Hello Team/windows Experts,

I need help from  you people on this issue that i am facing. I tried to find out the exact reason behind this, however i am not successful on this.

Here is the issue:

I recently re-formatted my laptop and re-installed windows 8.1. After that, I installed only couple of software program i.e. Mozilla Firefox and installed Bit defender total security 2015 and I updated my Antivirus software. I have two ISP connections, one is USB 3G wireless connection and another one is a normal wired connection to which a wireless router is connected (wifi connection). 

Now, this is what I have seen happening. The moment i connect to the 3G usb wireless connection and even if i don't open any browser or website, I see that the data is being downloaded and i can see enormous amount of data being downloaded for no reason and I couldn't find as to what is being downloaded to my system. One can imagine and understand 10-15 Mb downloaded in couple of minutes and the connection sitting idle and not downloading anything later is fine, but if nothing is being accessed/browsed and still seeing 200-300 mb data being downloaded is something to be watched for.

The same situation was seen when i enabled my wireless connection from another ISP provider (wifi) and don't know within a minute or so 50 MB data was consumed and to see what its actually doing, i waited for another 5 -10 minutes and huge data was downloaded (may be another 100-200 MB).

Now before using my internet connection, I have done the following to ensure that unnecessary data is not downloaded from both USB 3G and wifi connection:

1. I don't run any torrents. They are absent.

2. I disabled automatic windows update

3. I have disabled live tiles so that consant update to the windows app tiles are off.

4. I have turned metered connection on for both the networks.

5. I don't download anything from internet unless very important related to my studies. I do very normal browsing.

I am pretty sure that antivirus signatures are not more than 5 mb or so (they are even smaller in files), so they won't eat that much data. 

If at all, I have to see what is being downloaded to my system, where can i find that detail/information?

How should I stop this from happening as i have to watch my 3g USB stats every now and then to see if its downloading lot of data or not?

As this is a recently formatted system, I don't see any malware/virus issues as I have my system protected. Although now software can protect the system fully, but still i haven't access/browsed any website that might cause issues to my system. However, this is something i am trying to find out and if you guys can help/suggest me, it would be great.

Warm Regards,

R Janak Sundhar

Hello Janak,

   1. make absolutely sure windows update is disabled, for this test.

   2.  Disable windows defender etc. for this test.

   3.  go though  programs and features and remove anything that is not needed or you thing might be sucking bandwidth.

    4.  hit CTRL ALT DEL, select task manager, more details, startup tab and disable everything as a possible cause of your issue.

See if any of this makes a difference.

Thanks, John

Download Wireshark and run a packet capture. It will give you a packet by packet breakdown of anything that is coming to and from your NIC. You can then breakdown the packet and see what IP it's coming from, what kind of packet it is....basically it'll answer your question. You can get Wireshark here: https://www.wireshark.org/download.html