Mine does the same thing. I find it annoying as it's useless for watching traffic. I guess it's watching all traffic on the cable. On my previous Terayon modem, there were two lights, one for each direction. With those, you could do something, see it go out and watch for the return data.
A friend just signed up with Comcast. He set up the modem, and now has some problems. One of the problems is the Pcactivity light is flickering continuously, even when the PC is powered down. This is a stand-alone home computer. No router. Ethernet connection. This doesn't seem to be normal.
Another issue is that he can make an internet connection, but downloads are slower than dial-up. His cable throughout the house is old coax he installed many years ago, and the signal is split two, maybe three, times before the modem connection. Would this cause downloads to crawl almost to a stop?
Thanks.
Mine is constantly sending arp reqests. Makes the activity led useless for getting feel for what is going on.
Modem coax should come splitter on outside of house to cable modem.
Without modem model and stats from modem's web page there is not much other trouble shooting can be done.
Modem is a Motorola SB5100. Can you tell me how to access the modem's web page?
on my Motorola SURFboard sb4220 it's http://192.168.100.1 Other problem might be settings in his OS or 10/100 nic mismatch and has lots of rx/tx errors.
Best guess, he needs a straight coax back to first splitter from the pole drop. That will be the first fix a tech will want to install.
My previous modem had a sync light, which went out, if there were problems.
OK, so long as there's a valid reason for it. ;-)
Incidentally, several years ago, I used to maintain mini-computers for a large company. On one occasion, a TV crew arrived to film our computers in action. The tape drives weren't busy enough to suit them, so we had to run diagnostics on them, so they'd look busy.
Also, ever notice how those TV computers make noises you never hear with real computers and come up with some highly unlikely message diplays?
If the light stops blinking, but everything else looks normal, that would be a good sign not to release and try to renew your lease. The lack of arp traffic would indicate that there will probably be a problem if you do this.
But more importantly, your typical home user, the one who knows absolutely nothing about what the lights may or may not imply, is more impressed when they see a blinking light. That's what you see whenever they show computers in those old sci-fi movies!
Trying to steal the thunder from Arnold, "Bob Skinner" on Mon,
01 Nov 2004 15:26:48 GMT spoke:That is completely normal.
Have him go to
Cabling-Design.com Forums website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.