A couple of days ago I got to mounting my router on the wall, an ASUS RT-N16. Great router, but it runs hot so I thought wall-mounting it would be a good idea since before it was behind a watercolor painting leaning on my desk in the back.

That night I regretted the decision. The LEDs were so bright now that there was nothing obscuring them. To make matters worse, the LEDs also were brightly glowing through the air vent holes on the top (now facing me since it's wall mounted). It was a VERY effective night light. My room looked like it would if the sun was just setting outside. I had to unplug it that night in order to fall asleep. Next day I voided my warranty (well, it may have already been voided since I flashed a custom firmware on there pretty much right after setting it up), opened it up and took a sharpie to the top of the LEDs to dull them and then put some thin cardboard between the LEDs and where the air vents are to keep so much back light from shining in (there's nothing in front of the LEDs in need of cooling anyway).

Beyond that there's also a MOCA bridge I'd use for controlling channels for my cable when I had my PC set up to record TV, it has two LEDs (currently not in use because I need a new TV tuner). Then there's my TV which h a blinking LED even when turned off. My Set Top Box with its digital clock, and my alarm clock as well (I'm old fashioned about this and couldn't imagine going without my alarm clock).

Then there's my PC. When I built it I got the Illusion Black version of the Antec 300 case. Good case, but it comes with LEDs in all the fans. I cut the power to the LEDs on the front-facing fan, but retained the LEDs in the top fan (it's under the desk so the light pollution from it is minimal. There's also a hard drive indicator which'll flash every now and then. On my Old PC there was a front-facing wifi LED that was insanely bright: I used a floppy disk to block it.

Even with seriously dampening my router's LEDs, the room is still bright enough to navigate at night without the need for turning on a light (my PC doesn't turn off until 30 minutes of inactivity have passed since 12:45 am). Once the PC turns off, now that I've dampened the router, it's nice and dark, but I usually fall asleep before the PC turns off.

So, how many LEDs or other light sources do you have flashing away and how bright is your room at night?

I think I just have my TVs on button and my microwaves clock on at night. I can't sleep with either in direct view, they bother me too much, so I have to block them out with something.

I try to keep it at a minimum. I have to turn off my monitor, speaker control, and set my chair in front of my case to block the fan controller LEDs(which are really more like mini cold cathodes). I find sound to make sleeping more difficult, though. God forbid when I first got the Phenom II and tried using the stock heatsink.

Um, couldn't you have just taped some opaque tape over the LEDs...?

wall-mounted = LEDs brightly shining throgh the air vents directly at me

http://www.smorgasbord.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/asus-rt-n16-review.jpg. Notice how the antennae have a blue-ish glow, and that's with the room being quite bright. The LEDs on this thing are insanely bright. Even after I put some ink on them, the indicators on the front are still about as bright as they are on my old WRT54G.

http://www.dd-wrt.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=644059. Like me, even after solving the front LEDs, it's the light bleeding through the air vents that are the problem.

Ah yes, the air vents...


...we have dismissed that claim.


Yeah dunno what you could do about that. I say tape over the air vents.

Seeing as I live in a dormitory there are always lights on outside. The parking lot lights are shining through my blinds and I can see just about everything in my room at all points of the night. That and I have my router but I just use that thick blue painter's tape and that works nicely.

Well my lightbulbs in my home are all remote controlled leds
then my stereo, the light from my computer