Constant network activity received at 8Kbps once every 1-3 weeks!?

BLaZiNgSPEED said:

The thing is that the 8Kbps data received will still persist infinitely.

Sorry but no, it's not being 'received'... 'cos your Netstat results show no external connections at all, not established, not even listening... nor even any local connections to shared resources within your LAN (printer, etc.).

IMO the 'received' network traffic is being generated within your device between the different adapters (physical and virtual) and showing as loopback address 'heartbeats' picked up by your ethernet adapter (and no disk activity).

Look at the top line of your Netstat results... it's 2 loopback addresses, one of them using port 135... normal RPC client-server communication between internal processes. It's normal network activity between processes running in your PC. As I mentioned in a previous post, translate the PIDs to processes to understand what's going on.

Many thanks.

Actually, that 100% disk usage occurs on the 6th minute of system start time. It always does this for some reason at least on Windows 10 Pro 1903 version that I am currently using. After the 7th minute approximately the disk usage stops.

I just happened to have captured the screenshot shortly after this disk usage started to stop. It doesn't seem to be related to Windows Update as it will do this on every boot. It's programmed on the 6th minute to go to 100% for a minute or two before it calms down.

It is true that the screenshot doesn't show any external network connections. Even resource monitor doesn't show any active connections.

There was no windows update being downloaded, but perhaps a scanning may have occurred. Frankly, even if it did it should've stopped after a few minutes. But I have tested once for 3-5 hours system up time and the Task Manager under Performance tab for the Ethernet would show 8Kbps activity non stop. If it is simply 'heartbeats' being picked up by the network adapter then I suppose it will have nothing to do with the Windows Update.

I have also made a test around 7 months ago when I last had it and tried unplugging and re-plugging the Ethernet cable and saw that the behaviour did not end, it was continuing. However, if I went to network adapters and then disabled it and then re-enabled it then the behaviour stopped!

Again, I'll have to observe now with Windows 10 Updates being disabled whether this will occur. Nevertheless, this behaviour is rare. Once in 1-3 months and it will happen only once before it stops emerging for another good 1-3 months. I suppose it's not a big deal. I believe many people experience this but they don't open up Task Manager to view what's happening.

I have developed an obsession every day when I turn on the PC to press Ctrl+Shift+Esc to open Task Manager to see if this behaviour happens before I close it and have that sigh of relief. Now unless it is something innocent or a glitch with network settings of router then I can ignore it.
I do note that I'm with BT broadband here with the Smart Hub 2 router. Prior that I used to be a TalkTalk FTTC customer for 2 years and never experienced this with the TalkTalk WiFi Hub.

I also note a new firmware update occurred on the 27th of June for my Smart Hub 2 router. So it is now a case of me to have a good observation and look again with Windows Update disabled and seeing if it happens again. If it does then I'll not blame Windows Update or Store. I'll then think it is 'heartbeat' activity sent by network adapter.

One thing worth mentioning that I probably forgot to mention before that this behaviour never ever occurs in the middle of the computer system up time. It will always occur on Boot or Reboot of the computer! It's not like suddenly out of no where it will start. If it remains 0 Send and 0 Received it will remain that way. If I login to the router settings then sure I'll see this constant received activity, but at least I know it is that and when I exit the router settings Network adapter will return to 0 Kbps activity.

Due to the rarity of this behaviour, it has been difficult to find out the trigger. I'm suspecting Windows Update store or something causing it but just not being reflected as an active connection point.

IMO you are looking for a problem where none currently exists.

I don't think I can help more...

No worries, at least you tried to help your best, much appreciated!

I'm actually not the only one describing the same experience. https://forums.malwarebytes.com/topi...ing-8-16-kbps/
Someone else posted the same experience 2 years ago on Malwarebytes forums. Same experience on startup and the response was OS Background Chatter from Microsoft.

I'll have a look to see whether with Windows 10 Update disabled, whether it will come back. Frankly, it probably isn't a big deal especially as it is only 8Kbps and happens just once in 2-3 months average. But this will definitely rule out any doubts about it being from Microsoft as surely adding http:\\neverupdatewindows10.com to the "Specify Intranet Microsoft update service location' cuts off any network communication with the Microsoft servers.

