Figuring out net usage on Windows 10

[droopsnoot]

Anyone know of a way to see, historically, what has been using my internet bandwidth over the last couple of week? I'm on Windows 10 with a mobile broadband account that includes 20Gb usage per month, and at the end of last month I had to curtail my access for 3-4 days because I was down below the last gigabyte of included data, and down to around 100Mb when I stopped.

Those of you on similar connections will know that excess data is way more expensive than the included stuff, so I'm really trying hard to keep it inside the limit. I've set the account (with Three) to allow zero excess, but of course that could easily cut me off part-way through the month, so that would be a pain.

I've opened up the Network connection centre in Win10 and had a look at usage, but this shows me usage by app, and not by app by date/time. The router has stats, I've been connected for just under an hour tonight and it's downloaded more than 750Mb so far - in a normal morning of about three hours, I'd get through about 300Mb. I'm not doing anything specific, just browsing a few web sites. I've gone into Windows updates and paused them for 7 days, which slowed it down but didn't stop it completely - it was around 600Mb when I paused updates, so it's still grabbed another 170Mb. I can look in task manager and see network usage, but not specifically what's causing it.

I've checked the router to make sure no-one is piggybacking on my Wi-Fi (no connections), changed the access password, disabled the SSID broadcast and I'm pretty sure that's not being used by anyone other than me.

Any ideas, anyone? If I could figure out what was using it I can decide what to do. It's running the Microsoft Anti-virus package which periodically tells me everything is fine. I've had a bit of a search but not really got anywhere. There did seem to be a big Windows update a couple of weeks ago which might have caused the trouble last month (month here is 14th - 13th) but if it was, I wondered why it would be doing it again now.

[Penelope Stopit]

Considered changing to Linux?

[sparkyhx]

Penelope Stopit said:

Considered changing to Linux?

get an MX-5

on a serious note
Not totally sure why you need a time breakdown? - what app has been using the bandwidth? surely that will tell you a lot?

you found this? its a little deeper than the normal Task manager view, but still not by time.

https://www.howtogeek.com/224170/how-to-monitor-yo...

|You could free trial monitoring tools, but not sure how easy they are to use

Edited by sparkyhx on Sunday 20th December 17:18

[mw88]

If you haven't already, you can tell Windows that you're on a metered connection and it will reduce the amount of stuff it downloads

[weeboot]

For future reference, mark your connection as a metered connection and stop windows updates automatically using it, that should make life a tad easier.

[droopsnoot]

Two things I forgot to mention (I think):

My usual usage is around 15-17Gb per month, sometimes less than that.
It's a Three mobile broadband connection via a Huawei E5573 box.

sparkyhx said:

Not totally sure why you need a time breakdown? - what app has been using the bandwidth? surely that will tell you a lot?

According to "data usage", it's msedge.exe that's used by far the most, then backgrounddownload.exe, then "system". I can't see how that can be - knowing which sites I browse, probably the worst for data usage is Facebook, and I don't spend a great deal of time on that. Many of the others are just forums like this one and some other phpBB sites, none of which come across as being all that demanding in terms of size.

I was hoping to see what what using data yesterday during the hour that I was connected, which might give me an idea how it managed to use up around 800Mb. I wouldn't have guessed I could download at that speed if I wanted to.

sparkyhx said:

you found this? its a little deeper than the normal Task manager view, but still not by time.

https://www.howtogeek.com/224170/how-to-monitor-yo...

|You could free trial monitoring tools, but not sure how easy they are to use

No, I hadn't seen that, I will have a look at it. I've had a look at network usage via task manager and I can see it was high yesterday, but not what was actually causing it.

Penelope Stopit said:

Considered changing to Linux?

No, not really. I've enough trouble, despite spending 30-odd years in IT with quite a bit of software development and configuring all sorts of weird and unusual systems (including Linux and FreeBSD, but only just scratching the surface I'm sure), finding my way around Windows 10, without switching to something completely different. I've tried it in the past, and too much stuff just wasn't around, or wasn't simple enough to install or use. Perhaps I could figure out how to use it all, but I'm not sure I can be bothered now. I ran our mail server at work on a Linux box for ages, had some strange trouble with it and (unbelievably, you may say, but true) couldn't find anywhere that I could get any kind of help. That surprised me a lot, given the origins of the system.

mw88 said:

If you haven't already, you can tell Windows that you're on a metered connection and it will reduce the amount of stuff it downloads

weeboot said:

For future reference, mark your connection as a metered connection and stop windows updates automatically using it, that should make life a tad easier.

I have done that yesterday, and paused Windows updates for seven days.

Perhaps linked to that last one - I've been connected today since 6pm, just doing a bit of light browsing, my usage so far is 12.75Mb. That's why I was so surprised that I can use up 5% of my monthly usage in an hour on a Saturday evening, because I wasn't really doing anything all that different last night than I have tonight.

