Win7 network usage, unrequested

bonzodog2

I just installed a program Bandwidth Monitor to keep track of data usage. I noticed that transfers are still happening when I'm not doing anything. So I cleared the totals, turned off Windows updates, and restarted Windows.
Didn't start any programs.
In the first hour, something had caused 212.9KB down, 244.4KB up traffic. By the end of hour 2 it was up to 540.1KB down, 386.6KB up.

How can I find which process is sending and receiving this data, and to/from which addresses? And how can I stop it? (Without turning the network off)

There's a few things which will be checking for updates, like Java and Adobe, but there's a constant stream of data going somewhere.

mass_debater

bonzodog2 wrote: »

I just installed a program Bandwidth Monitor to keep track of data usage. I noticed that transfers are still happening when I'm not doing anything. So I cleared the totals, turned off Windows updates, and restarted Windows.
Didn't start any programs.
In the first hour, something had caused 212.9KB down, 244.4KB up traffic. By the end of hour 2 it was up to 540.1KB down, 386.6KB up.

How can I find which process is sending and receiving this data, and to/from which addresses? And how can I stop it? (Without turning the network off)

There's a few things which will be checking for updates, like Java and Adobe, but there's a constant stream of data going somewhere.

It's only a few kilobytes, wouldn't worry about it. Windows is constantly contacting the internet, it connects to a server every few seconds to confirm you've got internet access.

Get your tinfoil hat out, it's probably reporting back lots of stuff, the contents if your DNS cache showing what sites you've visited and most likely monitoring your whole network and reporting back what other devices it can see on your lan.

Fysh

You could try running TCPview to see what's sending and receiving traffic on your machine.

Kensington

bonzodog2 wrote: »

I just installed a program Bandwidth Monitor to keep track of data usage. I noticed that transfers are still happening when I'm not doing anything. So I cleared the totals, turned off Windows updates, and restarted Windows.
Didn't start any programs.
In the first hour, something had caused 212.9KB down, 244.4KB up traffic. By the end of hour 2 it was up to 540.1KB down, 386.6KB up.

How can I find which process is sending and receiving this data, and to/from which addresses? And how can I stop it? (Without turning the network off)

There's a few things which will be checking for updates, like Java and Adobe, but there's a constant stream of data going somewhere.

That is a tiny amount of data to be fair, less than 1MB in 2-hours?

There are some background processes that will trickle consume data in Windows - NTP (time synchronisation), DNS refreshing itself, applications automatically pinging for updates, workgroup/domain announcements - as well as network level traffic like DHCP and ARP.

Joe1919

I think the laptop wireless cards does a certain amount of 'handshaking' i.e. This usage is only between wireless and router and not between router and internet.

mass_debater

Joe1919 wrote: »

I think the laptop wireless cards does a certain amount of 'handshaking' i.e. This usage is only between wireless and router and not between router and internet.

That handshake is known as Arp explained here:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Address_Resolution_Protocol

CatInABox

ZDnet did a pretty good article with a basic analysis of what's happening with Windows 10 on a network. It's here if you want to read it.

General gist is that Windows 10 does indeed send info to Microsoft, but not a large amount by any means, and that a lot of the network traffic that you see is merely the network managing itself.