Still don't understand

S

sevenworth

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Joined
May 24, 2006
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Location
Edgemead, CT
I'm sorry, but I just can't fathom how:

  • Launching firefox
  • Clicking stop (Immediately)
  • entering url: www.vodacom4me.co.za
  • entering login information
  • clicking on full balances overview
  • viewing full balances overview
  • clicking logout

can POSSIBLY add up to 1.3MB of bandwidth.

This is a continuous problem which I have tried to remedy by:

  • Running NetLimiter and slowing the connection down;
  • Moaning and complaining on this forum;
  • Making (very) sure there are no auto updates, viruses, trojans, adware, spyware or any such cretins anywhere in the loop;
  • Moaning and complaining on this forum;
  • Pulling my hair out while I pay through my teeth for bandwidth gone for some reason... just... gone...;
  • Moaning and complaining on this forum;
  • An eventual full reinstall of my PC from scratch to get rid of any unseen things I may have missed;

I am going to be conducting some more tests to compare my usage with everyone else, and I hope you'll indulge me.

(I need your specs to be as close to the test requirements as possible pls. ie: If I say IE7, then it must be IE7)

TEST 1:
  1. clear cache
  2. wait until your connection is idle
  3. note usage
  4. launch IE7 (have default page set to www.google.co.za)
  5. wait for display of google.co.za
  6. type in address bar "www.sourceforge.net"
  7. wait for full display of sourceforge and idle connection
  8. note usage
  9. post usage here, along with brief summary of your hardware and test conditions.

Those of you who have the time to do this I'd really appreciate it. I need to get to the bottom of this.

Your test result should look something like this (My actual test result):

Usage: 179k
WinXP Pro + SP2
IE7
Option Nozomi
Edgemead, CT

SW
 
Last edited:
I'm in Jhb at the moment, till Friday.

Can we get together over the weekend to look at this? I'm in Plattekloof, just down the road from you.

There MUST be an explanation, I'm sure we'll find it. I'll bring a bag of goodies, laptops, data cards, sims, etc.
 
There must be a reason. I know sevenworth and we both have the same cards and are in the same sort of area and the same sort of setups but I don't have any problems. Although I have had my contract for over a year now.

I'm at work now and have DSL here so I will test and post when I get home tonight.
 
Hey sevenworth,

This is all from memory, but I can confirm this later on...

Install Tiny Firewall 2 and turn on logging - afaik it will show bytes per session. If that doesn't work, or for a live view, install tcpview and again, enable logging. This will show what process transfers what bandwidth. tcpview is a free app/shareware/whatever (at least I think it is) and I am pretty sure vodacom3g has it ;)

Might help in the testing

Laterz !

sevenworth said:
I'm sorry, but I just can't fathom how:

  • Launching firefox
  • Clicking stop (Immediately)
  • entering url: www.vodacom4me.co.za
  • entering login information
  • clicking on full balances overview
  • viewing full balances overview
  • clicking logout

can POSSIBLY add up to 1.3MB of bandwidth.

This is a continuous problem which I have tried to remedy by:

  • Running NetLimiter and slowing the connection down;
  • Moaning and complaining on this forum;
  • Making (very) sure there are no auto updates, viruses, trojans, adware, spyware or any such cretins anywhere in the loop;
  • Moaning and complaining on this forum;
  • Pulling my hair out while I pay through my teeth for bandwidth gone for some reason... just... gone...;
  • Moaning and complaining on this forum;
  • An eventual full reinstall of my PC from scratch to get rid of any unseen things I may have missed;

I am going to be conducting some more tests to compare my usage with everyone else, and I hope you'll indulge me.

(I need your specs to be as close to the test requirements as possible pls. ie: If I say IE7, then it must be IE7)

TEST 1:
  1. clear cache
  2. wait until your connection is idle
  3. note usage
  4. launch IE7 (have default page set to www.google.co.za)
  5. wait for display of google.co.za
  6. type in address bar "www.sourceforge.net"
  7. wait for full display of sourceforge and idle connection
  8. note usage
  9. post usage here, along with brief summary of your hardware and test conditions.

