Bandwidth flux

[ConfusedVet]

I'm a vet living at a facility in North Carolina. The building is a motel that was converted for permanent residents. We have a server and three wireless routers posted around the facility. The problem is that we lose internet connections and get a constant low speed on our connection. The advisor to our director tells him that somebody is using some sort of an IP grabber to gobble up the bandwidth, leaving little for the rest of us. Does this sound possible? We have to have a password and user name. I've read what is posted about IP addresses, etc., but I haven't found anything on this subject. Thanks for your help.

[clanmills]

Well, I suppose it's possible. However before suspecting the folks round about, perhaps you should consider the location of the routers, the number of users and the expected radius of operation.

I live in a condo complex in which there are about 30 secured wireless routers nearby. I found changing the channel number on the router made a big improvement to my wireless connection.

Robin

[wimiadmin]

I've got experience in this situation. It's a tedious process, but we should be able to get it resolved quickly.

Possible problems:
1. As Robin stated, positioning or selected channels of wireless equipment.
2. Someone on your network is using a program like utorrent that hogs bandwidth.
3. Someone on your network has a virus/malware on their computer that is hogging the bandwidth.
4. You have a bad network cable connecting one of the wireless routers.

Easy solutions:
Disconnect all cabling to wireless routers (should be 3 cables since you have 3 wireless devices) and plug straight in to the internet source. Go to our speed test page and verify your connection is solid. Once this is verified, connect one device at a time and after connecting, go back to the speed test page to verify the solid connection. If after all 3 devices are connected and your speed test is still solid, the problem isn't the wiring or the devices.

Now....disconnect 2 wireless routers and connect to the network via wireless and do a speed test at varying locations in the facility where the connected wireless device serves. Edit the wireless channel and frequencies until your speed test results are solid. Repeat this step for the other 2 wireless devices.

If after all of this is done and the net bogs down again, it's quite possible someone on your network has malware on their PC/Laptop and it's dragging everyone down or they're using uTorrent or something similar.

If you suspect someone has malware, running Ad-Aware by lavasoft (free) and Spybot S & D (also free) should clean it up. I would also recommend installing something like AVG (also free) to prevent viruses.

[ConfusedVet]

Fellas,

Thank you for your replies. I suspect that it's the utorrent answer because that's the one that is talked about by the administration. Your answer sort of confirmed what they already believed. What can we do to pinpoint this bandwidth hog? Is there a program we can load on the server that will allow us to match the bandwidth gobbler with his log in/user name? I guess we can see his IP(s) or whatever and then reference the users who are logged in. Either way, we have to do this so that everybody can enjoy the internet, not just one guy. Also, I will suggest to the admin that the routers are checked, I suspect they are old b-type routers which have a short broadcast area.

Thanks again. Your answers and website are a big help.

[wimiadmin]

How many users are on this network?

[clanmills]

Hi Doc

I don't know anything about utorrent. If it's operating on a special port (not port 80), I think I could block it with my router's firewall.

To find the hogger, you'll need 'proper' server (probably running Linux) on your network to log DHCP allocations and bandwidth use. You'll soon find the person abusing the service. However you'll need to find a friendly network admin (or private detective) to do this. You'll probably have to pay for this work to be done.

I know nothing about the domestic setup here. A letter to all residents expressing concern (and threatening the private detective) may simply resolve everything. It's quite possible that the person distrupting everybody is unaware of the issue they have created and will be very cooperative when the situation is explained.

Robin

[wimiadmin]

I had forgotten about this thread. But useful information pertaining to the same subject.

http://forum.whatismyip.com/showthread.php?t=189