Router question:

I use "wireless network watcher' to see what is hooked up to my router.

Is there a similar package that can say how much data is going in each device, upload and download?

I got it at nirsoft.net

Lots of other utilities there also.

what yer using;
https://www.nirsoft.net/utils/wireless_network_watcher.html
what yer looking for;
https://www.nirsoft.net/utils/network_traffic_view.html

Originally posted by @rookie54
what yer using;
https://www.nirsoft.net/utils/wireless_network_watcher.html
what yer looking for;
https://www.nirsoft.net/utils/network_traffic_view.html

Thanks. Got it. Didn't see it in the list of network stuff though.

Gads, what a bunch of stuff coming through.

It is going to be a stiff learning curve figuring all that crap out though🙂

Any network for dummies for this stuff?

PM me if you get over your head. I do network monitoring for a living.

Originally posted by @moonbus
PM me if you get over your head. I do network monitoring for a living.

Hey, thanks for that. I would love to be a fly on your shoulder when you do stuff like that.
The Nisoft stuff is very complex, is there software out there that can say in plain English what is sucking data out? One time I was on the phone to my son over wifi, and did speed check and found out of 6 mbits/sec I pay for upload, it was showing 0.4 was all left over.
So I tried an experiment, when we hung up, I was getting 5 or so. So I called back while speed check was on, it was still 5 ish.

The only thing I could think of is another son having a Xbox. I assume there is upload and download when they play with other people but could that take up 5+ megabits?

So would like software that would say, Xbox is using 4 megs or whatever.

On the Nisoft stuff I was seeing uploads of 0.3, 0.4 going on, cookies? Is there a way to snuff individual upload stuff? A lot of the lines showed no identifications, like my Samsung
phone showed up as samsung and such and my Epson printer wireless showed up as epson and such but a lot of them had no ID's. Is that a fault of the software or is it not possible to get id's of all of the links?

Are there books that spell all this stuff out? Network for dummies or some such?
One thing, I was told by Dish (my tv stuff) that if we record something over wifi the box will choose how fast it sucks up data, so when I had a 20 meg line, I would see it suck up more than half, sometimes 3/4 of that 20. They said if I went to a faster line it would choose a faster rate and just record the whole show faster.

That didn't seem to happen but I still lose a lot of download when Dish records. Do you see that kind of thing where a Dish box or others will suck up more download speed the faster my line goes? If so, is there any kind of control I can do from my router that would limit such download speed so it would be more equal among the family uses? Xbox, at least 3 smart phones hooked to Wifi and a couple of tablets my wife uses and my comp hard wired and a Tmobile Landlink for house phone.
Just did a speed check, 10:30 am today, now it shows 44 out of 60 and 5.8 out of 6.
Still not sure what is using 20 megs down.

The software shows Dish using 4 URL's I assume to parse video which takes up a lot of bandwidth. 192.168.0.107.8.9..and 19 for Dish alone.

But I saw one URL that says 'private'. What the heck is that?

Hi sonhouse,

I am not familiar with NetworkTrafficView v2.13 in particular, but from the description and screenshot at the link rookie sent you, it is very similar to some freeware tools offered by SysInternals (now owned by Microsoft) with which I am familiar.

You ask too many questions to answer them all in great detail here. However, I can give you a sort of primer about networking in a typical home environment:

1. WLAN functions in half-duplex mode only (transmit or receive, not both simul). Cabled LANs run in full-duplex mode (send/receive simul). Cabled clients therefore have a clear advantage over WLAN clients in a mixed-mode environment.

2. Multiple WLAN clients (tablets, game consoles, phones, etc. etc.) associated to the same WLAN access point compete for access, in half-duplex mode. This means that no WLAN client is able to monopolize the link and send continuously. This significantly affects throughput for WLAN-based clients and apps, especially if you want to talk continuously (e.g. FaceTime or skype) from one client while someone else is gaming and someone else is streaming music or recording tv shows.

3. Multiple apps running simultaneously compete for bandwidth, regardless whether cabled or wireless, whereby file transfer type apps (streaming/recording tv) tend to put the squeeze on real-time apps (gaming/phoning/skyping). This leads to jitter in real-time apps ("jitter" means jerkiness, inconstant bit-rates, frozen monitor syndrome, etc.). This leads to further degradation of WLAN-based real-time apps competing with file-transfer apps.

4. It is in principle possible to limit certain apps' use of bandwidth to a fixed rate or a % of available bandwidth. The technical term for this is "QoS" (= quality of service), which means that all packets are not treated equally; instead, prioritization is implemented whereby some apps get a sort of bus&taxi-lane all to themselves and can bore through heavily congested links. This is configurable on high-end routers; whether this is configurable on your kit, I cannot say without a lot more detailed information about your network. You don't want to publish that sort of thing at an Internet forum (where FaceBook's invisible 3d-party data mining operations, among others, are listening).

4. "URL private": not sure on this one. Is there an IP address associated with it?

5. Every networkable device has at least one unique identifier. It is usually an IP address (something that looks like 192.168.0.107.8), or a physical address which looks something like 12:34:ab:cd:0a:2b, or in case of a wireless telephone or wireless keyboard or wireless headphone, some other unique identifier. It may take some patience to figure out which ID matches to each device in the network. Worst case, you turn off every device until the network is still, then you turn on one device after another and watch your network traffic monitor to see what lights up.

Hope this helps a bit.

