About Ron4

"find more information about my McAfee" There you go! You can look at more specific types, and as I recall they have a web site that can be helpful. It has been years since I have had any of their products, so I'm sure things have changed, and my memory about them has faded, except for the real PITA of getting all the bits and scraps out of my system. I'm not bad mouthing them. All anti virus software likes to hold on forever. You mentioned malware protection. Is it separate software in addition to your McAfee? Have you run a deep virus scan lately or just the automatic quick scans? I doubt if you will ever get all 3 meters to match. When you have done everything possible from your end to convince yourself that the problem is not on your end and compare it to the others having the same problem it will be decision time. You might visit the Yak Shack. There are a lot of threads over there about the problem. You will see a number of familiar names and can pm them for anything specific. To paraphrase Gwalk, the more you learn about your system, the more you will be in charge of it, instead of it being in charge of you. ... View more

Lea, Those addresses are related to Google. When you go to work do you shutdown your computer, put it in hibernate, or just sleep? http://devbaron.wordpress.com/category/uncategorized/ ... View more

Lea, Can you click on the little arrow at the beginning of each entry or the entry itself to get a more detailed description of what is trying to get into your system every few seconds? Was this during the time you were at work and not using the computers? Did you type those addresses in your search engine? ... View more

Double click the McAfee icon in the task bar or on desktop and select all history. http://download.mcafee.com/products/webhelp/5/1033/index.html#GUID-ADC79F28-A01D-4E2C-B57C-614BAEAF3... I only used McAfee when it is pre-installed on a new computer until the time runs out, but that is the way it worked for me. Check the above site to see how to do it and use the other features. You could also look in Help. Go back in time to the incident the other day and also look at why you lost data allowance today while at work. Your screen captures are a bit small for my old eyes but Charles McCool appears to see them ok. If you can make a .pdf of the list then the text size is easily enlarged. Photo captures in .png or .jpg do not enlarge well. Ron ... View more

When your data went from 80 to 46% two days ago, could you post screen captures of your McAfee history log during that time. It may take more than one screen shot to cover the period unless you can make a .pdf print of it. That should show what was coming in and going out during that time. Ron ... View more

Then just check your data usage before going to bed and unplug the LAN cable from the back of your modem. Plug it in when you get up and check the usage again. There is a delay in the meter so if you just finished downloading something big prior to unplugging a significant difference might show but if you are just browsing there should not be much difference. Doing that every night for a week will give an obvious conclusion as to where the problem is happening without jumping through all the other hoops. I thought you were reporting a big drain in the daytime while you were just browsing. Have you set McAffee definitions and program updates to not happen automatically? Sorry for my mistake. Ron ... View more

Lea, With all the other hoops you are being asked to jump through it would be interesting to check when Windows Update has been checking for updates the next few days. Start, All Programs, Windows update will show you the last time windows checked by time and date. That doesn't mean it made the update at that time since it is on the BITS download system which only downloads when nothing else is going on, pauses if there is, and resumes the next time the pc is on. Defender, which should be off since you have McAfee, and a few other windows programs update the same way. What home page do you use in your browser? A few of the news channels you mentioned checking as well as the Hughes home page have way too many large changing pictures and little videos running on them these days for limited broadband. Even the home page of Microsoft Bing has far too many images. If you leave any of these open in a tab while looking at others or nothing there is a lot of usage. A search engine page that is very plain and mostly text is the way to go. They are getting hard to find as Google Search is adding more junk all the time.  What email program do you use? Some of them check for new mail every 15 minutes but some almost instantly whenever they are open. Send yourself an email and see how long it takes to arrive back in your inbox with the program open. McAffee should have a History Log and/or a Performance graph that will show you everytime something tries to come through it. You will be amazed at the activity that goes on in the background. It should tell you each event and when it happened. If you have some of the common malware trying to gain access it may block it but there will be activity ( usage) every few seconds. Actor PID is a typical one. You can look it up on the web and see how much trouble it has been for many folks that are completely unaware it is trying to mess with their computer. We all think nothing has changed in the way we browse and use our computers but the sites we browse have become more and more cluttered every year and the size and frequency of updates to windows and other software we have installed has become ridiculous, at least in my opinion. Ron ... View more

Charles, I've seen in the past where you have been helpful in explaining to folks with the HN9000 on checking if they had the correct version of the meter for their plan, if the software in their modem was the compatible version, if they were on the correct gateway, and if Hughes had set things on their end to make the meter operate correctly. Perhaps you could go through that with Lea to be sure everything is working together as it should? Also note the properties on the image she posted. Could that cloud service have any bearing on the data being used up rapidly? Ron ... View more

