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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?

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    What does the amber LED signify? Link speed? Duplex setting?
    – joeqwerty
    Apr 27, 2011 at 18:39
  • Most likely that it's connected at 10mbps (or 1gbps if it's a 100/1000). That it's different indicates that it's failing autonegotiation. Try a different switchport, if it remains, the NIC may be faulty.
    – draeath
    Apr 27, 2011 at 18:45
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    If you can ping WAN but not LAN you may be on the wrong subnet.
    – Chris Nava
    Apr 27, 2011 at 19:18
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    The fact that the ping works in one direction shows that you have connectivity, which means the problem is either with name resolution or likely with the firewall on the machine you are trying to ping. Are you pinging by IP address or hostname ? If pinging by hostname is not working, then try pinging the IP address - if this works then you know you have a name resolution problem. Can other machines on the network ping the machine she cannot ? It may be that the machine has a firewall configured that blocks ping requests. Please provide IP details (ipconfig /all) for both machines if you are st
    – Jon Reeves
    Apr 27, 2011 at 20:47
  • there you go @JonReeves, welcome to Super User! :)
    – studiohack
    Apr 27, 2011 at 21:21

2 Answers 2

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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.

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    What?? Really??
    – lornix
    Jun 20, 2012 at 16:16
  • NICs might stay on when the PC is off (but plugged in) to support wake-on-LAN. But one reason the light may be amber though is if the NIC is in power-saving mode. This link is for Wake-On-LAN settings but shows you where to go to check power settings for the NIC: thewindowsclub.com/wake-on-lan-not-working-on-windows-10
    – LawrenceC
    Dec 29, 2022 at 14:37
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There are two lights. Physical and Link. Physical has three states. Off, Green, and Amber.

  1. Off: Connection at 10Mbps.
  2. Green: Connection at 100Mbps.
  3. Amber: Connection at 1Gbps.

Link has three states. Off, Green, and Yellow.

  1. Off: Network is not transmitting packets.
  2. Green: Network is transmitting packets normally.
  3. 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.

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