Roommate hogs shared internet connection...

In my house there are three pc's sharing one cable internet connection. One of my roommates across the hall has the cable modem and router in his room, and his pc is hard wired to the router. My other roommate at the other end of the house is connected wirelessly (the only one in the house that is) and he is constantly downloading movies, programs, games, and whatever else kind of crap he can. He has like 3 huge hard drives full of crap. Anyway, his incessant downloading is constantly using up the bandwidth coming to our house, thus causing my connection to suffer greatly from this. I've told his punk @$$ to chill out with the downloading, but he doesn't give a crap about anyone else. Now, I connect to the router in our house via hard wire and not via wireless. So, what I'm wondering is if there is some way to limit or disconnect his connection from my computer, without him knowing about it. I've given him many opportunities to curb his excessive downloading, but he has no consideration. So, its war. If there is some kind of program or some way I can deny his connection to the router, or at least limit it, I would very much be greatful. Any and all info regarding this is appreciated, because I'm tired of getting piss poor dl rates. I can't even play any online games anymore due to dismal pings.

 

if you can get the mac address of his wireless network card you can enter it into the MAC filter on your router and set the filter to DENY access from the host with that MAC address.

You can get his mac address by sitting at his machine , click start -->run and type CMD
at the prompt type IPCONFIG /ALL and you will see it listed under PHYSICAL ADDRESS.

or from your own machine (if you know his IP or the name of his machine) go to start--> run and type CMD..then type NBTSTAT -a [hispcnamehere] (substitute [hispcnamehere] with the name or ip address of his machine for ex..

c:/ nbtstat -a 192.168.1.105

 

Now we are talking here. This is good stuff. I'm about to go out of town for a week, but when I get back, I'm gonna check this out. I'll probably have more questions then. Thanks for the quick reply!

 

Bit dramatic, I think your roomey will be able to sense a 0B download..... I used to do this function via proxy server, also obvious to someone whose remotely network savvy. But as dad, Chief DSL Provider, I could do anything I wanted with the LAN or the WAN..

If you run NetBIOS over TCP/IP (ez 2 do), consider netlimiter (.com). A free/beta evalution version is now available. Time permiting, I may have to check this one out. Another s/w solution is Net-Peeker (.com). I have used neither.

An affordable hardware solution (also noticeble), would be to install a Vigor 2600 router (www.seg.co.uk/products/v2900.html). Relatively unknown in the US.


P2E

 

I use netlimiter (full version) to limit applications that would otherwise hog all of my cables upload bandwidth, but the app has to be run locally, so this may not be the answer. I have not seen an app such as NetLimiter in operation on a proxy server, but it may work, although in this case it sounds like you are all connecting via the router.

Perhaps banning his connection using his Mac address at the router at certain times could work? Or blocking certain ports (these must have been opened at the router for him to use most file sharing apps in the first place).

I use a Netgear WGT624 router, and services and sites can be blocked according to a schedule, so you could say allow him to download using his file-sharing apps overnight, or at a time where other users aren't using the network.

 

perhaps you could speak to your roomate and have him do his downloading during off peak hours like late at night, when everyone is asleep. There is a way to limit the bandwidth on certain ports, but only if your router supports that.