Windows 7 Task Manager may show a brief spike in network utilization

Task Manager constantly displays data based on a set interval. If the network driver statistic cache is cleared, then there is an interruption of current statistics being pipelined to Task Manager. These statistics are what Task Manager uses to display current network utilization. In absence of the data, Task Manager may indicate high network utilization for the one to three seconds of missing data. This utilization spike is a miscalculation and is not an indication of current network bandwidth usage.