Heavy traffic in traffic monitor with no machines connected to router

[Steve1985]

Yesterday i noticed that the traffic in the traffic monitor is showing extremely high traffic. I stopped downloading before i noticed it and there wasn't any heavy traffic being used. So i started to investigate a little bit. Switched off all machines apart from my iPhone closed all apps on my iphone, pulled all the cables from the router and checked again and still saw the heavy traffic.

At that point i started to think there must be something in my appartment using this traffic so i inplugged EVERYTHING that even remotely used the internet including switching off the NEST and other home automation.

Still there is a very high traffic usage being shown. So now i am starting to think i have a security issue and there is some sort of virus or malware using this traffic even though every machine with an OS is disconnected from the internet.

When i went to bed i unplugged the modem, unplugged the router. Today still the high traffic. So i reset the router to factory settings and this didn't change anything either.

So 2 options i am thinking: 1. This is a known bug in Merlin firmware and nothing is going on apart from misinformation. 2. something else ie security related or other.

Can someone shed some light on this situation?

Asus RT-AC56U with Merlin firmware 55

 

[RMerlin]

Upgrade to a more up-to-date version, and disable NAT acceleration (there's a notice on the traffic monitor informing users that monitoring isn't accurate when NAT acceleration is enabled).

 

[Steve1985]

Hi Merlin,

Thanks for the reply. I believe NAT accelleration was switched off becuase it was incompatible with something else.
I stuck to the 55 version because i needed to overclock the cpu because of the use of VPN. I believe the last news was that this isn't possible anymore in the 56 version of the firmware, is that correct?
I have now installed stock firmware from ASUS website and the heavy traffic is gone.

I will go back to Merlin firmware as i prefer it, however when i tried to upload the back file of my settings earlier the settings weren't set...is there anything else i need to do apart from upload the file and reboot?

Steve

 

[RMerlin]

Hi Merlin,

Thanks for the reply. I believe NAT accelleration was switched off becuase it was incompatible with something else.
I stuck to the 55 version because i needed to overclock the cpu because of the use of VPN. I believe the last news was that this isn't possible anymore in the 56 version of the firmware, is that correct?
I have now installed stock firmware from ASUS website and the heavy traffic is gone.

The overclock limitations are the same with 378.56 and the latest stock firmware.

I will go back to Merlin firmware as i prefer it, however when i tried to upload the back file of my settings earlier the settings weren't set...is there anything else i need to do apart from upload the file and reboot?

No, it should work, unless your config file is corrupted.

 

[Puppa]

@Steve1985 Was IPv6 enabled on the router when you saw this? (edit) What machine did you take this screenshot from? ("Every machine with an OS was disconnected" -- except this one)

 

[Zirescu]

Are you running Download Manager or Transmission on the Router?