Modem Activity

I have noticed allot of activity on my cable modem, I have 4 machines hooked up to it through a Netgear Websafe Router, all these machines were off with the exception of 1. I turn off all the auto updates as I do them myself on a regular basis. This activity is pretty much ongoing.

I am looking for something I can use to monitor the information coming to and going out my modem. I have heard of Packet Sniffing but never used them. Would that be the right thing to use, if so then which one. Or a different program either way I would need pretty much a Idiots guide on how to use it.

I am a Newbie on anything with networking, I'm DOS stupid, and a beginner/intermedeate at most other software. I'm only good at building gaming machine's and playing allot. but really want to learn other aspect's. And I really want to know whats going on through my router!!!

Please don't post what I have seen in some of the gaming forums about setting up systems-- "If you don't know what your doing then don't do it / or pay some one to do it" usually refering to stuff like overclocking and such. This is how we learn.

Thanks for any help

Wildcat

Check out winpcap and ethereal especially, ethereal is a very good packet sniffer for diagnosing problems.

Quote:

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"If you don't know what your doing then don't do it / or pay some one to do it"

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Hopefully you won't see that here...

Try going under command prompt (start, programs, accessories, command prompt) and then type "netstat -an" without the quotes and tell us what you're connecting to. If you're suspicious, that will help to determine exactly what ports are open and exactly what on the internet you're connected to. Also - ignore anything with the IP address 127.0.0.1 cuz that's always your own computer... The number after the : is always the port that your computer is using to connect. If it says "listening" then you aren't connected to anything, it's just open and available. If anything says "established" then that's an actual connection.

Perhaps a virus. Also programs running in the background could be casuing some of the traffic. Things like nortons check for updates periodicly so that causes traffic, things like that. There is always going be some traffic on a network, unelss of course the computer is not on. And if the only reason you think there is lots of traffic is becasue of the blinking lights then it could be nothing, some routers just have blinking lights to show a connection and dont always mean active data transmission.

get and run fport from systernals.com. this will map all ports to the program keeping them open inculding the location they are running from so, for example, if you have svchost running from c:\winnt\system32\mui you know its not really svchost but something else given that name

Thanks everyone, I will try a bit of each, not only to see whats going on but also to learn. I hope I can help in the future also, any one else got anything would be great. I am in the Military and try to download several items onto my laptop every time I get deployed, this way I can learn a little more while I'm gone.