Just installed two professionally built DVR systems (16 & 8 cam, ver 8.01). Both were installed in different jobs and both hog up a lot of bandwidth and slow down other pc's on the network, even when there is no one using the web login. When I uplug the dvr's from the switch, the other pc's can surf the internet significantly smoother.

Is this a common fact of geovision dvrs? Is there a work around or fix?

What network services do you have running when the GeoVision DVRs are on the network?

Sounds like they wern't that professionally built... we install these things left and right and they never eat up bandwidth unless the DVR is on a DSL with 16 cameras being monitored over the internet... sounds like there might be some kind of virus on there or spyware that was installed with the system...

Echo what Adam said.

However if you want to be sure it is the Geovision system chewing up bandwidth, download the free trial of this software and put it on the Geovision server.
http://www.bwmonitor.com/

It will show you a graph of all traffic incoming and out going on the LAN (local) as well as all in/outgoing traffic on the WAN (internet) from the Geovision system's perspective.

If your getting paid to troubleshoot their network, put this program on each pc and see who is really sending and receiving traffic and how much bw they are using.

Wouldn't it be better for me to install that software on my notebook and monitor with the dvr plugged/unplugged into the network?

The dvr was bult by tsm who is listed as a geo dealer on geo's web

That would give you some of the information you are looking for.

But by installing the software on the Geovision system, you will be able to see how much bw it is actually using on the network.

This will give you a place to start. If the bw is low, then I cant see how the Geovision system would really be taxing the network. If the bw is high, then I would start tracking down what specifically is using so much bw.

Taking a guess here, but the only way I could see the Geovision causing problems on the network (assuming it has no spyware or other nefarious software loaded), would be if there were several hubs (not switches) in the network. If a person logs into the Geo server and requests to see live video, then the outgoing traffic could be causing several collisions in the network IF there are hubs in between the requestor and the Geo.
Replacing the hubs with switches would solve that problem.

Run Ewido on all PCs also ...
http://www.ewido.net/en/download/

Run this also .. deletes all caches, temp files etc ...
http://www.stevengould.org/software/cleanup/

if its a virus you'd need an anti virus though .. nortons is good but id just use AVG for a quick scan ..
http://free.grisoft.com/doc/1