Why is the WAN light blinking nonstop on my router when it seams nothing is connected

[Beanster]

Why is the WAN light blinking nonstop on my router when it seams nothing is connected

I have a D-Link DGL-4300 gaming router, and today the WAN light has been blinking nonstop for hours. It coincides with the "PC/Activity" light on my Motorola SB5100 modem.

The WLAN light is not blinking, nor is the LAN light that shows connectivity/usage to the wired NIC to my computer. I even tried disabling the Wireless broadcast, unplugging the Cat5 to my NIC and it still blinks, with only the modem connected to it. I checked and it was not putting out a wireless signal.

I have never noticed this before, is there something I am overlooking?

Is it even anything to be worried about? It is rather unnerving to see activity lights blinking madly on both the router and modem, even though it appears that it is not sending anything....?

 

[DavidJa]

sounds like someone is leeching your internet. are you sure you disabled the wireless and it was still blinking? is your router doing dhcp? check you clients table

 

[Beanster]

sounds like someone is leeching your internet. are you sure you disabled the wireless and it was still blinking? is your router doing dhcp? check you clients table

Yes I am sure it disabled the wireless, I checked and non of our computers were receiving a signal, the blue indicator light was out. Just the WAN light and modem activity light are blinking. weird eh?

 

[Fr3@k3r]

beanster, mine does it some times too... nothing to worry about because its not hurting anything..

ive never had any problems, and this hasnt caused any problems.

just make sure you've secured your wireless or have it totally off. and more than likely your getting modem updates or something.

 

[ticktock123]

If you still fear some one Taking yournet try putting a time stop on it. That is whaat I did

 

[skidooosl]

I notice the same thing on my router.... did a dump on the external interface and you would not believe the amount of ARP traffic hitting the interface... its crazy!!!

likely nothing to worry about... just broadcast ARP requests...

 

[Neuromancer]

If you use torrents, its people trying to DL off of you. Sideeffect of torrenting, it doesnt know if your offline or not. Your WAN light is going off but nothing else is, because traffic is coming in, but then geting stopped at the router (if it continued to your PC your E1 (or whatever port you plug into) light would flash also.

If you dont torrent, then setup your routers firewall and take a peek at the log after a couple of minutes and see where the attack is originiating from. If its from only a single IP... then it might be someone trying to access your rig.

 

[darthdana]

More likely though is someone (even more likely a lot of them) has their pc directly connected to a cable modem on your segment, you are probably noticing their netbios broadcasts, which a router or firewall will not forward, unless configured to do so.

 

[Know Nuttin]

background traffic on the Internet, plus all those worms/viruses and other things. As long as you're diligent with your security, not a thing to worry about.

 

[Beanster]

More likely though is someone (even more likely a lot of them) has their pc directly connected to a cable modem on your segment, you are probably noticing their netbios broadcasts, which a router or firewall will not forward, unless configured to do so.

I haven't used torrents in several months, but I did use limewire yesterday for a while.

I understand now that it isn't doing anything malicious to my computer or network, it just concerned me since this was the first time I noticed it happening.

After reviewing the log, I see there are multiple blocked incoming TCP connection requests from an IP that is very close to mine (all except the last 3 digits) Could this be what you are referring too?

Thanks to all for your help and input!

Edit: Here is a link on broadband reports that is exactly what I am experiencing. http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,16365605~mode=flat

 

[darthdana]

I haven't used torrents in several months, but I did use limewire yesterday for a while.

I understand now that it isn't doing anything malicious to my computer or network, it just concerned me since this was the first time I noticed it happening.

After reviewing the log, I see there are multiple blocked incoming TCP connection requests from an IP that is very close to mine (all except the last 3 digits) Could this be what you are referring too?

Thanks to all for your help and input!

Edit: Here is a link on broadband reports that is exactly what I am experiencing. http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,16365605~mode=flat

Yes, more than likely you are just seeing that machines broadcast traffic. That traffic hits every machine on the subnet.

 

[bchur83]

It is probably internet broadcast traffic. Nothing to worry about.

 

[Beanster]

Thanks to all, I build a lot of computers but have never studied up on networking and this is unfamiliar ground to me, I am finding it quite interesting so far.

 

[Captain Newbie]

Probably releasing/renewing DHCP, or broadcast/multicast traffic. Windows boxes in particular are extremely chatty and cannot resist advertising their presence to every other device on the network.