RT-AX88U maxing out a core and regularly showing 60+ MB/s upload

[SmallKiwi]

I had Diversion and Skynet running but have since disabled them, suspecting that may be the culprit. Essentially, I can't see any device connected to my network that is sending large amounts of data, but when I look at the traffic monitor (Analyzer) it shows this:

I only have ~30Mbps of upload. I can't figure out what is causing this, but everytime it spikes everyone is stuck waiting. I've uninstalled all packages and am just running Merlin with no added packages now. Anyone ever seen this, or know what might be going on?

 

[Ripshod]

We can't say what's causing this, but it's easy to find out. Flick to the Statistic tab, Enable it, let it run a while, then see what device IP is causing this unexpected traffic. You'll also be able to see the protocol which may help you identify an app on that device. Worst case, block it and wait to see what stops working or who starts complaining.
My suspicion is file sharing (bittorrent)

 

[SmallKiwi]

No you don't understand, my connection is not CAPABLE of those upload speeds. Not even close. Those spikes are 130MB/s. I have ~30Mbps Up. And besides that there are no devices that are using that kind of bandwidth. This is what my upload Stats look like:

I went back to stock Asus firmware and without changing any settings the problem seems to have stopped. But I really like Diversion so I'm hoping someone has some clue as to what may be causing this.

 

[Ripshod]

I'm on a phone - that's my excuse.
That is a strange one. You're definitely using the WAN port for Internet, not a LAN port.
I also run Diversion but never seen anything like this.

 

[SmallKiwi]

That is a strange one. You're definitely using the WAN port for Internet, not a LAN port.
I also run Diversion but never seen anything like this.

Correct. Everything was working fine for several months, no real issues. Then Saturday this started. At first I thought maybe it was reporting USB disc access as outgoing data (it roughly matched the speed I get when transferring to/from the USBs) but the fact that the problem continued after uninstalling all add-ons and unplugging the USB discs means it wasn't that. Is there a way to get any more details about what's going on in the router? See what process might be responsible?

 

[Ripshod]

As it's running one core up you could login via ssh and run htop. Whatever is using the cpu most will be at the top of the list. Grab a screenshot while this is happening.

 

[dave14305]

If it’s happening on the router (and not through the router LAN to WAN), you might see connections with:

netstat -ntup

 

[jonathonballen]

As it's running one core up you could login via ssh and run htop. Whatever is using the cpu most will be at the top of the list. Grab a screenshot while this is happening.

I’ve had this issue for about a week, AX XT8 on stock firmware. I initially thought it was due to a recent firmware upgrade (end September) so downgraded but still same behaviour. I followed Ripshod’s advice and it turns out that the culprit is sshd. Any clues as to what and why this might be happening? I disabled the AIProtection stuff but didn’t make any difference.