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Ordner5's avatar
Ordner5
Initiate
Jul 18, 2017

Orbi RBR 50 high download traffic volume

Since switching from a Linksys WRT54G router to a Netgear Orbi, my internet download volume has increased dramatically from 200 gb per month to almost 1 tb per month at times.  I've tried to determine what device is using all the bandwidth and am wondering if there is anyway to see the traffic breakdown on the router itself in the traffic monitor?  I have a variety of devices connected at home (iPads, laptops (all Win 10), media center pc (win 7), etc.).  The iPads and laptops seem to be ruled out as I can monitor the data usage there and see no significant activity.  

 

A good example of extreme usage was today.  For the majority of the day, no one was home, but the traffic monitor reports 171,000+ Mbytes of download volume compared to the previous days usage of 36,000+ Mbytes, which is still higher than it should be.

 

My ideal solution would be a tool that can provide me data usage by MAC address on a daily basis to at least help me focus on the offending device.  Because the period of high usage seems to be random, it is hard to catch the burst of download activity with other monitors.  

Troubleshooting

4 Replies

  • tgraw's avatar
    tgraw
    Initiate
    Nov 06, 2017

    I am experiencing a very similar scenario. I have one RBR50  and two RBS50. I can't figure out where all the data is going. It's like I've got a leaky faucet I can't stop. Have you figured it out?

    • rodriguez67m's avatar
      rodriguez67m
      Initiate
      Nov 11, 2017

      I have the same exact issue and I went over 1TB limit. Please let me know if you  find a solution. Thanks.

      • Ordner5's avatar
        Ordner5
        Initiate
        Nov 30, 2017

        I did end up solving my problem, but it turned out to be pretty unique, so I'm not sure it will help you out.  But here are the details just in case.

        First, if you don't have an Xfinity router that supports their xFi app, I recommend you swap your current one out for one of those.  The xFi app is what finally helped me easily isolate the problem.  When I first set up the new Xfinity router, I left the Orbi out of the picture.  Then I could see traffic by device connected to the router through the app.  It is in relative terms (medium, high, very high, etc.), but it will show you the device that is the culprit.  My problem device ended up being my Microsoft Lumia 735 phone that is running Windows 10 Insider Preview builds.  I have unlimited mobile data, so I simply turned off WiFi on the phone and the problem was fixed.  I did not isolate the problem on the phone itself.  The strange part was that the phone itself was not reporting any abnormal traffic via it's data usage app, so originally I had ruled it out.  

        Hopefully this helps you out!