Network card green light stays on when unplugged

[Bill_Castner]

Let me just add two comments to this discussion, and then leave you in the capable hands of Mr. Will:

. Any ethernet adapter that has Event 45 capabilities, such as Wake on LAN, Wake on USB event, .etc, are always on. (Otherwise they could not recognize the event trigger). That is why the light continued to glow when the patch cable was removed. This is normal. It would indicate something wrong if the light went out or never comes on.

. Before doing a reinstallation of XP, check the enviornmental variable PATH in System Properties, Advanced, Environmental variables, (the lower box). If the PATH statement does not at least and in part point to %windir%\; %windir%\system32\;%windir%\system\;%windir%\system32\wbem\ then a lot of XP's external commands will fail.

[johnwill]

Well Bill, I'm going to have to disagree with you on this point. I just walked around to three machines that were powered off, and sure enough, the lights were on. I removed the cable from them, and ALL the lights went off on the NIC. Two were MB integrated NIC's, and one was a PCI NIC. There is nothing wrong with any of those machines.

[Bill_Castner]

May I suggest not doing the repair quite yet?

Start, Run, CMD

netsh winsock reset

Wait for XP to tell you that a restart is needed. Restart the computer.

After the restart do a Start, Run, SFC /Scannow

If the XP CD is needed, it will prompt you for it.

This utility does not give you any exciting messages, although it does make entries in the Event Log.

Last, right-click My Computer, Properties, Advanced, and at the bottom click on Evironment Variables. In the lower of the two boxes highligh PATH and click the Edit button.

Part of your PATH string must include: %SystemRoot%\system32;%SystemRoot%;%SystemRoot%\System32\Wbem;

If not you will lose access to the external commands of XP just as you did in your testing.

If this does not help, then do the Repair John was suggesting. A Microsoft Article will give you further details of HOWTO do it: http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;EN-US;315341

.

[Bill_Castner]

I have WOL, and 1 Event 45 trigger and 2 Event 47 triggers. Removing the cable keeps the light on with the power off unless I disable the adapter prior to the poweroff.

If guess if you only have WOL your circumstance is normal as well. What certainly does not indicate a bad adapter is the original posters scerenario way at the beginning. It simply in the absence of other information not a sign of a failed adapter.