up. But based on monitoring what we do manually, the overage appears to be either Netflix related or when I have my work laptop connected to work from home. If it's Netflix, that's just crazy amounts compared to what bandwidth they say they use, and I don't know why it would suddenly jump. I've changed my subscription from HD to SD and we'll know in a few weeks if that helps. If it's my work computer, I'll just disconnect it when I'm not actively working.

The worst part is that we once used 50GB over a weekend where we either weren't in town or weren't online. I can't remember if I left my work computer connected while I was doing these other things, or if the kids left Netflix running by accident and it thought we were binge watching for 48 hours straight.

[slowping]

Do you have open wifi connection or simple password? Maybe your neighbors are borrowing an open wi fi source . Or, maybe your virus infected and are hosting a hidden porn site, warez, or file sharing hub or doing the dns attacks on the daybreak servers!

[Rioe]

My wifi is WPA2 but one of the first things I did was change my password and set it to be invisible, just in case. Also, I lose the wifi signal not too far from the house, I can't even check my phone from the front porch or the back deck very easily! So somebody stealing it would have to be right next to my house. I do wonder if I have a virus though because my email is being spoofed, but my antivirus can't find anything. I keep thinking I should reformat and start over but it just sounds like so much work.

It's only download bandwidth going crazy. Upload has stayed normal, so I don't think I'm hosting anything.

[Gorkeyah]

I suppose you could shut down your devices one by one and watch the router/modem activity lights to figure out if it's being used significantly when you don't think it should be. /shrug

[Ferriciean Aetas]

FYI - 50GB of overage could be 5-6 1080p movies, easily. Hopefully, reducing your Netflix sub to SD will resolve this issue.

It's also possible you're compromised, and have something participating in attacks/hacking via botnets. You should scan each machine in your household.

[Plastique]

If you have limitations on how much you can use your internet, you need a new ISP that has no limitations, end of story. I bet it's wireless LTE coming though the cell towers. The worst internet imaginable. It is not normal at all to have a usage limit on ANYTHING except your phone's mobile data plan which should NEVER be tied in with or provided from your cell phone company. All that being said, you don't need some stupid intrusive network monitoring program logging everything you do, lagging the shit out of you after your router already records all this properly in 10 different ways. You log onto your router's GUI menu " Graphic User Interface " and look at it. it's that simple. Each device should have it's own IP address, On any Microsoft windows computer all you have to do to figure out your personal IP is open up command prompt and type without the parenthesis " ipconfig " then hit enter. Your IPV4 address is your computer's personal internet signature you are using presently.

[Plastique]

The last couple of months, my bandwidth usage has been going crazy and I'm exceeding my ISP's limits. Nobody in the house has changed their internet habits. Can anyone suggest a tool that will let me monitor what each individual device is doing, so I can try to pin it down? It has to be easy to use as I'm woefully uneducated when it comes to all things PC.

Much appreciated!

To log onto your Router's GUI menu type in your Default Gateway in any internet browser and hit enter.