Constant Modem Activity

  • Thread starter Thread starter Gebhard Blucher
  • Start date Start date
G

Gebhard Blucher

I recently switched to XP and I like it so far, but the constant modem
activity (for no apparent reason) is driving me crazy!

I have XP with service pack 1, patched with all critical updates. I'm
very confident that I don't have any viruses that my (up to date)
anti-virus software can't find and I'm fairly confident I don't have any
spyware/malware.

What's happening is that everytime I connect to the internet something
on my computer immediately begins to send and receive data (and
continues to do so with no letting up). What kind of data or what
program, I don't know, but if I idle with the connection left on, it
will continue until I end the dialup networking session. (And not just
a little bit of data either, but like 20 megabytes out/10 megabytes in
each hour or so...)

Based on what I can see in Port Explorer, a program called "SVCHOST.EXE"
is the culprit. However, ZoneAlarm is reporting the activity as coming
from "EXPLORER.EXE" (not iexplore.exe).

My computer seems to send out about twice as much as it receives in this
manner and there doesn't seem to be any pattern to the ip addresses
(which appear to come from all over).

I'm fairly ignorant about all of this and almost totally ignorant about
XP. Is this sort of activity normal? If not, has anyone heard of this
before (and know what to do make it stop)?

Thanks very much, in advance.

GB
 
Hi,

Control Panel/System/Automatic Updates tab, do you have this feature
enabled? If so, then the activity you see it the system downloading updates
for later installation. It will notify you when they are complete.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Associate Expert - WindowsXP Expert Zone

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
 
Rick "Nutcase" Rogers said:
Hi,

Control Panel/System/Automatic Updates tab, do you have this feature
enabled? If so, then the activity you see it the system downloading updates
for later installation. It will notify you when they are complete.
Click to expand...

Thanks. I should've mentioned it, but I've turned that off. It was the
first thing I thought of when I noticed the activity, but unfortunatly
it doesn't seem to be the cultprit. :(

GB
 
Try TCPView from www.sysinternals.com. It shows the remote address/port and the application.

--
Ramesh - Microsoft MVP
Windows XP Shell/User
http://www.mvps.org/sramesh2k

AumHa VSOP: http://www.aumha.org

Rick "Nutcase" Rogers said:
Hi,

Control Panel/System/Automatic Updates tab, do you have this feature
enabled? If so, then the activity you see it the system downloading updates
for later installation. It will notify you when they are complete.
Click to expand...

Thanks. I should've mentioned it, but I've turned that off. It was the
first thing I thought of when I noticed the activity, but unfortunatly
it doesn't seem to be the cultprit. :(

GB
 
Try TCPView from www.sysinternals.com. It shows the remote address/port
and the application.

Okay. Well the programs causing the trouble are explorer.exe and
svchost.exe. Does anyone have an idea of what these programs are doing
and/or how to get them to stop? (Why in the world would Explorer need
to send so much info out anyway?) I've tried blocking them completely,
but then I'm not able to do anything online... :/

GB
 
Explorer has lots of good reasons to send network traffic. What is the address/port.
 
David said:
Explorer has lots of good reasons to send network traffic. What is the address/port.
Click to expand...

Somehow (!) ... it's fixed. :-)

I uninstalled Zomealarm, I installed and am now using Mozilla (instead
of IE & OE), and I changed my modem's "maximum port speed" from its
default setting of 115200 to 57600.

I'm not sure exactly which of those steps did it (I'm pretty sure it was
changing the modem's port speed, though), but that extremely annoying
behavior is now gone.

Yay.

(Posting this mainly because it might be of some help to someone else
with the same problem, searching this group's message archives some time
in the future. By the way, thanks to everyone who tried to help.)

GB
 
Back
Top