# Network light on wireless router flashing



## cadge (Apr 23, 2006)

Earlier today I noticed the wireless light on my router flashing for a couple of seconds (as well as some of the other lights; possibly internet, ethernet, and WAN, although I'm not 100% sure).

By the time I'd loaded up the routers configuration settings in order to check the list of active users the wireless light had stopped flashing and the only active user was my PC.

My router has broadcasting turned off and uses WPA, the only device that has ever been connected with the router wirelessly is a laptop that was switched off when this happened.

Since this has happened I've changed my WPA-PSK string as a precaution and checked the list of websites, although there was nothing suspect.

Something I noticed, and I'm not sure if this is of any significance, is that sometimes my PC is listed as Static, and other times it is listed as DHCP in the list of active users, although it never appears twice and the MAC address is the same (I've checked and it's definitely my PC's MAC address).

I was reading somewhere that part of the wireless protocol requires it to briefly broadcast wirelessly.

This hasn't happened before, and hasn't happened again today, but I thought I'd post here to be safe.


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## johnwill (Sep 26, 2002)

If you have WPA with a strong random key consisting of 20 letters/numbers (or more), you are quite safe. If you really feel the need, change it every few months, though it's not really necessary unless it's compromised.


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## cadge (Apr 23, 2006)

johnwill said:


> If you have WPA with a strong random key consisting of 20 letters/numbers (or more), you are quite safe. If you really feel the need, change it every few months, though it's not really necessary unless it's compromised.


Thanks for the reply.

The key I had at the time, was a weak 8 character code that I'd been meaning to change.

After posting earlier I generated a new code using a mixture of 34 random numbers and letters.


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