Leon5178
asked on
Is it possible to see which programs are slowing down my internet connection ?
Hi all
Is there a utility I can use with WinXP that will tell me why it is taking ages on my 1MB connection to download a simple file. This is not a one-off.
Ideally, I need a program that will tell me what the capacity of my internet is at that time (hence if it isn't what it should be then i moan to my isp) and also what programs are eating it all up (is my torrent client chomping it all up again ?)
Many thanks
Leon
Is there a utility I can use with WinXP that will tell me why it is taking ages on my 1MB connection to download a simple file. This is not a one-off.
Ideally, I need a program that will tell me what the capacity of my internet is at that time (hence if it isn't what it should be then i moan to my isp) and also what programs are eating it all up (is my torrent client chomping it all up again ?)
Many thanks
Leon
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Right click on taskbar, choose task manager and see the Network tab. You'll see how your connection is used, in percentage view.
check your connection here:
http://www.bandwidthplace.com/speedtest
The only way to test your connection is to stress it with data, there is no way to figure out your bandwidth while you are not transmitting data. It's really determined by the responsiveness of the device on the other end (the ISP end). If it's not as responsive as promised, it's probably due to heavy ISP traffic.
Even when you lease 1MB from an ISP, they don't keep a 1MB channel open for you all the time. They have a bunch of people sharing a bunch of connections. That's the nature of TCP/IP. Every ISP handles it differently. Some will lease out 200 T1s even though they only have 100, because everyone shares bandwidth and on average people usually don't use more than half at any given time. They really are giving you 'up to 1MB depending on the traffic conditions'. This is not advertised entirely truthfully, but its not a scam either. There is really no other way to do this... remember, it may be happening to them too from their ISPs. You can have 1000MB to your ISP, but then if their routers are having trouble routing packets to other internet routers because those routers are getting heavy traffic, is it their fault that your connection goes slow?
ISPs will do only 2 things when you ask for bandwidth... give you a fast enough connection to their pop, and set a bandwidth cap that you can't go over. The rest is the nature of the beast.
The only bad thing they can do is get a T1, and then try and sell 100 people Full T1s, because that's overselling their bandwidth.
If you want to know if there is anything on your computer that is downloading software that it shouldn't be you have a couple of free options:
get TCPView
http://www.sysinternals.com
get Ethereal
http://www.ethereal.com
http://www.bandwidthplace.com/speedtest
The only way to test your connection is to stress it with data, there is no way to figure out your bandwidth while you are not transmitting data. It's really determined by the responsiveness of the device on the other end (the ISP end). If it's not as responsive as promised, it's probably due to heavy ISP traffic.
Even when you lease 1MB from an ISP, they don't keep a 1MB channel open for you all the time. They have a bunch of people sharing a bunch of connections. That's the nature of TCP/IP. Every ISP handles it differently. Some will lease out 200 T1s even though they only have 100, because everyone shares bandwidth and on average people usually don't use more than half at any given time. They really are giving you 'up to 1MB depending on the traffic conditions'. This is not advertised entirely truthfully, but its not a scam either. There is really no other way to do this... remember, it may be happening to them too from their ISPs. You can have 1000MB to your ISP, but then if their routers are having trouble routing packets to other internet routers because those routers are getting heavy traffic, is it their fault that your connection goes slow?
ISPs will do only 2 things when you ask for bandwidth... give you a fast enough connection to their pop, and set a bandwidth cap that you can't go over. The rest is the nature of the beast.
The only bad thing they can do is get a T1, and then try and sell 100 people Full T1s, because that's overselling their bandwidth.
If you want to know if there is anything on your computer that is downloading software that it shouldn't be you have a couple of free options:
get TCPView
http://www.sysinternals.com
get Ethereal
http://www.ethereal.com