Constant activity on router / cable modem - ARP???
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Posted by on December 22, 2005, 10:07 pm
Please log in for more thread options Hello. I've just moved to Canada from the UK, and this is my 1st cable modem setup. I came home from work to find a nice Motorolo SurfBoard Cable modem set up. I attached a new Netgear WGR614 to the modem, but having done this a strange thing happens. The internet activity light on the modem flashes continually, as does the Netgear router internet activity light. This happens when no devices are connected or even switched on! I am concerned about the amount of bandwidth being used, and how to conserve it. I read on a previous post something about ARP requests. What are ARP requests, and why would they be causing constant web activity? Is there a way to disable them (I have de-activated UPnP)? Thanks in advance, Rob | |||||||||||||||||||
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Posted by Gene S. Berkowitz on December 23, 2005, 1:19 am
Please log in for more thread options retkaa@gmail.com says... ARP is Address Resolution Protocol. It is used by server to find out and uniquely identify other machines on a network. ARP messages are sent as an ethernet Broadcast message, which means that every machine on that LAN segment will receive it. Since your neighborhood cable is basically a LAN segment that could carry dozens or hundreds of clients, there are a lot of ARP messages floating around. They're harmless. --Gene | |||||||||||||||||||
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Posted by on December 22, 2005, 11:11 pm
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OK, thanks for the reply. But how come the internet activity light stops on the cable modem when I unplug the router? It only flashes like crazy when the router is connected. Rob | |||||||||||||||||||
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Posted by Gene S. Berkowitz on December 23, 2005, 2:17 am
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retkaa@gmail.com says... > OK, thanks for the reply. But how come the internet activity light
> stops on the cable modem when I unplug the router? It only flashes > like crazy when the router is connected. > > Rob Because until the router is connected, the modem has nothing to forward the ARP requests to... --Gene | |||||||||||||||||||
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Posted by Fafa Fofo on December 23, 2005, 8:40 am
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I've seen the same thing on some of Comcrap's setups. They have some system(s) pumping out constant ARP (Address Resolution Protocol) messages to potential messages. For example, you'll see 216.100.100.1, 216.100.100.2... Frankly, I think that they're looking for invalid connected systems. Even though your router should be set to ignore ping requests, it will always respond to ARPs. I complained about it to Comcrap and they simply denied that the messages exist. On 22 Dec 2005 22:07:23 -0800, retkaa@gmail.com wrote: >Hello.
> >I've just moved to Canada from the UK, and this is my 1st cable modem >setup. I came home from work to find a nice Motorolo SurfBoard Cable >modem set up. I attached a new Netgear WGR614 to the modem, but having >done this a strange thing happens. > >The internet activity light on the modem flashes continually, as does >the Netgear router internet activity light. This happens when no >devices are connected or even switched on! I am concerned about the >amount of bandwidth being used, and how to conserve it. > >I read on a previous post something about ARP requests. What are ARP >requests, and why would they be causing constant web activity? Is >there a way to disable them (I have de-activated UPnP)? > >Thanks in advance, >Rob | |||||||||||||||||||
>
> I've just moved to Canada from the UK, and this is my 1st cable modem
> setup. I came home from work to find a nice Motorolo SurfBoard Cable
> modem set up. I attached a new Netgear WGR614 to the modem, but having
> done this a strange thing happens.
>
> The internet activity light on the modem flashes continually, as does
> the Netgear router internet activity light. This happens when no
> devices are connected or even switched on! I am concerned about the
> amount of bandwidth being used, and how to conserve it.
>
> I read on a previous post something about ARP requests. What are ARP
> requests, and why would they be causing constant web activity? Is
> there a way to disable them (I have de-activated UPnP)?
>
> Thanks in advance,
> Rob