Network activity

I've noticed that while I have the player connected via 10baseT, there's tons of communication going on between the player and my computer (I just watch the fun blinking lights on my router). This occurs regardless of whether the player is powered up or not, and whether or not the emplode software is running.

Anybody know what all the data going back and forth is?

Oh, that? That's the secret information that Empeg is collecting from your computer. They had special circuitry put in which keeps the 10bT card powered up even when the player isn't. They plan on collecting all of the data and selling it to Microsoft to cover the cost of their WMA license.

Er... Seriously though, Ethernet doesn't work that way. No power = no Ethernet. Not sure why your router is blinking, mine doesn't (Linksys BEFSR41.)

If emplode is not running and the player is not powered up, I would guess that the blinking lights are caused by other stuff not related to empeg.

See if you've got spyware on your system (run Lavasoft Ad Aware), scan for viruses and trojans, and run a piece of firewall software such as Black Ice Defender to make sure you're not getting hacked from the internet.

Hang on. If, by "not powered up", you mean "the player is in standby mode", then it's probably just the player sending DHCP discover packets intermittently. Nothing to worry about.

it's probably just the player sending DHCP discover packets intermittently. Nothing to worry about

Ahh, thanks. Was just curious.

If you want to make sure, and you're not on a switched network, you can try using Ethereal to see exactly what the traffic is.

Ooo. A free sniffer. I'll have to check that out, thanks.

Yes but DHCP packets are only sent rather infequently. My understanding of it is that DHCP will attempt to renew at 1/2 the lease time, and again at 3/4 lease time.

So if your DHCP lease time is set for 1 hour, you should expect to see DHCP magic packets roughly ever 1/2 hour ( assuming your DHCP server is working ). If the DHCP server was down, you would see some packets at 1/2 hour, 3/4 hour and finally at 1 hour. Then it gives up.

It sounds like he is seeing quite a bit more traffic than that.

It sounds like he is seeing quite a bit more traffic than that.

The lights on the router/hub are blinking about 5-10 times a second (pretty fast). As I mentioned before, it's between the player and my main computer. Cable modem isn't blinking much at all.

I think I'm going to have to try the sniffer.

I'm digging up this old thread because I'm seeing the same issue again. I had installed DU Meter, and noticed that 12KB/sec worth of packet data was being downloaded to my computer. After some investigating, I found out it was the Rio Receiver. When I unplugged the Receiver (which was off) from my hub, the packets stopped. What the hell is the Rio Receiver sending that is that amount of data/sec?

Did you install a hack such as Displayserver for the Rio Receiver?

Nope, no hacks on it whatsoever.

I'm going to try doing some more packet sniffing tonight. Any suggestions on what program to use?

Ethereal is a great little application, I found it installs easily and works on linux and windows. There are some others to recommend but they are not free so far as I know. There's a link further up the thread to Ethereal.