Internet usage slow

How do I know if some kind of unwanted program is using my internet bandwidth. I have a P2P program which is running extra slow and have eliminated it as the cause of the problem.

I use NIS and Ad Aware and have run them both. They are both up to date as well.

Is their something I'm missing.

 

thescribe--Just tossing out ideas. You say you run NIS (Norton Internet Security?? --presumably including firewall and AV) and Ad-Aware. Assuming you are keeping the virus definitions and reflists up to date, you can be pretty comfortable that a virus or spyware is not the problem.
You do not tell us how you connect to the Internet. Have you talked to your ISP to see if they are having problems? If you are on dial-up, perhaps your phone line is noisy? Have you run a connection speed test?
http://bandwidthplace.com/speedtest/
http://808news.com/56k/speedtest.htm

If no problems with the connection--
Have you cleaned out your Temporary Internet Files lately?
Have you run Scan Disk and perhaps Defragmenter lately?
Do you have a pop-up stopper and/or ad-blocker installed? Try turning them off, one by one. Perhaps do the same for the firewall. Any changes?
How are your resources? When you hit Control+Alt+Delete in Win9x/Me (or bring up the Task List by right-clicking on the Task Bar and choosing "Task Manager" in Windows NT4/2000/XP) what programs are shown as running? All you really need are Explorer and Systray. Read here to see what those programs are
http://www2.whidbey.net/djdenham/Index.htm
http://www.answersthatwork.com/Tasklist_pages/tasklist.htm
Perhaps you should eliminate some of them using EndTask?? If that helps, also stop them from starting at boot??

 

Thanks, it seems to have helped a little but I'm beginning to think that the cable connection has just become overloaded.