Those of you who have the time to do this I'd really appreciate it. I need to get to the bottom of this.

Your test result should look something like this (My actual test result):

Usage: 179k
WinXP Pro + SP2
IE7
Option Nozomi
Edgemead, CT

SW
Click to expand...
 
Tazz_Tux said:
Hey sevenworth,

This is all from memory, but I can confirm this later on...

Install Tiny Firewall 2 and turn on logging - afaik it will show bytes per session. If that doesn't work, or for a live view, install tcpview and again, enable logging. This will show what process transfers what bandwidth. tcpview is a free app/shareware/whatever (at least I think it is) and I am pretty sure vodacom3g has it ;)

Might help in the testing

Laterz !
Click to expand...

I'm using Netlimiter, which shows any and all activity being ordered by whatever process, the relevant ip's and it allows you to shape the connection as you require. This still doesn't change the fact that something is happening that shouldn't be hapenning.

Thanks for yr input though.

SW
 
I have played around with Netlimiter and have found that it does not pick up EVERYTHING. For example, it sometimes does not pick up p2p traffic - this is when I listen to radio stations using Flatcast p2p streaming.
 
I have also played with Netlimiter and found it suddenly stopped recording my usage. Don't know why but have since stopped using it. I dont have IE 7 on my laptop but can do the test for you in IE6, Netscape 8, Firefox or Mozilla if you want...
 
If you could try it with IE6 I'd appreciate it. I need to be able to compare my usage with someone elses...

Veroland said:
I have also played with Netlimiter and found it suddenly stopped recording my usage. Don't know why but have since stopped using it. I dont have IE 7 on my laptop but can do the test for you in IE6, Netscape 8, Firefox or Mozilla if you want...
Click to expand...
 
interesting... come to think of, it doesn't pick up any traffic being used by other users on the network either, which obviously doesnt help... (in case you were wondering, I am still experiencing high usage with network adapters disabled)

ajax said:
I have played around with Netlimiter and have found that it does not pick up EVERYTHING. For example, it sometimes does not pick up p2p traffic - this is when I listen to radio stations using Flatcast p2p streaming.
Click to expand...
 
There was a lot of images etc that came down from sourceforge so I assume a refresh will have a lot less traffic on account of me clearing my cache a lot of the static content will not be downloaded again.
 
Don't know if this has any bearing but it takes over 1MB just to open Opera. I do have a lot of tabs open though. Your browser must be doing something in the background you are not aware of as anything else would show up whether or not you open your browser.
 
Browsed the web on Wednesday night using hexpee for approximately 2 hours - usage totaled about 20mb. Browsed the web last night using linux for approximately 2 hours - usage totaled about 9mb. I know this is not an accurately defined test, but I know by now how much bandwidth is used during normal browsing in xp, and it just seems so much less in linux. Background applications must be at work in xp that use unnecessary bandwidth, where in linux, nothing happens without your say-so. People, this is my solution for the "heavy-bandwidth-usage" problem: switch to linux. Period.
 
My 2c :
Close all open applications
Create a connection
Monitor if there is any network activity.
Open dos prompt
Type netstat and see if you have any established connections this might narrow down what’s happening in the background

If you are running Linux you can try
netstat –tn | grep 80 and see if you are making any http request that you are not aware of.
 
Linux 1 - Windows 0

*duck* !

And you said everytime it's a new install of Windows ?

sevenworth said:
Browsed the web on Wednesday night using hexpee for approximately 2 hours - usage totaled about 20mb. Browsed the web last night using linux for approximately 2 hours - usage totaled about 9mb. I know this is not an accurately defined test, but I know by now how much bandwidth is used during normal browsing in xp, and it just seems so much less in linux. Background applications must be at work in xp that use unnecessary bandwidth, where in linux, nothing happens without your say-so. People, this is my solution for the "heavy-bandwidth-usage" problem: switch to linux. Period.
Click to expand...
 
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