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Monitoring home network traffic

SniperGuySniperGuy SniperGuyGamingRegistered User regular
edited December 2008 in Help / Advice Forum
Ok, I'm fed up. I came home for christmas break, and I'm usually the tech guy around here, but this is ridiculous. It's either Comcast being lame, or someone's computer using an unreasonable amount of the network. So here's what I want. I want some sort of tool that can show me which computer in the house (through IP or MAC hopefully) is using up all the bandwidth. We've got a wireless WRT54g router. Any suggestions? I'm worried it's a virus or something sending mass spam from my sister's computer or something, and as the only tech literate person in the house, I've gotta figure it out.

SniperGuy on

Posts

  • GrimmGrimm Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    I would start with your computer online (since its the most likely chance of a clean computer) then one at a time, try out the other computers on the network. See what computers online when the problems start. Also, i would suggest making sure you don't have some neighbor stealing your bandwidth off the wireless.

    Grimm on
  • SniperGuySniperGuy SniperGuyGaming Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    The wireless is setup password protected, encrypted, and only certain MAC addresses are online. So that's fine. I'd just like a tool that shows me each IP's network traffic on the network.

    SniperGuy on
  • DocDoc Registered User, ClubPA regular
    edited December 2008
    There is a log tool on the router's page. something like
    http://192.168.1.1/Log.htm

    Doc on
  • SniperGuySniperGuy SniperGuyGaming Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    It only tells me incoming and outgoing IPs though. Nothing substantial.

    SniperGuy on
  • khainkhain Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    Dependent on version of your router you can flash it with custom firmware that can show you bandwidth usage and implement QoS.

    khain on
  • PirateJonPirateJon Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    SniperGuy wrote: »
    I'd just like a tool that shows me each IP's network traffic on the network.
    You can't get there from here.

    what would typically gather that data is the router, then you'd export the data for further crunching. Linksys doesn't have that ability by default.

    Your going to have to run stuff locally on each host (not a single host since packet sniffers won't work on a switched lan) or upgrade the firmware on the router to dd-wrt or similar.

    Suggestion - try to connect to the ISP with a single PC, no router. Run a speed test. reconnect devices one by one and rerun the tests to see if one system is the cause.

    PirateJon on
    all perfectionists are mediocre in their own eyes
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