My overnight use is very high

[#1]

Many thanks, yes clearer. I have connected to my modem! the pass is case sensitive I found after trying twice, simple but can confuse the untechy like me. I have a couple of screen captures showing 'unknown' connecting to my modem, hope not posting security information. See pictures please:

[#2]

But can you identify all the connected devices

unknown is largely irrelevant from that perspective

if there are are devices connected which aren't yours you need to block them or change the password and then disconnect all of the ones which aren't yours - a router reboot may be needed which should do the same thing

of course you would then need to change the wireless password on all your devices

[#3]

Thanks

can I block these 'unknown' devices from connecting?

[#4]

@Fenster as @Oldjim says if you are worried you need to identify these devices. So start by asking yourself how many devices you know you have around the house. If the number is less than you see then, questions need to be asked. If you have more devices then all may be well.

At a minimum I would start by creating a list of all of the devices that you know you want to connect to your network, Phones, TVs, PCs, Laptops etc. Then from each device get its MAC address that’s the bit you see after the hyphen in the list of names you see in your image.

How you get the MAC address will vary by device type, but in the most cases this will either be available under Network Settings or System Information I would guess, but an internet search will tell you all you need to know to find it on a specific device. After you have compiled your list then check the MAC addresses against those connected and if you see any not on your list change your WiFi password and reboot. But remember the caveat that you’ll need to set this password in all of your devices.

P.S. I don’t know if this router is capable of it but you can restrict access to devices  where you know the MAC address. So you could use the list you created earlier to configure this and anyone not on the list won’t be able to connect.

[#5]

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@Fenster wrote:

Many thanks, yes clearer. I have connected to my modem! the pass is case sensitive I found after trying twice, simple but can confuse the untechy like me. I have a couple of screen captures showing 'unknown' connecting to my modem, hope not posting security information. See pictures please:

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As I said earlier, you've got leechers helping themselves to your bandwidth. Looks like your wifi security was bypassed somehow - probably a hacker in your neighbourhood.

If you only have a normal computer and phone as you hinted earlier then all those additional unknown devices and all those extra androids (you should only have one of each) are the people stealing your internet connection.

You need to change your SSID on your router and your SSID password. They'll probably break in again at some point but it might stall them for a while until you can work out if you know any of the devices, if they've got back in again and if you want to get another router with better security etc.

Whatever you do login to your router, change the SSID and wireless passwords NOW. Then change the admin panel password too (the one you enter at 192.168.1.254) so that the people helping themselves can't log back in and tinker with your router.

[#6]

Thanks I will try to do this. appreciate reply

[#7]

Thanks i will try

[#8]

@Fenster You have got your security set to WPA2 haven't you? You should find this under Advanced Wireless Settings or something similar.

According to http://www.gcstech.net/macvendor/index.php?node=macsea&list five of the unknown devices have MAC addresses issued by Realtek Semiconductor Corp - not particularly helpful I know. Another is Humax, A satellite receiver/recorder perhaps?

The other point I will make is that devices with both 2.4 and 5GHz channels have two MAC addresses, one for each frequency. I thought I had a problem and went through the great list I had and found them all legit, including some I had forgotton all about, including the car's Sat Nav that I had played with when I first had the car!

[#9]

Sounds like @Baldrick1 is right and you have someone may be using your connection.

I would change your passwords, but even better would be to do that and also turn SSID broadcast off. Essentially then no-one can see your network if they scan your area. Downside is you have to configure it manually and put the SSID name in, so it requires a bit of messing about. Depends on how many devices you have.

Do what I do and create a simple Excel sheet with the passwords on.

[#10]

Getting my brain in gear my guess is that the Humax box is a smart device that can be used for online streaming (and possibly recording) films etc. This could easily be gobbling up all this data. It could possibly be pre-empting what you will want to watch next by, for example, downloading the next episode of a series overnight. I have an Amazon Fire TV that does this. @Fenster do you have a Humax box? If so are you watching streamed content without realising it?

[#11]

Good point @Baldrick1

I know Sky do the same thing, the box will download stuff (over satellite) and whack it into the HD that it thinks you're interested in, but you may not be. That's why you can't use the whole HD space. Sky say some of it "is reserved".

Worth checking whether that device has a similar option enabled by default which you may need to turn off.

[#12]

The Humax unit I have seen seamlessly integrates on line streaming with live transmissions. So if you miss the beginning of a programme it simply picks up from the online service.

[#13]

To see if that is the culprit I would turn it off overnight for the next few days.
Check usage - if it goes down when it is off you know it is.

[#14]

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@Baldrick1 wrote:

The other point I will make is that devices with both 2.4 and 5GHz channels have two MAC addresses, one for each frequency. I thought I had a problem and went through the great list I had and found them all legit, including some I had forgotton all about, including the car's Sat Nav that I had played with when I first had the car!

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Interesting that you say that as my phone doesn't seem to have two when it jumps from 2.4 to 5GHz. Well not that i remember anyway. In the home network page it would show up with the same name regardless of the frequency it was using so it must have been using a bridge for the two adapters and then using the mac of the bridge as that is the only way the router could identify it as the same device.

[#15]

Ah thanks for all that! Actually I've been looking round, I have two old mobiles that I just put in drawers and left when I got the mobile I use now, could they be two on the list?
Yes the Humax is a sat box that is now long gone. Have managed to find the mac for set top and that is on the list so I changed its name to settop . Also have an old Google Nexus 7 Tablet which is now charging and hopefully that will account for another 'unknown'. Somewhere there could be another old Tablet too, oh and at least one RaspberryPi that went online with ages ago. Honestly forgot about those devices. If all that stuff accounts for the list, there is still the issue of that massive overnight downloading ...

Thanks for all you've done.