Hey guys.

Got a major issue that only started up a few days ago but is causing some serious problems. I've been having a lot of trouble with my internet connection running incredibly slowly and I've just realised that Steam and MSN messanger seem to be using an awful lot of bandwidth. Whenever either program is active it makes web browsing impossible.

Why has this suddenly started happening and how can I fix it!?

Cheers in advance.

"Steam uses BitTorrent for some of the file transfers"

I'm not sure if this is a fact or not, but bittorrent does in fact hog a lot of the bandwith in the later versions, i still don't have a definite answer yet.

yeah i notice that some of my steam programs randomly update(usually at very high bit rates), choking my connection speed to a standstill sometimes. Usually i just right-click over the updating program and hit "pause", or i just close steam altogether. (this is the reason i don't run Steam at startup anymore)

I dunno if this is what you're talking about or not. It could also be the steam client itself updating, but i don't know where or how to pause or manage this. Or finally, it could be Valve trying to be sneaky, seekritely stealin all your appz/pr0n/filez... = /

Everything is up to date and like I say MSN does it do. Anyway, the problem seemed to fix itself when I ran the two programs together.

Odd.

I have a theory. Steam runs on 90% pure win, while MSN runs on 90% pure failure. You can't have too much of one or the other or they overpower and sap your internet. Thus the solution is to run them both simultaneously so the win and fail even each other out and your internet is restored.

strideh has gone native = )

Strider, I find those figures hard to believe.

Yes, it's more like:
Steam 99% win and MSN 100% fail.

Ok. Just discovered that watching YouTube videos has the same effect. When I started up my PC this morning and Steam kicked in the net slowed to a crawl again. I killed it in task manager and restarted Steam and that seems to have fixed it.

What in the name of Belgium is going on?

Penguinboy, I find those figures hard to believe.

Steam is only 70% win because it's kinda slow and uses MSHTML. MSN is certainly 100% fail though.

Reset my Router and that also seems to have helped for now. I imagine my ping will shoot upwards again though. Ever so many things seem to set it off. Then, randomly it drops again and I can browse and play without problem.

Connection is being stupid.

It may be your ISP. I say this because I moved to another one, the last one I had was stupid,slow upload\download(do I have to mention that 40 kb/s download is quite slow ?), the only positive aspect was the good ping.
But, when the messenger was on, the ping skyrocketed , and often I lost connection.
And certain problems could not be resolved without calling a stupid asshole who only asked me if "is the monitor on the bottom-right blinking or it's being crossed out with a red line?" , because I only had a cable coming in my house. The connections were made outside on a pole.

With my new ISP, I have the modem on my desk, so if I have serious problems ( really serious problems) I only restart it. If I have SUPER SERIOUS problems ( really rare) I just reset it. And it's a 6 mb/s connection

The thing is, I have a wireless router hooked up to the modem which is what the laptop uses to connect and that never has any issues with Steam / MSN. The only time it slows down is when the desktop PC connects.

EDIT

Wow! So yeah, turns out my PC was trasmitting information to some Russian porno site. I managed to stop it briefly but when my firewall decided to install an update and rescan my system, BANG! 2 Trojans were infecting a great deal of my Windows directory including winlogon.exe and svchost.exe. My PC's memory was being drained by these 2 processes and task manager would lock up a few seconds after starting it. My system was pretty much dead.

Luckily, my virus scanner managed to heal these files after 5 attempts and as many restarts. Now, Windows needs to be authorized online using my product code...

Needless to say I probably won't be around for the next few days while I try and sort something out.

Man, PC's are a ball ache.

do you know where you got the bug(s) from?

some Russian porno site

Enough said.

Well at least we know what you're doing with your free time.

I'm a man with the Internet and too much time on my hands.

oh urby, now that you're bandwith is fixed you can upload ch.3 of the sims correct?

God almighty Urb. If you want free pr0n just go on that "free" site that everyone uses which is also safe. Obviously I'm not going to link on TWHL.