Charles McCool explained to you 4 weeks ago in this thread that the old "Use Meters" leaked data and that you should install the latest one. Did you do that? You can take a screen shot by holding down Ctrl-Alt-Print Screen. This puts the image in the clipboard. Then you must open it in a photo editor and crop the image down to the size of the meter. Then save it as a .jpg and send it. Much simpler to go to Accessories in the start menu and use the "Snippet tool" which is self explained. Ron ... View more

Lea, Not a one time fix, but not every time you turn on your computer either.. It is amazing what a complete shutdown will do sometimes for electronic equipment.. You might also try cleaning out your cache, cookies, history, etc. on your computer and shutting it down completely as well, once in a while. That won't fix your runaway data consumption but it will make your computer run better. There are arguments for and against defragging hard drives but that will sometimes make them run like new. It's funny how they used to say you didn't even need to reboot the old XP operating system, but a reboot and/or complete shutdown once in a while did wonders for it. We have even had luck bringing laptops with black screens back to life by removing the AC power, removing the battery, holding the start button in to completely drain the system of any charge, and simply putting them back together. The theory doesn't matter. It is what works that counts. Nothing ventured, nothing gained! It beats waiting and watching your meter nose dive, in my opinion. Which modem are you using? ... View more

Does the firmware update or the failure to update and looping get charged to the customer's data allowance? Is the modem automatically rebooted each day at 2 AM and 7 AM? ... View more

Lea, Have you tried unplugging your modem and your router for about 30 minutes; then plugging in the modem and letting the lights stabilize for about 5 minutes before you plug the router in. Let it stabilize a few minutes before you bring your computer out of sleep. Charles, Could you, Gwalk and Sgoshe give us a simple explanation of the cause and effects of data looping? Ron ... View more

Lea, You also said you have Windows 7 and have your updates set to go at 0300. On some W-7 units, depending on the "Power Plan" chosen or set up by the OEM, you can have your check for updates set to check at 0300 but it either does not wake up or checks but doesn't do the actual download until you physically wake up the computer in the morning. You can click on the Start button and type "Power" in the search box. It will take you to the Power Plan settings, and you will find many different plans plus modifications to the plans. Do you ever notice a little icon in the taskbar that says updating if you hover your mouse over it? If you click Start/All Programs and scroll to the bottom you will see the symbol and can click on the Windows update button to manually check for updates, as well as see when the last update was checked/ downloaded. Are you on a daily or monthly allotment? How many MB does the 2% you mention amount too. As William said, you are going to have to isolate to one device at a time for a period of time to determine that the problem is not on your end. Ron ... View more

You said you and your husband both have I phones. The I0S8 update released on 17 September is 1.1 GIG. Did either of you install the update using your internet connection? Ron ... View more

Lea, Near the top of this page you said your husband had a work phone that had to stay connected. Do you have a VOIP unit between your modem and router or modem and computer if you have eliminated the router? If not are you talking about using a Smart phone ( your husband's work phone) to connect to the web via your router? ... View more

http://consumer.performancetests.hughesnet.com/ ... View more

Lea, How does that compare to the "Check Useage" Tab" on the speed test page for those hours today? If you choose the Month list it will be short, since we started a new month Today. But it tells you hour by hour how much Hughes says you used. Ron ... View more

Will it still show me the 2 day value of 750 MB to start and replenish to 100 percent overnight, if I haven't gone below 50 percent the first day? Not much chance of that for the past month or more. It is so slow I usually have 85-99% left at 2400. ... View more

Speaking of delay time/report back. Is there a delay in the use meter figures? I'm still using the old one as it is not clear that it works on the daily allotment plan? I notice the speed history in the speed test doesn't show the last run if I click on it real fast, and the data use page says it is not up to the real time moment. Possibly that could be confusing some folks when they think time is going away after they unplug their modem? Ron ... View more

Charles, That little program is still in Beta 1 only been out briefly, only downloaded 186 times, and reviewed by 2 people. One says it takes 20-40MB of RAM to run. Are you sure it isn't sending information out and using more unexplained allotment loss? I imagine you have tested it. Just askin... Ron ... View more

Charles, Did you have her check her power word? The theory of hunting for a signal may have some merit. Ron back to the garden. ... View more