Solid amber led on NIC, able to connect to the internet but can't ping a few local computers?
I have one PC that has a solid amber led light on the NIC where it should be green. The PC can access the internet fine but can't ping a specific host on our network. The host she can't ping CAN ping the PC with the amber led. Any ideas on what could cause this?
62 Answers
If you have an amber light and a yello light on the nic, completely powerdown the comp, remove power plug, hold the power button for a few seconds to drain the comp of power, reattach cord and power up. The reserve power in the comp is keeping he nic from "resetting" and recheck your nic settings then.
1There are two lights. Physical and Link. Physical has three states. Off, Green, and Amber.
- Off: Connection at 10Mbps.
- Green: Connection at 100Mbps.
- Amber: Connection at 1Gbps.
Link has three states. Off, Green, and Yellow.
- Off: Network is not transmitting packets.
- Green: Network is transmitting packets normally.
- Amber: Network is experiencing OSI Layer-2 problems. (collisions and other problems)
These explanations are simplified, but try manually changing your NIC configuration to see for yourself to isolate the perceived problem. "Network and Internet Settings >> Change Adapter Options >> (R-Click) Properties >> Configure >> Advanced" Try to find Speed & Duplex. An Amber link light may indicate a problem, but to be honest it may not be worth the time to "fix" if you don't notice anything not working. I would recommend leaving it to auto-negotiation, unless you have a network need to change it.
As for the perceived problem, ping requests require the destination computer to respond. A firewall rule, or a network switch/router could be blocking the outgoing ping request, and in turn not allowing a reply. Try Trace Route, as that uses protocol:ICMP port:30 instead of ICMP port 8 (echo-reply) (you may get a response). Not being able to ping local computers might be a network security decision, as worms generally look to spread to Layer-2 connected devices and instead of port scanning IP addresses that don't respond, they generally look for computers that exist and respond to ping. There may not be a problem at all in your case and your network may just have a higher security posture.
