Alan One

zalternate hit the nail on the head. That mystery port was in fact uTorrent. While it wasn't active before I used it (see prior posts) to test the speed of a large 1 GB download. uTorrent has a graphical speed logging interface. I didn't recognize the port for 2 good reasons. 1. After testing I removed the firewall access for uTorrent. 2. uTorrent set up the port at random. So I guess those "nuisance traffic" hits will continue a few more days before they go away. The irony is I never finished the download and just picked something that had a lot of seeds. So kids, the lesson there for anyone reading this, you should know what using P2P can do to your packet flow.

@mudmanc4 and zalternate, while I can appreciate your respect for my privacy. I don't believe there are many secrets left in this world today. And the last place I would keep anything of great value or a big secret is on a PC linked 24/7 to the internet. I practice safe surfing and have a LAN in my home. I also have 2 teenagers who think they can keep secrets from me on my own network. So out of respect to your forum, I will not disclose the first part of the IP for any reference. I rebooted my network on a static IP of xxx.xx.210.88, and this seems to be running much better. Not the 2000+ Kbps that Linux was getting but 1500+ Kbps. I added a 24 hour monitor on CommView and logged the packet flow. I found that a single high range port keeps getting hit from the outside by various servers. I thought this to be spiders and search engines knocking on my system door. But all from the same port number? I looked and I cannot find any program that uses the port number. I am not concerned much since it is only incoming and not outgoing traffic. I also took notice there was a lot of traffic being used by the system and svchost.exe, which is services, so I will be looking into what services are running. @ninjageek Thanks for the software link I have highjackthis and just downloaded Advanced System Care. But as for backing up the system it is done twice a week to the LAN and I have temporally suspended the action for this station until I can figure things out.

Before my XP started creeping, I downloaded and burned the ISO of Linux Kubuntu (Ubuntu with K Desktop Enviro). Then I did the "under windows" install. Which worked out pretty well, I know some say the very best way is to do the full install on a partition, but I mainly use Linux as a backup OS (such as now) for a rainy day. There are a few drawbacks; it doesn't have a driver for my SATA drive or graphics adapter. So I can't access my SATA and I am stuck in 800x600 mode. I imagine if I chose to I could find them but like I said it is only a backdoor to the internet should something like this occur. I plan on finding out what is going on with the XP and correcting it. I have used XP for the passed 10 years but if Linux could operated all my XP software I would toss Windows out in a second. But that's not going to happen. Here is what I tried so far: Virus Scans (all of them) found no malware or virus present. Webpages load slow and scans show me running at 3 to 5% of normal speed. I did a restore to date 3 weeks ago and nothing changed so I set it back. I pulled all the hardware nothing changed. I beefed up the firewall without effect. I took down the firewall and still no change. I ran in Safe Mode with networking and nothing changed. The only real "difference" is the IP address XP uses and Linux; Linux reports xxxxxxxx XP reports xxxxxxx So I am wondering if my ISP is to blame? Maybe they are capping my speed on one and not the other? I snipped out your IP man, you don't want some dork getting any strange idea's.

Yep, if it wasn't for all the software, I'd probably dump Windows all together. This is my latest test with Linux.

No that is one of the first things I remove when I install my OS. I am hoping this is not a bad card issue since that is the mobo Ethernet card I use for the internet. The LAN card is a PCI Linksys NC100 (which I could deal with) but the mobo was put in new in Feb of this year. I have ran into a lot of MCS* in my lifetime so it would not surprise me to find out that the Linux drivers for the board are better than the XP. I will look into that next. *MCS is my own custom acronym for Mysterious Computer Sh*t - feel free to add it to your library.

I am so glad I ran into this thread. I have asked DTV if they could offer me internet through sat. and they said yes. But then the sales/tech started asking me about my phone. I told him there was no phone lines and why would I need one? Turns out they were just selling me a DSL I couldn't possibly use. DSL is not SAT. I was going to look into HughesNet but from what I am reading I don't want them either. My son suggested we should all just mount 10 to 12 cantennas on our roof tops and tell the corporations to byte me.

Well I pretty much have gave up on the idea this is spyware. I "tested" your theory about network peaks last night. I found a sizable torrent to download and ran it before going to bed. It started out at 10 to 12 Kbps and when I woke up I checked the speed logs and found that it did peak up to 67 Kbps between 2 and 4 am. I have to pay my ISP next week so I will ask them if they are somehow responsable for my Linux OS performing better than the Windows XP OS. I ran the program CommView on my network card: Line# Known use 1 My kids playing Guild Wars on the LAN 2 Subnet Mask 3 and 4 DNS Service 5 IANA 6 Magic Jack - my VoIP 7 on down My ISP I have monitored it for unknown processes using my system and have found none. I am beginning to think my ISP is messing with me. The boys say the games seem to be playing at a normal speed again without lags but when I do a speed test here or elsewhere I get ziltch unless I am running in Linux OS. There is no audio problems with the VoIP and it remains inactive until I place or receive a call. Everyone is happy but I am still looking at something odd going on with the download speeds.

