Ethernet Red solid, yellow blinking, limited connection. Ethernet cable is fine, works with other devices

[Tony Pomroy]

Hey guys, having some problems with my comouter. I have
a limited connection,
a solid red light and a blinking orange light
Cable is working on my xbox, and my xbox cable has the same problem with my computer
So basically, im thinking its my computer.

Any solutions/fixes? Thanks!

 

[dgingeri]

the lights usually mean different things on different NICs or motherboards. I doubt many would be able to tell you anything even with the model of the NIC and/or motherboard.

Need more info: what does the OS say about the connection. Did it pick up an IP address? What is the listed IP address? (In Windows, "ipconfig /all" at the command prompt will tell you all of that.) What is meant by "limited connection"?

 

[ko888]

What is the brand and model of the motherboard? One is the Activity/Link LED and the other is the Speed LED.

 

[Tony Pomroy]

Hey, sorry for not adding, I thought I did but here is some more info, it says the Ethernet cable doesn't have a valid ip.
Motherboard is an MSI too

 

[Shaun o]

You can have motherboards where in the bios it will check the status of the Ethernet cable used from the port of the system to the router it is connected to Tony.

Or as in your case Ethernet ports always come with the green and amber status lights on the Ethernet port of the system you have.

Red means two things.
The Adapter, or port on the system is not able to reach the link speed of the rest of the network or configure it`s self to it to synchronize.

Speed settings for the Ethernet port can be 10 Mbps 100 Mbps or 1 Gbps= 1000 Mbps.
The speed of the adapter can be changed on your system to one of these three speeds quoted.

Cick on start
Click on control panel.
Network and internet.

Network and sharing.
Change adapter settings.
Local area connection

The properties tab.
The Configuration tab.

In the new window box that opens click on the advanced tab.
Scroll down the list till you get to speed and duplex settings. left click on it.
To the top right you will see a pull down box where to can select manually the speed to set the network adapter to run at.
Always make sure the selection for any speed uses full duplex mode.

Before you change the speed value look at the Ethernet cable you have used, or is connected from your system to the router ect.

Make sure the cable is rated at Cat 5E for speeds set for the adapter of 10 Mbps or 100 Mbps.

For 1Gbps speeds = 1000 Mbps you will need to have a cat 6E cable used between the system and your router if the value was first set to a 1Gbps- 1000 Mbps speed for the Ethernet port of your system.

If the case lower the speed of the Ethernet port on the system to a 100 Mbps speed setting.

If you fail to get a synced link where you should have a green and amber Led showing on the Ethernet adapter port, and it is still lit red from the led.

It means the cable you used has a snapped wire in it of the twisted pairs used in the cable so replace it with another one.

After the changes make sure you reset the system, and let windows load again ok.

Just to recap a cat 5E rated Ethernet cable can work at 10 Mbps to 100 Mbps

A network speed of 1Gbps- 1000 Mbps You need to be using a Cat 6 or 6E cable connection from the system you have to the router you are connecting to, or otherwise lower the speed setting down to 100 Mbps for you Ethernet net Adapter, or port of your system to get a speed syncronisation.


Sorry I forgot to mention. it can also be a case where the router has been setup with a set ip range off addresses and also a sub net address, other than the the router having Dhcp mode enabled in the router that will automatically send the configuration of the network to the Ethernet port of your system when trying to connect to the router.

You should check the router config by logging into it to see if a private IP address pool has been setup or Dhcp mode of the router is enabled if a private IP pool has been setup you will need to write down all of the settings for the gateway IP sub net, and dns servers.

And manually configure the details in the settings on your system for the Ethernet adaptor.

 

[Tony Pomroy]

I'll let you know tomorrow how it is, thanks for the help! But quick question about the above response. It was working yesterday and I haven't run into the problem. Same Ethernet cable, etc. Just randomly stopped working. Does that change anything?

 

[jsmithepa]

Windows telling you "limited access" means it's not able to talk to the DHCP and not getting an assigned IP. "Working just fine, all of a sudden" is almost an impossibility, something changed. Have you made change to the DHCP server box? did you notice an overnight Windows auto-update?

 

[Tony Pomroy]

Hey, so i put the duplex speed to 100 mbs and got a green solid light and an amber blinking light. So i have no idea what that means but i still have limited access

 

[Tony Pomroy]

Ok now i have a red light and blinking amber (the settings i changed went back to full negotiations by itself), and i got into my router, and maybe right before i did i regained connection (or maybe when i got into my router i regained.) not sure. But its working, and i dont have any green lights..??

 

[dgingeri]

OK, then the solid light is the connection indicator. Red means it has a gigabit connection, green means it has a 100Mb connection, and off likely means no connection or a 10Mb connection. The amber connection is just an activity light, meaning it is receiving or sending data.

Having green lights doesn't mean much in particular, and certainly not anything particularly positive. In this case, it is actually not a positive thing. The solid green light would mean you aren't getting full speed. Don't get stuck on having to have a green light.

If you are now getting a 1Gb connection and have access to the internet or network you need, then you are good. It sounds like it just needed to disconnect and reconnect to refresh its IP address.

 

[Tony Pomroy]

Cool, thanks for the help guys!

 

[Tony Pomroy]

Same problem once again. I cant even release the ipconfig this time though it says it's unable to get an ip on my end

 

[Tony Pomroy]

Legit, i restarted my computer and it works now. Anyone have any explanation?

 

[dgingeri]

reseat the cable and see if that solves anything. If it does, take a close look at the pins of the network port. If any of those are flattened or crossed, then the port is bad. If not, try replacing the cable and use another port on the switch/router. If neither of those are the case, then it is likely a bad network adapter.