Thanks for the suggestions, I'll do some more looking.

Edited by droopsnoot on Sunday 20th December 18:51

[Penelope Stopit]

droopsnoot said:

I'm not doing anything specific, just browsing a few web sites

Ok then

I wrongly assumed that you were just browsing

[droopsnoot]

Penelope Stopit said:

droopsnoot said:

I'm not doing anything specific, just browsing a few web sites

Ok then

I wrongly assumed that you were just browsing

In terms of internet usage, during the time I was having the massive spike in bandwidth, that's all I was doing, but that's not all I do with the machine - I didn't mention that at the time because I didn't think it was relevant. I know I can do some of it (such as run my VMWare player) on Linux, maybe I can run Visual Studio on Linux to develop code to run on Windows in, maybe there's an equivalent to Paintshop and some of the other random things that I use - but one of the reasons I use an old version of the latter is so I don't have to find out where all the menu options have moved to on the later one.

I'm not against non-Windows stuff in general, in fact I spent the better part of 30-odd years distributing, supporting and developing general business applications for an alternative multi-user OS, and still look after / develop some installations that are using it. I had a go at Linux a while back, and I didn't have a good experience, especially in terms of desktop applications, and as I was only trying it for the sake of it, it was just easier to go back to Windows. I've no doubt I could control it in much more detail, but I suspect it would require more investment in time to get enough experience to know how, and I don't really want to spend the time. Maybe it's better now.

I did have our office fax system running on a separate box with Hylafax on a flavour of Linux that I forget now, because it was more reliable than the fax service on Small Business Server at the time. Lack of familiarity I'm sure plays a part in the fact that I was unable to get it reliably sending faxes as a virtual network printer, and similarly my testing of Zoneminder was fine, except that any time I wanted to change the configuration it was easier to just start again from scratch. Again, maybe lack of familiarity, but not for lack of looking.

Edited by droopsnoot on Monday 21st December 18:51

[grumbledoak]

Penelope Stopit said:

Considered changing to Linux?

1st answer. They're like vegans! "Finally, 2021 will be the year of Linux on the desktop"


OP, I guess you have found Task Manager's Performance tab.

Otherwise Process Explorer from sysinternals does more - https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/down...

Or Resource Monitor may help - https://www.thewindowsclub.com/use-resource-monito...

If all the clues you have is "Edge", maybe trying another browser would give you some other clues.

[droopsnoot]

Cheers, I had looked in the Performance tab, but while it happily showed me how much network usage there was, it seemed difficult to find out what exactly was using it. The fact that I've paused Windows Updates for seven days and my usage is closer to what I'd think of as normal suggests that was the main culprit.

I downloaded "Glasswire" from one of the links further up the thread but have yet to install it, and I'll have a look at those links you provided too.

So far this morning, connected 48 minutes, used 51Mb.

[Penelope Stopit]

droopsnoot said:

Penelope Stopit said:

droopsnoot said:

I'm not doing anything specific, just browsing a few web sites

Ok then

I wrongly assumed that you were just browsing

In terms of internet usage, during the time I was having the massive spike in bandwidth, that's all I was doing, but that's not all I do with the machine - I didn't mention that at the time because I didn't think it was relevant. I know I can do some of it (such as run my VMWare player) on Linux, maybe I can run Visual Studio on Linux to develop code to run on Windows in, maybe there's an equivalent to Paintshop and some of the other random things that I use - but one of the reasons I use an old version of the latter is so I don't have to find out where all the menu options have moved to on the later one.

I'm not against non-Windows stuff in general, in fact I spent the better part of 30-odd years distributing, supporting and developing general business applications for an alternative multi-user OS, and still look after / develop some installations that are using it. I had a go at Linux a while back, and I didn't have a good experience, especially in terms of desktop applications, and as I was only trying it for the sake of it, it was just easier to go back to Windows. I've no doubt I could control it in much more detail, but I suspect it would require more investment in time to get enough experience to know how, and I don't really want to spend the time. Maybe it's better now.

I did have our office fax system running on a separate box with Hylafax on a flavour of Linux that I forget now, because it was more reliable than the fax service on Small Business Server at the time. Lack of familiarity I'm sure plays a part in the fact that I was unable to get it reliably sending faxes as a virtual network printer, and similarly my testing of Zoneminder was fine, except that any time I wanted to change the configuration it was easier to just start again from scratch. Again, maybe lack of familiarity, but not for lack of looking.

Edited by droopsnoot on Monday 21st December 18:51

Ok then

That explains it

You do more than browsing and have carried out much very interesting work over many years

I used to really like windows until 7 reached its sell by date, am much happier with Linux though

My machine has internet, diagram drawing software, media player, photo manipulation, video editor, mp3 gain software, a great music server and a bootable USB creator, which is enough for my pleasure time

My machine hasn't anything on it that dials out without authorisation as far as I know