Thanks again, but that was one of the first I tried. I used: Avira - Which is my normal all time scanner and guard Spybot - found nothing new Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware - found nothing Ad-Aware 2007 - Found nothing X-Ray PC - I removed some old entries I though was gone. (punkbuster) Then I downloaded and ran: Avast, A Square, and AVG Anti-Virus Nothing found so I am looking at the past week of any software installs. Unfortunately with 2 teens who love to download games and crap... well you get the idea. The only thing I added was some USB hardware which I have confirmed is not an issue. I might not have to go back the whole week just the last 4 days or so. Thanks if I figure out the culprit I will let you know. This speed really sucks like I am running on dial up.

Thanks Tommie, but it's not a matter of it being time of day or what 'they' promised. If you check it out I did the Linux (using the same hardware) above at 3:26pm then the normal XP test at 3:35pm on 09/22. Speed wasn't much an issue until recently. I thought I had picked up some malware or trojan worm. As for my ISP, I have a small tower up on the shelf that picks up a wireless signal off the county building roughly 2 miles away. It has 5 green LEDs that even with 3 lit I still get a good high speed connection. In fair weather I run 3 to 5, but it was raining yesterday and it dropped to 1 or 2. The wireless ISP not the issue. Something on this system has changed in the software settings I just ran another 3MB test and took a screen shot of my Task Manager attached to this post. You will notice the percentage of usage never jumps much above the 1% mark like it is being throttled by something. I have also monitored my downloads and found them running at only 10 to 15 KBps. Which is roughly 5 to 10% of normal speed. I guess about the only thing I haven't tried is a system restore back to last week. I hate to do that, it feels like such a cheat and never answers the real problem.

About 2500 Kbps, the Linux (yesterday) got a much higher score 2966/404 Kbps, today the weather is having some effect on my wireless signal. I am only running 3 out of 5 bars, but I finished ALL the malware scans and found nothing but cookies. Recently I installed new usb hardware but I eliminated that by uninstalling it. I was thinking my ISP had some kind of usage cap but using the Linux OS proves that wrong. So now I am looking into the TCP/IP settings. Here is info on my settings:

