OS X always using network.

[Hrim]

Hello,

I noticed today while watching my activity monitor that I always have a network activity (even when I'm only using Preview).

The system spikes to 120KB/Sec sometimes, and is always writing on the disk.

Is that normal behaviour for ML or do I have a possibility to find what's using this energy?

I have iCloud and notification active, it's doing that on the university Wifi.

Thanks for helping.

 

[MisterMe]

Ease your mind. This is normal.

 

[SlCKB0Y]

Ease your mind. This is normal.

It not normal at all for an idle system to use 70KB/s.

Mine is using about 50-70bytes/s...something is using his network connection.

 

[Zmijutin]

maybe is your Dropbox or Google Drive...

 

[Hrim]

I don't have dropbox or Gdrive (not even installed).

When I took that screenshot, I had nothing but preview.app running with a standard .pdf.

I also checked for virus but couldn't find anything.

 

[GGJstudios]

I also checked for virus but couldn't find anything.

That's because no Mac OS X viruses exist in the wild, and only a few trojans. Mac Virus/Malware FAQ

When I took that screenshot, I had nothing but preview.app running with a standard .pdf.

You have a lot more running than that. Follow every step of the following instructions precisely. Do not skip any steps.

1. Launch Activity Monitor
2. Change "My Processes" at the top to "All Processes"
3. Click on the "% CPU" column heading once or twice, so the arrow points downward (highest values on top).
   (If that column isn't visible, right-click on the column headings and check it, NOT "CPU Time")
4. Click on the System Memory tab at the bottom.
5. Take a screen shot of the entire Activity Monitor window, then scroll down to see the rest of the list, take another screen shot
6. Post your screenshots.

You can also use Little Snitch to track what apps are sending data over the web. My guess is iCloud accounts for some, if not most of it.

 

[Hrim]

I took the screenshot with Safari and Preview active.

Maybe there's something using some network every time I connect to the wifi, which would explain why I have such a poor battery on my macbook…

Thanks for the help!

I will try Little Snitch once I get home.

 

[MisterMe]

It not normal at all for an idle system to use 70KB/s.

Mine is using about 50-70bytes/s...something is using his network connection.

Look at the OP's screenshot. That 70 kB/s is a peak value. You can clearly see that activity is substantially less than the peak for the vast majority of the time.

To reiterate my earlier post--the OP's network activity level is normal.

 

[SlCKB0Y]

Look at the OP's screenshot. That 70 kB/s is a peak value. You can clearly see that activity is substantially less than the peak for the vast majority of the time.

To reiterate my earlier post--the OP's network activity level is normal.

I can see that is a peak value. It is still cycling around 10-20KB/s. To re-iterate - on an idle computer, this is not normal. Something in the background is chewing through bandwidth.

At those speeds his machine is using 1-1.5GB/day if left on for apparently doing nothing at all according to you.

 

[Sharky II]

perhaps you have 'automatically download software updates' checked....

 

[blatopilot]

My guess would be something involving calendar....or something in the security setup for your University.

Not that the amount of activity is troubling, but something could be trying to sync (icloud etc), you are using something like IM or, more likely your University is doing some sort of time based authentication that requires communication/pinging.

 

[MisterMe]

I can see that is a peak value. It is still cycling around 10-20KB/s. To re-iterate - on an idle computer, this is not normal. Something in the background is chewing through bandwidth.

At those speeds his machine is using 1-1.5GB/day if left on for apparently doing nothing at all according to you.

Your system may be chewing up your bandwidth if you are on dial-up. On broadband? Not so much.

 

[SlCKB0Y]

Your system may be chewing up your bandwidth if you are on dial-up. On broadband? Not so much.

So if he left his system on 24/7 for a month and did nothing but let it idle and it consumed 30-45GB (which is what 10-20KB/s is) you would consider this normal? To clarify, I'm not suggesting that this is going to impair his ability to fully use a modern broadband connection, I'm suggesting that it could be symptomatic of something else and warrants investigation.

As I mentioned... regardless of what sort of connection he is on, that kind of usage for an idling system is not normal, he should close all open applications and check again. If it is still happening they will need to look at background processes.

 

[MisterMe]

So if he left his system on 24/7 for a month and did nothing but let it idle and it consumed 30-45GB (which is what 10-20KB/s is) you would consider this normal? ...

This is not 1993. Idle is not the same as asleep.

 

[benthewraith]

Hello,

I noticed today while watching my activity monitor that I always have a network activity (even when I'm only using Preview).

The system spikes to 120KB/Sec sometimes, and is always writing on the disk.

Is that normal behaviour for ML or do I have a possibility to find what's using this energy?

I have iCloud and notification active, it's doing that on the university Wifi.

Thanks for helping.

Question, is it just at your university or does it exhibit the same behavior elsewhere?

I remember before I graduated this summer working a lot in the library. Network usage (downloads) was higher even when I didn't have a browser open. I eventually attributed it to the network telling my computer which computers were shared.

 

[SlCKB0Y]

This is not 1993. Idle is not the same as asleep.

I currently have the following networking applications open:
Dropbox
VPN connection
Chrome with 7 tabs
Adium connected to 5 networks
Colloquy IRC
Mail.app

This is not including background processes which might be using the network. Here is my network usage at idle:

That massive peak is 3KB/s and it usually sits at around 50bytes/s.

Perhaps you could explain to me why the other posters idle network usage sits at around 10-20KB/s and peaks at 70KB/s? I'd really like your reasoning as to why his idle network usage is on average 400 times that of my Mac.

Feel free to get as detailed as you need in your explanation - I'm working as a senior *nix admin in a large datacentre environment and I have a degree in computer science so I can talk tech with the best of them.

 

[dusk007]

It is probably because some app is using the bandwidth.
It could be Safari it is open and needs 14% CPU time that means there might be loads of active content that constantly updates certain website elements. Or some flash stuff.

My baseline seems to be 800B/s - 2.6KB/s. I got more apps open but none doing as much as his Safari.

Unless he actually quits Safari and shows the network load again I wouldn't regard this as anything extraordinary or decipherable.

 

[Hrim]

I'm at home and only few bytes are being exchanged when iddle.
As said before, I think the culprit is the university's network.

That would explain why I'm never able to pass a whole day with the rMBP working there...

Thank you for your help