SYSTEM Process Constantly Downloading Something

Question

I was blowing through my download quota for the last month or two, but I could not put my finger on what it was all being used on. I downloaded a program called NetBalancer and ran that for two weeks. Looking through the results I found that a process called "SYSTEM" (all caps, PID 4) was doing 75% of my downloads. Each day it was pulling down and average of 2.5gb. This is ridiculous, yeah? According to NetBalancer it maintains about 80 connections.

So I opened up process explorer to see if I could find out what was using it, but I didn't know what to look for, so still nothing. I tried searching for this problem on the internet, but if you type in "system" and "download" into google you are going to get billions of unrelated results. Does anybody have any suggestions as to what this problem may be? And I'm almost out of downloads again this month, so sooner would be better!

Thanks in advance,

Peter

Answer 1

Hi,

Apologize for the late reply.

Please test the issue in a Clean Boot state and check if you are facing the same issue. Sometimes third-party programs installed on the PC can be the cause.

You can start Windows by using a minimal set of drivers and startup programs. This kind of startup is known as a "clean boot." A clean boot helps eliminate software conflicts.

 How to troubleshoot a problem by performing a clean boot in Windows 7

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929135

Please note:  After troubleshooting, refer to the section ‘How to reset the computer to start as usual after clean boot troubleshooting’.

Let us know the result.

Answer 2

I downloaded process monitor, expanded PID 4 and limited the selection to TCP and UDP operations. It would seem that the only two operations that are taking place are:

microsoft-ds (same port every time)

netbios-ns (seemingly completely random ips and endless amounts of them)

Any suggestions now?

Answer 3

Smart idea!!

Answer 4

Run a fast a you can ,may god help you? its a trap in my opinion!!

Answer 5

Hi,

Thank you for posting your query on the Microsoft Communities.

Sorry to know that you are experiencing some issues on your Windows 7 computer. Let me try and help you.

You might face this issue if the computer is infected with virus or if you are using any third-party download manager program.

1. Are you aware of any software or hardware changes made on the PC prior to this issue?
2. Which anti-virus program is installed on the PC?

Kindly, check if Windows updates are being installed automatically.

Kindly, follow these methods and check if it helps:

If you are using any download manager software, kindly, uninstall it.

Uninstall or change a program

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/uninstall-change-program#uninstall-change-program=windows-7

**Method 2:**If that does not help, I would suggest you to run a virus scanner using Microsoft Safety Scanner.

Perform a scan using Microsoft safety scanner.

http://www.microsoft.com/security/scanner/en-us/default.aspx

Note: The Microsoft Safety Scanner expires 10 days after being downloaded. To rerun a scan with the latest anti-malware definitions, download and run the Microsoft Safety Scanner again.

Note: Any data files that are infected may only be cleaned by deleting the file entirely, which means there is a potential for data loss.

Let us know if it helps. If you have further queries, we will be happy to help.