Got answers? I have questions... I have a dual boot system: OS Name Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition Version 5.1.2600 Service Pack 3 Build 2600 OS Manufacturer Microsoft Corporation System Name ROOM1 System Manufacturer BIOSTAR Group System Model P4M900-M7 FE System Type X86-based PC Processor x86 Family 6 Model 15 Stepping 13 GenuineIntel ~1099 Mhz BIOS Version/Date Phoenix Technologies, LTD 6.00 PG, 11/7/2007 SMBIOS Version 2.4 Windows Directory C:WINDOWS System Directory C:WINDOWSsystem32 Boot Device DeviceHarddiskVolume2 Locale United States Hardware Abstraction Layer Version = "5.1.2600.5512 (xpsp.080413-2111)" Time Zone Eastern Standard Time Total Physical Memory 2,048.00 MB Available Physical Memory 1.03 GB Total Virtual Memory 2.00 GB Available Virtual Memory 1.96 GB Page File Space 3.60 GB Page File D:pagefile.sys Linux Kubuntu 9.0 :::.. Download Stats ..::: Download Connection is:: 1328 Kbps about 1.3 Mbps (tested with 1536 kB) Download Speed is:: 162 kB/s Tested From:: https://testmy.net/ (Main) Test Time:: 2009/09/22 - 3:26pm Bottom Line:: 23X faster than 56K 1MB Download in 6.32 sec Tested from a 1536 kB file and took 9.474 seconds to complete Download Diagnosis:: May need help : running at only 62.52 % of your hosts average (speednetllc.com) D-Validation Link:: https://testmy.net/stats/id-VPJT0ZIXL User Agent:: Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Konqueror/4.2; Linux) KHTML/4.2.2 (like Gecko) [!] :::.. Upload Stats ..::: Upload Connection is:: 258 Kbps about 0.3 Mbps (tested with 579 kB) Upload Speed is:: 31 kB/s Tested From:: https://testmy.net/ (Main) Test Time:: 2009/09/22 - 3:29pm Bottom Line:: 4X faster than 56K 1MB Upload in 33.03 sec Tested from a 579 kB file and took 18.409 seconds to complete Upload Diagnosis:: 90% + Okay : running at 97.36 % of your hosts average (speednetllc.com) U-Validation Link:: https://testmy.net/stats/id-6UZBML72O User Agent:: Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Konqueror/4.2; Linux) KHTML/4.2.2 (like Gecko) [!] XP Safe Mode with Networking :::.. Download Stats ..::: Download Connection is:: 497 Kbps about 0.5 Mbps (tested with 507 kB) Download Speed is:: 61 kB/s Tested From:: https://testmy.net/ (Main) Test Time:: 2009/09/22 - 3:12pm Bottom Line:: 9X faster than 56K 1MB Download in 16.79 sec Tested from a 507 kB file and took 8.361 seconds to complete Download Diagnosis:: May need help : running at only 23.39 % of your hosts average (speednetllc.com) D-Validation Link:: https://testmy.net/stats/id-LAHXVSBRQ User Agent:: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.0.14) Gecko/2009082707 Firefox/3.0.14 (.NET CLR 3.5.30729) [!] :::.. Upload Stats ..::: Upload Connection is:: 254 Kbps about 0.3 Mbps (tested with 579 kB) Upload Speed is:: 31 kB/s Tested From:: https://testmy.net/ (Main) Test Time:: 2009/09/22 - 3:14pm Bottom Line:: 4X faster than 56K 1MB Upload in 33.03 sec Tested from a 579 kB file and took 18.64 seconds to complete Upload Diagnosis:: 90% + Okay : running at 95.85 % of your hosts average (speednetllc.com) U-Validation Link:: https://testmy.net/stats/id-PRA1FLE9X User Agent:: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.0.14) Gecko/2009082707 Firefox/3.0.14 (.NET CLR 3.5.30729) [!] XP SP3 running normal admin mode :::.. Download Stats ..::: Download Connection is:: 472 Kbps about 0.5 Mbps (tested with 507 kB) Download Speed is:: 58 kB/s Tested From:: https://testmy.net/ (Main) Test Time:: 2009/09/22 - 3:35pm Bottom Line:: 8X faster than 56K 1MB Download in 17.66 sec Tested from a 507 kB file and took 8.793 seconds to complete Download Diagnosis:: May need help : running at only 22.22 % of your hosts average (speednetllc.com) D-Validation Link:: https://testmy.net/stats/id-8KIBXR0Q3 User Agent:: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.0.14) Gecko/2009082707 Firefox/3.0.14 (.NET CLR 3.5.30729) [!] :::.. Upload Stats ..::: Upload Connection is:: 257 Kbps about 0.3 Mbps (tested with 579 kB) Upload Speed is:: 31 kB/s Tested From:: https://testmy.net/ (Main) Test Time:: 2009/09/22 - 3:35pm Bottom Line:: 4X faster than 56K 1MB Upload in 33.03 sec Tested from a 579 kB file and took 18.454 seconds to complete Upload Diagnosis:: 90% + Okay : running at 96.98 % of your hosts average (speednetllc.com) U-Validation Link:: https://testmy.net/stats/id-ROS15XMP9 User Agent:: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.0.14) Gecko/2009082707 Firefox/3.0.14 (.NET CLR 3.5.30729) [!] I am currently looking for any malware on my system. The Linux scan shows there is something software related to this issue. Thank you

I have had both Dish and Dtv. I am going to say Dtv is slightly better. I realize my story is not typical but go ahead and laugh if you feel like it... Years ago, I was with the local Charter Cable company and had an issue with the rate hike from $34 a month to $45 and all they added was a few more shopping channels and Canadian Broadcasting. So I told them to unplug me and send the bill which I paid. At that time Radio Shack was sponsoring FREE hook up for Dtv. I went down and picked up a dish and box at the mall and was hooked up about 2 weeks later. Then a few months passed by and a woman showed up at my door from Charter. Told me if I didn't pay my past due bill she was ready to disconnect me. I pointed at my dish and she said her records showed I owed for the last two months, to this day Charter still wants $90 from me. The first year with Dtv was without issue then I had to move the dish because the neighbor's enormous tree at the end of my block was cutting out my signal. After that I had the Dtv for 2 more years before I got a rate hike I felt was unwarranted. I went from $33 a month to $50 and I settled up with the company and went to Dish since they offered $29 per month. Dish a little less in channels offered as well, but the TV is not the end all be all in my life. Six months passed and the trees once again were in my way. The service tech set up 2 dish and I told him I didn't want it to increase my bill... guess what... I ended up with a big bill so I boxed up the other dish sent it (at my cost) back to them, moved and realigned the dish myself, and the next month the bill was back down. I never complained about it but never got reimbursed for the charges. I guess about 8 months later I had another tree in the way and only 4 months left on my contract. No matter what I tried I couldn't get signal. So I resorted to calling the service. The tech couldn't get service either and said he would tell them to stop billing and since it wasn't my fault not to give any penalty for early disconnect. I was sent a bill in the mail for $250 which I promptly refused to pay. Since I was still on good terms with Dtv I went back and got an intro rate of $30 per month but again that very month they charged me $55 and I had to protest it and cuss a few people out to get the offer they promised. Just 2 months later the remote quit working and they charge me $15 for a new one. I still have the Dtv system but all the TV service companies have issues imo in the end it is just a question of how much crap you are willing to put up with from them.