Lately My cable modems Tx and Rx lights are always flashing. When the Almond is removed it stops. It only used to do this occasionally but now it is happening all the time. Is this normal? Can I safely upgrade the software in this state?
Upgrading in that state should not be a problem. The real trick will be to diagnose what is causing the "mystery" traffic on your Almond. This can be easily done from the command-line of the Router, but before we do that, perhaps go could share what you are doing on your network that might be causing this traffic.
For example, are you running any form of Web Server on your network? How about Torrents. Are you running any form of Torrent or other P2P traffic from any of your internal machines?
If you access the "System Logs" on the WebUI of the Almond it should give you some clues on what is going on.