Data Downloads

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A bit of advice please from those with technical knowledge.

We have just changed from Vista on our old lap top to 64 bit Windows 7. When the Vista system went down on the old machine, we bought another laptop that had Windows 7 64 bit installed. It turned out to be a OS fault and we had lost the repair disks while going full time.

We have a Vodafone contract dongle and now a PAYG dongle.

While using Vista, I never exceeded my download limit of 3gb a month. This month I have not only exceeded this limit but have stopped using the contract when I recieved a warning that I was almost at the limit of the additional 1gb that cost me a further £15 on the contract. Two days left to the next contract period.

In 10 days we have used £15 of data 500mb+ on the other PAYG.

I know that Vista was 32bit and the Windows 7 is 64 bits and we are now wondering if this could be what is gobbling up the data. There is a Windows 7 32bit on the installation disk.

We have not been downloading films or music just visiting motorhome forums and downloaded some programs BK5, Open Office and McAfee on the contract. Joan has been accesing Facebook and playing word games on the PAYG.

Have others noticed an increase in data usage on 64 bit operating systems.
 
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Hi, On the BBC this morning people were complaining about this, apparantly some have been charge £100 over the contract rate for modest downloads.

Probably best to re read the small print then contact somebody to ask whate gone wrong.

Dezi
 
Dezi said:
Hi, On the BBC this morning people were complaining about this, apparantly some have been charge £100 over the contract rate for modest downloads.

Probably best to re read the small print then contact somebody to ask whate gone wrong.

Dezi
Click to expand...

Thanks Dezi

I heard that myself. It would seem that these people have not opted in to being informed if they about to exceed their limit. Vodafone did contact me twice by sms before I went over and I understood that I would have to then pay a further £15 if I went over for each Gb or part of it. I then recieved a further warning yesterday that the extra 1gb was about to be exceeded.

I cannot fault the Vodafone in this instance.
 
Have others noticed an increase in data usage on 64 bit operating systems.
Click to expand...

No, I haven't. You can expect a bit background traffic as browsers, email clients, background update apps do their jobs, also your PC is likely hit several times an hour by snooping software from bad guys, which your resident security software fends off...takes up very small amounts of bandwidth, but it shouldn't be noticeable. Certainly I have had no problems using dongles...but I do disconnect when I am not actively using them (something I don't do on my landline connection).
 
I don't think that an operating system can have any effect on data download. You either download a 50 MB file or you don't. Could it be that, in switching systems, you have inadvertently set your computer to automatically download upgrades, either Windows upgrades or an anti-virus programme updates?

My home PC runs permanently and, during the early hours, it often downloads Windows updates and AVG updates. Sometimes I find that I've been logged off as it's even rebooted the computer as part of the process. I would add that I have never had a problem with any of this and my PC runs better for it.

I also recommend never turning off a PC if you use it a lot. They're a bit like light bulbs, in that you can do more harm with the initial surge when they're turned on. I'm a businessman and the computers in my firm's branches are also never switched off as we have to transmit and download data and back up to remote servers every evening. It was the reliability of these that persuaded me never to turn mine off.

One caveat though. Turn off auto-upgrades on your laptop or netbook. It's a bit scary when you're abroad and you turn it on to find that it's trying to download huge amounts of update data.
 
Northerner said:
I don't think that an operating system can have any effect on data download. You either download a 50 MB file or you don't. Could it be that, in switching systems, you have inadvertently set your computer to automatically download upgrades, either Windows upgrades or an anti-virus programme updates?

My home PC runs permanently and, during the early hours, it often downloads Windows updates and AVG updates. Sometimes I find that I've been logged off as it's even rebooted the computer as part of the process. I would add that I have never had a problem with any of this and my PC runs better for it.

I also recommend never turning off a PC if you use it a lot. They're a bit like light bulbs, in that you can do more harm with the initial surge when they're turned on. I'm a businessman and the computers in my firm's branches are also never switched off as we have to transmit and download data and back up to remote servers every evening. It was the reliability of these that persuaded me never to turn mine off.

