Wireless router - flashing activity LED

[TUS 373]

Quick question for the technical people here:

I upgraded the driver for the internal wireless card (Intel 2200BG) including a later version of Intel Proset on my notebook PC recently. I have noticed since then than the WAN activity light on my wireless router blinks all the time the wireless is switched on on the notebook (regardless of whether programs such as browsers or Outlook are running).

If I recall correctly, the activity light only used to flash when actually doing something on the notebook, e.g. opening a web page, sending email - but once the page was loaded, the WAN light on the router would stop. I therefore assumed that the light only flashes when some data is being moved.

So question is, is my notebook transmitting and receiving all of the time now (or doing something I don't know about in the background, although I have checked the automatic windows update thingy and it continues doing this even after having got upto date with these)? Should it be doing this or not? It just seems different!

The router I have is 2 years old and has not been played around with respect firmware/drivers for at least 12 months yet it is still upto date. The model in BT Voyager 2000 (working on b rather than g).

Thanks - Bryan

[neil_cardiff]

I wouldn't worry, there is always a 'background noise' hiting your router, as every man and his dog portscans - I sat and watched my firewall yesterday and noticed the sheer volume on 'hits' to the firewall.

There will always be traffic out, unless you explicitly block it using a software firewall on the laptop:

Windows Update,
Anti Virus Updates,
God only knows what else that feels it should report home...

Ultimately I take the attitude that you just put up with it and ensure you keep your machine nice and clean of viri and spyware - that should be enough...