Should it happen again, I'll know it's something else, maybe network adapter or router related. I'll soon switch to FTTP (Full Fibre) as we've been upgraded to Community Fibre here that offers 3Gbps symmetrical. 8Kbps is nothing really, as long as it is a harmless glitch.

Almost 2 months since I last had this trigger occur in 31st of July.

It has happened again on the 24th of September, today. This time I can positively confirm that it isn't Windows update related as I have turned off Windows 10 update.

Strangely this time at startup it was showing this foreign IP address.
Everything is pointing to a BT IP address. When I google this. It comes up with this Just a moment... as the first page on google.

As I am a BT Broadband ISP customer here in the UK.

Anyway, as usual this Active connection did disappear after a few minutes. However, the constant network activity of 8Kbps received data did not disappear until I once again restarted my computer. As always it is something that will only show up at startup on PC boot and will remain forever until I restart.

At least from my experiment so far I can rule out that this can't be Windows 10 update related as I have set to neverupdatewindows10.com/ "intranet update service address" & "intranet statistics server"

There's nothing suspicious in Windows 10 services. Same number of services, but continued to show up this network activity. I tried turning on and off firewall and resetting to default. But it makes no difference. I also tried DMZ to turn off and on from router settings as I know I use it to have ports opened for online gaming.

I remember 3 years ago when I was with TalkTalk and had that ISP for 2 years I never experienced any of that. I do not know if this is ISP related or my Windows 10 OS that's doing this. Maybe a change of ISP might be the next thing I'll have to do to test.

I'm on a hybird Fibre FTTC (Fibre to the Cabinet) service. We now have FTTP (Fibre to the Premises) with CommunityFibre here in London. Might have to switch to new ISP and see if this is something ISP related that's causing this. Maybe new ISP and different router might stop this behviour occurring every couple of months.

BLaZiNgSPEED said:

I do note that I'm with BT broadband here with the Smart Hub 2 router.

You're using a now unsupported Windows 1903 package with a now ancient BT Smart Hub router.

How do you know that the 'constant network activity' is not either MS or BT (or both) just querying your setup?

Hope this helps...

RickC said:

You're using a now unsupported Windows 1903 package with a now ancient BT Smart Hub router.

How do you know that the 'constant network activity' is not either MS or BT (or both) just querying your setup?

Hope this helps...

Well you're right that my version of Windows 10 is 1903 and the last final build package. However, I've been using it since 2019.

I reinstalled Windows 10 1903 on December 2021, I also had the same Windows prior to that. I was still with TalkTalk broadband from February 2020 to July 2022.

18th of July 2022 I switched to BT Broadband and the first experience of this happening with network activity of 8Kbps started around October 2022.
So I would not be surprised if it is the BT SmartHub 2 that is causing this or the BT broadband ISP itself.

From December 2021 to October 2022 I never experienced a single occasion this network activity occurring and never before that either since using Windows 10 1903 in 2019.
The bizarre thing is that last night at 4am when I restarted my PC the same thing happened again. So from July 31st when I last had this experience, it only happened again yesterday 24th September and last night 25th September.

I do note that there has been a firmware update for my SmartHub 2 router on the 1st of September.

Firmware version: v0.40.00.04147-BT
Firmware updated: 1-Sep-2023

Frankly, if we were to look at this setting neverupdatewindows10.com this is supposed to cut off any network with the Windows 10 MS servers!

Unless there is another back haul, I don't see why it would be MS. However, I haven't yet used Windows Update Blocker tool because I remember I would use that tool instead. But since I discovered neverupdatewindows10.com I thought that I may not even need to use that.

BLaZiNgSPEED said:

Frankly, if we were to look at this setting neverupdatewindows10.com this is supposed to cut off any network with the Windows 10 MS servers!

I doubt it... 'cos you've used backslashes instead of forward slashes in the URL, and even correcting the address returns an error as the site cannot be found:

BLaZiNgSPEED said:

I do note that there has been a firmware update for my SmartHub 2 router on the 1st of September.

Firmware version: v0.40.00.04147-BT
Firmware updated: 1-Sep-2023

Probably just a minor update to disable SMB v1 support for its USB port. It's still very long in the tooth now.

Hope this helps...