strange bandwidth stats

[Philip]

checked my usage on IDNet this morning and it seems I used the following over the 16th/17th March

16th     5.55 up     5.27  down   
17th    3.19 up    2.7 down

now what i find odd is my usage is usually <0.3 gig a day, even with my daughters laptop in full flow.

The 2 days in question, my PC was on from 5.30pm to 11.00 pm Friday and 10am to 11pm Saturday, the laptop was hardly on as my daughter was out Friday night and most of Saturday.

Now, my PC was on but I wasn't using it as I was watching the Cricket, Friday night and Saturday afternoon and evening.

I had no downloads or uploads running, even my browser was closed, the PC was just on.

I have run a spyware/adware/virus check, all clear. My router is locked down so no outsider could have got in and used my connection. Everything seems normal today so far.

Any ideas as to what could have caused this anomally?

[Lance]

Although your daughter was out, are you sure she hadn't left the laptop on?

It may be worth giving support a call Monday, in the past one or two people have found glitches in the system reporting higher than actual usage.

Finally, you could install a program like netmeter which can tell you how much data is passing through your network connection, although I think this includes your LAN as well.

HTH

Lance

[Philip]

Although your daughter was out, are you sure she hadn't left the laptop on?

It may be worth giving support a call Monday, in the past one or two people have found glitches in the system reporting higher than actual usage.

Finally, you could install a program like netmeter which can tell you how much data is passing through your network connection, although I think this includes your LAN as well.

HTH

Lance

cheers Lance, the lappy was off so it wasn't that, just installed net meter so I'll keep an eye on that. Thanks for the reply

[Rik]

Confirming Lance's thoughts, Netmeter does record all LAN traffic, not just WAN.

I have seen recommendations to log the router out of IDNet, ie drop the connection and re-connect, as this forces an update on the radius servers where the traffic measurements stem from. Whether it works I don't know as I've never had the need to try it.

Failing that, I concur with Lance, give CS a ring tomorrow. Meantime, maybe it would be worth changing the WPA key in your router?

[Philip]

well nothing out of the ordinary today, so I'm baffled. I've changed the WEP key as a precaution, but according to the stats, I had no off-peak usage on the 2 days in question, so I'm pretty sure no-one is using my connection without me knowing. If they were I figure they'd be hammering it 24 hours a day!

I'll monitor it for a couple of days, if anything untoward happens I'll give CS a ring.

Thanks for your replies

[Philip]

seems I'm not the only one, similar posts made over on thinkbroadband.......curioser and curioser

[Rik]

well nothing out of the ordinary today, so I'm baffled. I've changed the WEP key as a precaution,

Can you not use WPA? WEP is fairly 'soft' in encryption terms, so much more vulnerable to attack.

[Philip]

WEP or WPA wasn't really my question, I had ruled out someone nicking my bandwidth and as other people had reported the same problem, my mind was put slightly at ease, and convinced it wasn't something my end.

Things seem ok now, but as I said, i will keep an eye on my stats and if it happens again I'll call CS.

Thanks for your input.

[Rik]

Glad to help, Doc, but I would strongly recommend a move to WPA if your hardware supports it.

[Philip]

my stats for the dodgy 2 days have been reset to what I would expect to see. Thanks to whoever sorted that

[Lance]

Clearly a little glitch in the system which has now been soprted or sorted itself!

[Philip]

I still got an email saying that if I continued at the current rate,  I'd be over my limit

The stats now show that I am way under, so I'm not too bothered about the email.

[Rik]

Bear in mind that, with the package changes announced this week, the emails may be a little screwy just now.