From: CAREY SCHUG via Talk <talk@lists.gtalug.org>
6. from observing the blinking of lights, it seemed the problem was on my linux computer. the tshark log seemed awfully big to support that hypothethis.
7. among other things, i started unplugging everything when not being used (three windows used for video conferencing, sometimes overlapping or simultaneous, plus my deskgop linux in a different room). the blinking became less, I *THINK* when i rebooted my linux system, though I probably had rebooted earlier, but maybe the problems had only been since the last reboot. that is when I noticed how the lights were blinking less.
Try the easy things first. If the problem may just be on your Linux box, then try running, say, "nethogs" on that machine (mentioned by Giles). No need to capture traffic. No need to intercept traffic for other machines. I just tried nethogs on my machine. Seems OK. Some options might be useful but I don't know what they are. -v looks useful: You can set the units and whether the numbers are cumulative. The interactive controls are useful too.