At least you found the problem.

oh urby, now that you're bandwith is fixed you can upload ch.3 of the sims correct?

...uhm...

Now, Windows needs to be authorized online using my product code...

That's a negative.

habboi pm me what you are speaking of, not for me, but for a friend.. ; )

habboi pm me what you are speaking of, not for me, but for a friend.. ; )

I can't believe you actually posted that in a thread and not in a PM...

I'm honestly just curious what he's talking about, but now i think i know..

)

Sooo, is a virus from a pr0n site considered a sexually transmitted infection?

Ultimate virus-free porn surfing guide:
1. Install GNU/Linux.
2. Install Opera.
3. Install Flash.
4. Install mplayer.
5. Have fun.

P.S. Change all of your passwords and if you used your CC online during the time you were infected, get a new one

what is CC?

Credit card.

I try to be safe by only dowloading bare .avi, .xvid, .mpeg, .divx files, and i only get applications from confirmed sources. I run Avast with all the different scanners/shields turned on, but since i have x64 an can't run ZoneAlarm, I only have the Windows Firewall.(i consider myself safe but i don't really know anything about anything, tbh)

Are you guys talking about getting bugs from streaming sites? Is that what the bulletproof linux system would be necessary for?

for kicks i will look into dual booting my system vistaX64/linux (something i've always wondered about anyway) It would be nice peace of mind in any event just knowing you didn't have to worry... you don't need antivirus at all on linux?

Video files aren't neccessarily safe.. WMV certainly isn't safe by design and there's plenty of vulnerabilities in various decoders and players. It's not a common vector of infection but it's a possibility. Security software is basicly a waste of time too, I got by without any security software on WinXP for a few years without any issue (unless you count ProcessMonitor as security software) and only stopped counting because I'm back on GNU/Linux fulltime.

I'm more security conscious than most (checking legitimacy and integrity of system files from BartPE, running services with limited priveleges, fixing a large number of the security issues inherent in a default WinXP installation, using a limited user account, running my browser in a sandbox and running unknown code in a VM), but I went a little further than the average user would need to keep their system infection-free.

The problem with antivirus software is that it rarely catches the latest-greatest well-written stuff, and is more of a safety-net for stupidity for the most part. However, your system is only as secure as the software you use on it. If you never update your stuff, or you use software that you know is vulnerable, then you're screwed by default.

Also, Linux ISN'T bulletproof. Only moronic Linux fanboys and people who don't know better actually think that. The reason I'd recommend it for security is because it has such a small share in the desktop market that it's users are rarely targeted and due the open source nature of software commonly used on it, response time for fixing vulnerabilities is often faster than with closed source solutions. Instead of having a single small team of people with access to the codebase, anyone can download the source, fix the bug and submit their solution, and due to the community-driven nature of open source projects there's often quite a number of people interested in fixing bugs.

Finally, no you wouldn't need any antivirus software on GNU/Linux. That's not to say that there aren't viruses out there written for the platform, but they can't (usually) take control unless they're executed as root (there's exceptions, but generally privelege escalation vulnerabilities are considered critical and get patched very quickly). I guess you could write a keylogger with limited priveleges or you could even "rm -rf ~" which could be quite devastating, but the simple fact is that nobody really bothers and these are all things you'd actually have to willingly execute (unless you get exploited via your browser or the like), you don't have 1000 worms out in the wild trying to attack you (and if you're not stupid, failing because you've got all incoming traffic blocked at the router) like you'd have with Windows.

Wow, nice writeup! = )

I found some forum info--aren't forums great?--where people claim they got most of the drivers to work for my laptop(p-7811fx) with Ubuntu 8.04.1, so i'll probably image my drives, and try installing it tomorrow. I'm fairly excited to play with and learn a new OS tbh...

I will be reinstalling windows soon. It seems the easiest option.

Didnt you solve the problem?

never hurts to do a clean install. Just somthin' 'bout that fresh-install smell...
= )