I decided to check out Resource Monitor (on the 'Performance' tab in Task Manager, Windows 7) and I noticed in the "Network" section that the 'System' image name kept making a bunch (~5 at a time) of connections to random IP addresses, it would show anywhere from 1-500 bytes/sec 'sent'. They would stay connected for 1-2 minutes.

-All web browsers are closed

So, first thing I did was run a trace from network-tools.com on some of these IP addresses. 8/10 were outside of US and did not resolve to any host name. Of the 10 IP addresses I traced, 2 were in US, 4 showed origins in China, and one each to Algeria, Russia, Pakistan, Korea. (!)

So, the next thing I did was turn off my wireless card, watch the connections disappear, then turn the card back on, and within 30 seconds more random connections were created by System, with different IP addresses from the first time.

The next thing I did was go open Task Manager, Show Processes From All Users, then I killed just about everything that wasn't (what appeared to be) a windows process.

Turned on wi-fi, and again within 30 seconds, random IP addresses connect for ~ 1 min at a time, new ones coming and going.

I occasionally use bit torrent on this machine, but there was definitely no process that seemed related to bt running after I went through task manager, and bt wasn't open to begin with.

So, any ideas on what these connections might be for? I have been using Ad-Aware Free and AVG Free on this computer for a while now, always up to date..