Local Area Connection: Sent/Received Packets in the millions?

Question

When double clicking on the local area connection (the two computers next to the clock in the bottom right area of the desktop)

My sent/received packets (which I have no clue what they do) have recently been in the millions.. anywhere from 1-7 million. I have no clue what this does, but anything on your computer showing a million anything can't be good..

Can it?

Answer 1

Packets is every bit of information your computer sends or recieves from the internet. Have your turned your computer off lately? If it's been running for a couple weeks with the internet turned on then you have nothing to worry about. If you turned it on 2 hours ago, then you do. For example, in four days, my computer has sent and recieved about 150 000 packets.

The more things you do with the net, ie: downloading, surfing, uploading, the more packets are going to be sent/recieved.

Even when you are doing nothing and the internet is idle, your computer will still send and recieve some packets every once in a while.

But if you aren't doing anything, and your connection is idle, but you are still sending and receiving millions then something else is doing it, probably a virus, or spyware.

Just remember, that number shows you total sent and received, not how many per second or minute.

Answer 2

Packets are how data is sent along the internet. Say you download a 100Mb video file, it would be sent to you in lots of packets and then rearranged when it reaches your computer to create the file for you to watch.

It just means that you have sent/recieved a lot of data across the internet