Please help trouble with home network constant activity!

[sulu]

Hi guys,

I am bit new to networking and I have a problem.
I just got a DSL connection and bought a DLink DI-624 to connect 4 computer on the network together to share DSL connection. I boought wireless model because I will getting a laptop soon as well.

I setup the router with all of the setting to secure it, including.

enabled WEP key(64bit)
- changed SSID
- changed the channel
- blocked wan pinning
-turn off SSID broadcasting

Everything is working well but there is problem. I have 2 x winxp pro, win2003, and win 2000 pro machine on the network.
The 2 xp pro machines seems to be constantly sending receiving packets for some reason. These 2 machines and modem before, and I had to run internet connection wizard again and now there is internet gateway icon in network connection folder.
When I am not using internet internet gateway icon is shows no activity but the NIC icon is always lit up both direction on both winxp machines(win2000, 2003 are not this way).
I tracked usage with internet gateway icon, there are no packets going out between gateway and internet but the machine are sending packets and receiving them. This is also shown when I click on the NIC icon. Task manager confirms this as well there is always .01% nic usage.
I've turned off every machine except for each of winxp machines, and they both do this alone.
Is this normal? The network is simple workgroup, not domain.
Only way I can stop is when I go into advanced tab for the NIC itself and enable firewall for the NIC. Then the activity stops.
Can anyone help me? I am bit of newbie so please help

[engjohn]

is AIM, MS IM, Real Player, Windows Media Player, or any other software like that istalled?
Those software packages check for updates and also report back home what you are doing... That could be some of your traffic. As well as Microsofts Auto Update....

[JasonKosi]

Master Browser war?: Is your 2003 server running WINS? Do you have your computers configured to use it?

You said that when there is no traffic between the gateway and your ISP, the two XP machines are still transmitting and receiving? So, the two computers seem like they're talking to each other or are broadcasting on the network but aren't sending/receiving data from the Internet?

Have you tried a packet sniffer or network analyzer to look at the packets?

.01% network utilization is not terribly great and if it's not leaving your network, I wouldn't worry about it too much.

[sulu]

Well
As i've mentioned there seems to be no packets going out of the network so I don't know if it's update functions engjohn.

JasonKosi, well the win2003 in the network with standard installation, no settings changed. Only reason I have this setup is for some hardware testing for work.
So I don't know if wins is enabled or not(I am more of hardware person). How do I it check this?

Any packet sniffer that you can recommend?

I am just concerned with the xp pro comps are doing this. win2000 pro computer is not affected.

[JasonKosi]

I'm more or less clueless about Server2K3. I'd say look it up in the online help sections. To set a WinXP machine to use a WINS server, go in to the TCP/IP properties of the NIC's of each computer, there will be a tab in there relating to it.

As far as network analyzers/packet sniffers, just Google for "protocol analyzer". You should a large number of hits.

[sulu]

Hi
I found out what the problem was:
It was actually the icon for the internet gatewaythat was causing the problem. If I set it as hide, then activity goes away. I guess it was constantly checking for router activity.

Thanks for the help guys.