I have a small (but annoying) amount of constant network traffic (and subsequent disk activity, the annoying part) on my laptop. It's connected via wire to a D-Link router. Using the networking tab of the task manager (set to update at high speed), I get this repeating pattern: Bytes sent per interval 5339 116 5339 116 5339 116 ... Bytes received per interval 2700, 1450 repeats 6 more times, then get 2 higher values eighth iteration; then the entire 8-element cycle repeats. The networking tab of Task Mgr shows a very consistent, repeating pattern of this activity. Using Sysinternals' Process Explorer, I know that one of the svchost processes is the culprit; also, stopping dhcp stops this net traffic. Restarting DHCP restores the traffic. The problem happens whether I use DHCP or assign a static IP on the laptop. I've scanned for viruses using various onlice scanners. I use ZA for firewall and other protective measures (adaware, spybot, bhodemon, etc). So, any ideas what this traffic is? Is XP trying something odd with DHCP? Could something odd be set on my D-Link router ? Grateful for your help! Dell 8500 laptop, Windows XP Pro SP1

it shouldn't be your router, i don't see why it has anything to do with creating additional traffic do you have any p2p programs running in the background?

On your Router check the lease time on DHCP set-up, if this is set to a low amount of time such a 60 seconds etc.. (which i have seen on D link equpment before) Yor Router will break connection every minute. Increase the lease time to something like 60000 seconds if it is at a low setting. Fallen Angel

Not the lease time - it's set for 2 weeks since this is a home setup.

I Found The Problem !!! My router (D-Link DI-514) had been reset to factory defaults, which means the UPNP had been reset to the on state ! This was the cause of the net traffic. (I had also turned off upnp using Gibson's utility - see grc.com - but this was a router issue.) Thanks to Fallen Angel for causing me to review all of my router settings. Although I must admit that taking advice from a fallen angel would, in all other cases, be quite unwise ...