Can I monitor network activity from my computer?

I have a normal ADSL Modem with no good options of monitoring the traffic, and also my D-Link 8-ports switch is just a signal distributor, is there any software that can help me in monitoring the traffic in a normal LAN and Client-Server network?

June 8, 2010 | Filed Under Monitoring 

Comments

2 Responses to “Can I monitor network activity from my computer?”

  1. karharry on June 8th, 2010 12:28 pm

    Of course you can.
    Ctr+Alt+Delete, then choose the networking tab, at the bottom part of the window choose your connection(usually named as local connection) and watch the diagram.

  2. joel_corley on June 8th, 2010 1:05 pm

    I depends on how much detail you’re looking for.

    If you’re just interested in basic traffic levels, open Task Manager and click on the Network tab.

    You can get a little more detail by running “PerfMon”. (Available in all versions of Windows, but not exposed as an icon after Win2k. ) With PerfMon open, click the (+) icon on the toolbar to add performance monitors. Select “Use local computer” and a performance object called either “Network Interface”, “IP”, “TCP” or “UDP”. (There may be others there as well. ) Then choose the specific performance data you’re interested in.

    If you’re interested in the actual network traffic, you can try installing “Wireshark”. It’s a public domain network traffic protocol analyzer. Probably not that good at gathering statistics; but you can use to capture specific network traffic based on any filtering criteria you set up. BTW, Wireshark is a rather advanced tool. . .

    There used to be a way to simply monitor what machines had network connections to the current system; but I forget where to find that.

    - Joel