One caveat though. Turn off auto-upgrades on your laptop or netbook. It's a bit scary when you're abroad and you turn it on to find that it's trying to download huge amounts of update data.
Click to expand...

Thanks for your reply.

Like you I have always left computers on. They have also been set to upload any updates overnight and do a virus scan overnight daily. They have never exceeded the 3gb limit doing this up to now.

Being dongle users we only put it in while abroad to actually go online. In the UK it is connected most of the time if we are on hookup and have no access to wifi on site

We both used the one machine on Vista and I do not see any noticable change in the way we use the computer. Infact now Joan is using the PAYG laptop so I would have thought that that would have reduced usage on the contract dongle.

I can only assume after the initial start, that there has been a lot of updating going on during down time as the machine is on 24/7 while on hookup.

New contract time starts midnight on 20th so I will keep a check on usage then.
 
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Sparks said:
It's obviously Facebook that's causing the problem. You'll have to tell your better half she can't go there any more.
Click to expand...

I don't see this as we both used the one contract machine and didn't exceed the limit. Joan uses Facebook to keep in touch with family members and had done so since we went full time without exceeding the download limit. We were alway well within our download limit each month. It is only this month that I used the contract dongle to sort out the old machine after installing Windows 7 on it at the beginning of November, that the problems seems to have occured. So if it is anything it is me that had used the dongle more.
 
John Thompson said:
A bit of advice please from those with technical knowledge.

We have just changed from Vista on our old lap top to 64 bit Windows 7. When the Vista system went down on the old machine, we bought another laptop that had Windows 7 64 bit installed. It turned out to be a OS fault and we had lost the repair disks while going full time.

We have a Vodafone contract dongle and now a PAYG dongle.

While using Vista, I never exceeded my download limit of 3gb a month. This month I have not only exceeded this limit but have stopped using the contract when I recieved a warning that I was almost at the limit of the additional 1gb that cost me a further £15 on the contract. Two days left to the next contract period.

In 10 days we have used £15 of data 500mb+ on the other PAYG.

I know that Vista was 32bit and the Windows 7 is 64 bits and we are now wondering if this could be what is gobbling up the data. There is a Windows 7 32bit on the installation disk.

We have not been downloading films or music just visiting motorhome forums and downloaded some programs BK5, Open Office and McAfee on the contract. Joan has been accesing Facebook and playing word games on the PAYG.

Have others noticed an increase in data usage on 64 bit operating systems.
Click to expand...

I can give you an official answer from Microsoft (my eldest son is a senior technical manager with them). There is no way in which the use of 64bit Windows can in any way affect data usage with a Vodafone dongle, which, merely, uses a Usb. port.
He suggests,
1. You are set to download and install Windows updates automatically
2. Your anti-virus is set to download automatically
3. Use of Facebook with a dongle is a notorious way of eating up your data allowance, as is downloading programmes (Open Office is not a small download in itself)

He suggests you disable 1 & 2 and use Facebook with a watch in your hand...slow connection speed + time of download/Facebook/games = big bill.
 
I have noticed two big users of bandwidth are Facebook Games/apps and You Tube.

Also personally I would turn off automatic windows software updates and only update virus software once a week. Many things like windows updates or new browser version updates seem a load of old crap to me. I once went three years without upgrading the browser or the system. Didn't seem to be a problem. Most of them are minor security patches which are very low risk especially if you stay away from dodgy areas of the net.

I would also recommend keeping your computer switched on all the time and never switching it off. Just disconnect the net.
 
Facebook apps ARE actually big bandwidth users. Espec something with a lot of graphics like Farmville. I think I left it connected over 12 hours by mistake. It used something like 0.3 GB updating the farm etc. Well actually my farm was pretty big. Filled the whole screen and it has lots of animals and trees with movements which update on the flash, plus the crops are growing.

Anyway, when you pay £15 GB for 3 Gig on a Three dongle that's about £1.00's worth just leaving Farmville running 12 hours. That would eat up your 3 Gig bandwith in 7 days without doing much else. It puts it in perspective when people boast they went 6 months and didn't even use a 1 Gig of data !!

So turn off net when not using (also protects you from some types of hack attack).
 
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