[SOLVED] System using massive amounts of network data?

[GamerCyclops]

I'm about to go over my data cap for the month of 1.25TB, and it seems as though "System" on my desktop has used about 285GB of data in the past 30 days. I'm just not sure what it is that's sucking it all up, or what programs all get lumped together under "system". You can see it here among my network usage in the past 30 days (insert image tool wasn't working for me):

https://imgur.com/a/GfSheIo

View: https://imgur.com/a/GfSheIo


Does anyone know whether there is a way to narrow down what programs specifically are consuming all this bandwidth beyond just "system"? Any suggestions even for stuff like third party software to track it more precisely to prevent this from happening in the future would be appreciated.
Thanks in advance.

 

[kanewolf]

Shouldn't the question be, "What used that other 1TB of data?"

 

[Deleted member 14196]

I believe you are infected. Use process explorer to see what system is doing

 

[GamerCyclops]

Shouldn't the question be, "What used that other 1TB of data?"

The 1.25TB cap is for all the devices in the house, but the way I phrased it I can see how that was misleading lol

 

[GamerCyclops]

I believe you are infected. Use process explorer to see what system is doing

As far as I can tell, there doesn't appear to be any compromising info aside from just what programs I have installed in these screenshots, so here they are:

https://imgur.com/a/WSiem98

View: https://imgur.com/a/WSiem98

This Imgur album has several screenshots of all the processes from System as well as wininit.exe. Does anything raise a red flag? I'll note that when I run a Malwarebytes scan, it detects no malware other than NiceHash (which I believe to be a false positive).

 

[kanewolf]

The 1.25TB cap is for all the devices in the house, but the way I phrased it I can see how that was misleading lol

Sure. Your PC is using 300GB. There is still 1TB unaccounted for among all other devices. Maybe that is totally normal, but it is still a higher percentage of the total than the PC is using.

 

[Ralston18]

Source of "data usage"?

"WIN" + "I" > Network & Internet > Status > Data Usage.

Correct?

As suggested, what usage do you see on other devices?

 

[GamerCyclops]

Source of "data usage"?

"WIN" + "I" > Network & Internet > Status > Data Usage.

Correct?

As suggested, what usage do you see on other devices?

Yes, the source is the Data Usage tab under Windows Network & Internet settings. As for other devices, their usage is perfectly normal. What is not normal is for my desktop to use almost half of the data cap in one month. My desktop has used 500GB of data, which is a lot higher than usual, and looking at the usage it appears half of my desktop's network data usage can be attributed to System.
I would like to reduce my network usage in the event that this is being caused by background app usage or something similar, but because "System" doesn't really narrow down the cause very much, I was hoping that there could potentially be some better way of identifying what's consuming all my data.

 

[Ralston18]

In Process Explorer, remember that you can click columns to sort data. Doing so may help you spot something unexpected or unusual.

Here is a rather old link that presents ways to obtain more information about data usage.

My original search was Powershell related. However, there are other options:

https://www.ghacks.net/2017/03/22/w... interface,for each connected network adapter.

Option 1 - you are doing.

Option 2 - may be the most helpful.

Option 3 - may help.

Comparing to other systems could help find the cause/culprit.

= = = =

And I stumbled across the following utility:

http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/network_usage_view.html

Note the reference to the SRUDB.dat database. You could search on that for other ways to access the data and discover what is gobbling up your data cap.

Not familiar with the utility so will need to defer on its' use and/or usefulness to others.

 

[Bob.B]

Yes, the source is the Data Usage tab under Windows Network & Internet settings. As for other devices, their usage is perfectly normal. What is not normal is for my desktop to use almost half of the data cap in one month. My desktop has used 500GB of data, which is a lot higher than usual, and looking at the usage it appears half of my desktop's network data usage can be attributed to System.
I would like to reduce my network usage in the event that this is being caused by background app usage or something similar, but because "System" doesn't really narrow down the cause very much, I was hoping that there could potentially be some better way of identifying what's consuming all my data.

Go to settings/privacy/background apps.
Turn off the stuff you don't need.