Originally posted by @moonbus
Hi sonhouse,

I am not familiar with NetworkTrafficView v2.13 in particular, but from the description and screenshot at the link rookie sent you, it is very similar to some freeware tools offered by SysInternals (now owned by Microsoft) with which I am familiar.

You ask too many questions to answer them all in great detail here. However, I can give you ...[text shortened]... another and watch your network traffic monitor to see what lights up.

Hope this helps a bit.

Thanks for that. I tried replacing my old router with a relatively new ASUS AC1900 and found out of my 60 meg download I get from my provider, going to speed test showed I only got 1.5 megs down and 5 or so up.

Was on ASUS support for almost 3 hours with the dude taking long hold breaks to get info from some guru in his office. The end result was all the mods we did did nothing, still 1.5 at beginning and 1.5 at end.

One thing, I did the same test with comp directly hooked to modem and it indeed showed like 55 megs but 53 megs were being lost in the ASUS router.

He gave up at that point saying it is some kind of hardware issue.

We did the same test from my cell over the wifi line and it also showed 1.5 megs down.

Don't suppose you have any input about that situation?

It's ok if you don't, I got a 3200 on Ebay for about 120 bucks, 2K+ down which of course is a bit of overkill since I only have a 60 meg line but I wanted to be able to cut the bandwidth available for the X box and Dish network TV which hogs data when recording.

So the 3200 does all that, the 1900 did not.

This thread makes baby Jesus cry.

Originally posted by @hand-of-hecate
This thread makes baby Jesus cry.

So now you are baby jesus. I am actually here to learn something about my network which I have just taken for granted till we got Dish TV and found it sucks off most of my pitiful data line of 60 megabit/second. Of course, you didn't actually get that far into it and just figure anything I ask is stupid.

So I kindly ask you to stick your router up your ass and go away.

Originally posted by @sonhouse
So now you are baby jesus. I am actually here to learn something about my network which I have just taken for granted till we got Dish TV and found it sucks off most of my pitiful data line of 60 megabit/second. Of course, you didn't actually get that far into it and just figure anything I ask is stupid.

So I kindly ask you to stick your router up your ass and go away.

You've been sucking off your what? Never mind, none of my business.

If only Grampy Bobby were here to sort this out.

Originally posted by @sonhouse
Thanks for that. I tried replacing my old router with a relatively new ASUS AC1900 and found out of my 60 meg download I get from my provider, going to speed test showed I only got 1.5 megs down and 5 or so up.

Was on ASUS support for almost 3 hours with the dude taking long hold breaks to get info from some guru in his office. The end result was all ...[text shortened]... Dish network TV which hogs data when recording.

So the 3200 does all that, the 1900 did not.

One could disconnect the router from the service provider and reconnect the WAN port to a pc running some kind of sniffer software (such as Wireshark, or TCP-dump, or your preferred network monitoring tool). Attach a second pc to one of the router's LAN ports, preferably cable not wireless, also with sniffer/monitoring tool installed. Load the link both ways, upload and download, with sniffer/monitoring tools running on both sides of the link. This will tell you what the router is really capable of transmitting and receiving. If the max you get out of is still single-digit megs, then the router is at fault. If you can load it orders of magnitude higher (53 megs or better), then the fault is elsewhere. This presupposes that your pc has the appropriate physical interface to hook up to the router's WAN port. If your service provider provides Ethernet to the door, it's easy. If not, not.

Originally posted by @moonbus
One could disconnect the router from the service provider and reconnect the WAN port to a pc running some kind of sniffer software (such as Wireshark, or TCP-dump, or your preferred network monitoring tool). Attach a second pc to one of the router's LAN ports, preferably cable not wireless, also with sniffer/monitoring tool installed. Load the link both way ...[text shortened]... uter's WAN port. If your service provider provides Ethernet to the door, it's easy. If not, not.

See this Sonhouse, this is what competence looks like. In a similar fashion it is easy to spot your stupidity.

qOriginally posted by @hand-of-hecate
See this Sonhouse, this is what competence looks like. In a similar fashion it is easy to spot your stupidity.

Sure, says the man with a 1280 rating. Why don't you chal me to a game, see who is stupid.
I see you managed to checkmate the OTHER assswipe here, Crowley with his incredible 982 rating. GREAT job.
You seem to equate lack of knowledge with stupidity.

I asked a question because I am not expert in this area.
If you want to talk about ion implanters, turbo-molecular pumps, electron microscopes, sputtering tools, RF assisted ion etchers, HF wet benches and the like and what makes a semiconductor and the like, feel free to ask. If you even know what those terms represent. I'm sure you can gargle it and become an apparent expert but you have to live it in order to really understand it. THAT you won't do since you haven't even been inside a cleanroom.

Originally posted by @sonhouse
Sure, says the man with a 1280 rating. Why don't you chal me to a game, see who is stupid.
I see you managed to checkmate the OTHER assswipe here, Crowley with his incredible 982 rating. GREAT job.
You seem to equate lack of knowledge with stupidity.

I asked a question because I am not expert in this area.
If you want to talk about ion implanters, ...[text shortened]... order to really understand it. THAT you won't do since you haven't even been inside a cleanroom.

I haven't played a game on here in years. I just come back for the laughs.

I'm an Engineer, there's not much I can't do quite honestly. I am supremely confident that the shallow pool you call a mind holds nothing of any use. You electrical dorkwads are a dime a dozen. When I need electrical contractors I go and pick up Mexican day workers from behind the Hone Depot. Your Mom is usually back there giving out handjobs so it's a two for one deal.