windows 10 home as a network troughput dataloger

kokodin · 23 Mar 2021

Hello
i have a problem with my internet provider and need a way to prove him wrong to get stuff fixed so i came up with an idea how to colect enough data to be sure the internet provider is being broken and not our network users.
As a school admin i am constantly being told that internet in school dormitory does not working at all. When i go to check there is one of two situation, either internet get back up and is running on full speed , or entire routing is disabled but pings to google go trough with ~30ms but no internet website is getting trough in the browser.
i am not interetsed on what kind of trafic is being routed trough and who is using it, we currently have 5 students in dormitory due covid and 2 computers for the mannagment so even with heavy torrenting it should not clog up like that.

So the idea is to place dumb computer with 2 network cards in bridge mode between internet provider router and our network and simplu pass all the internet trough it, i only need some kind of software to datalog current bandwidth use on that computer to pin point to internet provider when we had a bandwidth black hole, because internet provider claims we use 100% of the bandwidth all the time.
but if it is in fact a torrent caused i would like to trim it down later by some other means
first thing first i need to know who's right

any idea what software should i use?

edit**********************

to be honest windows task mannager has all the features i need in it's standard basic form, i only need a way to colect that data in some form and either make a graph out of it or just keep it as is
time , load in and out , that's it

zebal · 23 Mar 2021

kokodin said:

so even with heavy torrenting it should not clog up like that

Yes it should, torrents can consume all bandwidth with ease.

So the idea is to place dumb computer with 2 network cards in bridge mode between internet provider router and our network and simplu pass all the internet trough it, i only need some kind of software to datalog current bandwidth

I'm afraid you won't find such software (at least not for free), what you're talking about is turning one computer into a gateway, for this to work you are supposed to understand how this stuff works first, because you'll need to set up a lot of advanced things.

My suggestion is this:
1. You have 7 computers, go to each one and reset "data usage"
2. Every few hours note down data usage for each PC, ex. into excel spreadsheet.
3. Create a data usage table and calculate available bandwidth vs spent bandwidth per PC.

Reset Network Data Usage in Windows 10

To mathematically prove not all available bandwidth was spent (because your ISP says otherwise), you have following problems:

1. Not all of the time same amount of bandwidth is spent (in total as well as per computer)
2. You don't monitor bandwidth once per minute but rather every few hours or days

Therefore to be accurate and to not waste too much time using derivative of a function may help to be as precise as possible:
Derivative - Wikipedia

NavyLCDR · 23 Mar 2021

I would look at router and modem logs.

Samuria · 23 Mar 2021

There are a lot of free proxy software put that on the pc you can monitor each user were they go restric sites and so much more

jimbo45 · 23 Mar 2021

Hi there
Torrenting will use whatever bandwidth is available -- especially if enough people are seeding. Remember also that while torrenting you are also concurrently uploading stuff and a lot of ISP's have a much slower rate of upload speed than download speeds. You should also be aware that some torrents can be incredibly large - especially if people are downloading 4K UHD files.

Also if on Wifi and there's no full duplex option throughput will be noticeably throttled back if a load of users are trying mega downloads concurrently.

I'd install a simple Linux server which can handle all the client computers Internet traffic via a proxy server - then you can control / restrict / whatever to your hearts content. Two NICS is also a good idea - there's a lot of ways to solve your problem without spending oodles of dosh -- but a lot of torrenting will consume every bit of available bandwidth if it can.

A bog standard Windows 10 HOME installation wouldn't be my first choice (or a choice at all) to manage this type of stuff for a load of client machines !!!! especially when you know there's a lot of torrenting going on.

Cheers
jimbo

kokodin · 23 Mar 2021

ok i see we don't understand each other.
i know that torrent can eat all possible bandwidth in both direction but it usualy wasn't a problem when 100 students were on campus, so why now 5 of them make a difference?
also i have no access to router provided by internet provider
I don't want a router but rather something that work as a hub with current load counter but with dataloging
of course i could setup some linux gateway but that might not even solve anything because router on our side or on the provider side simply lock http routing for a given time and then give it back, i am not even sure if there are any torrents involved
the thing i know the whole network was build and maintain by that internet provider and it is a small local operation company at whom we had another connection in different building and that connection could make 100% load both ways with nothing connected to the router. i want to rule out problem on our side of things because it might be a loopback at the provider for both our connection and the same company under a state contract is about to install 3rd connection

edit
anyway at this point i am not even interested at who do what on the internet, i just want tio have a way to compare raw bandwidth to what the provider claims, because he say either that "everything is working fine as it should" ot that we use whole bandwidth when at the same time i can tell it isn't a thing

edit 2

My suggestion is this:
1. You have 7 computers, go to each one and reset "data usage"
2. Every few hours note down data usage for each PC, ex. into excel spreadsheet.
3. Create a data usage table and calculate available bandwidth vs spent bandwidth per PC.

zebal we do not have data cap only speed limitation at any given moment we should have whole bandwidth of the connection avalable even if we torrent the heck out of it it is suposed to held up the abuse 24/7 with no noticable breaks because this is the agreement with the internet provider

also as a school we do not have the rights to force any changes into students own computers

zebal · 23 Mar 2021

kokodin said:

also as a school we do not have the rights to force any changes into students own computers

Therefore you need to reserve one computer as a gateway and install some monitoring software on it, and given your school restrictions it may be classified as "intrusive"

we do not have data cap only speed limitation at any given moment

That's exactly what calculating "derivative" does (from my previous link).

Maybe somebody can recommend such AIO program, you'll likely need several tools in place.

kokodin · 23 Mar 2021

what i need is a ground up rebuild of entire network in dormitory, but that is kind of hard subject

3 years ago 2 schools were fused toghether and i am from that other school so even if i know what i am doing i kind of can't touch parts of already established things. and there is a lot of things that need to be changed if that network is to be safe and functioning
but for now we don't even know if we are paying for internet of for a lie

NavyLCDR · 23 Mar 2021

What bandwidth from the ISP are you paying for? One problem with setting up a single computer as a gateway is that that computer is going to have to support the entire bandwidth of the internet connection.

Samuria · 23 Mar 2021

Free proxy servers Best free Proxy software for Windows 10