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I had powerline networking working in the morning but its not now. I notice that the ethernet port does not blink at all. Is the wire spoilt? Should the port blink even when there is no internet or LAN connectivity?

Update: I tried plugging directly into another ethernet cable which connects into the router, still no light. Is it really broken? Is there somewhere I can see in Windows to verify? Is a USB - ethernet adapter worth is? Perhaps it’s better to use wireless then wait sometime to build a new PC? my current one is about… Maybe 3 to 4 years I think?

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3 Answers 3

Reset to default
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When there is no LAN conectivity or internet, no, it does not need to be blinking. If light is steady and on, it should be fine. You might just have some misconfiguration in the router (IP, dns, dhcp, etc)

Did you have a power shortage? two things might have happened if so: Simply the router lost some configuration setting (so, check it all well) , and sometimes I have noticed that powerline devices loose for some hours conectivit,y with one of these events, or when some machine of large power usage got triggered, or if it had a problem. Like as if stuff happening in the internal cables might affect the quality of the signal.

Also check if you changed somehow the cables installation, or where are you plugin now the devices, if you plugged it in a different room, etc (always do directly in the wall, and remember distance can be a factor). If there was some change in that. Have you checked with a laptop using same powerline device?

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  • i updated my post, so perhaps its the card? what would u reccomend?
    – Jiew Meng
    Commented Apr 18, 2011 at 14:37
  • Well, actually I forgot to mention the step explained by Sandeep. It has that tiny reset button in the device, you will find it. Normally you would press it, then the other device's one, they should then sync. One other thing, it can be a problem with dhcp. The router, I guess is a multi port one, asigns by dhcp an IP to each thing connected. Have you logged into the web interface it has, and check the machines it detects connected to? usually there's an 'status' or the like, listing the machines connected, by its netbios name(ie, 'Mike') and IP.(192.168...)
    – S.gfx
    Commented Apr 19, 2011 at 7:41
  • For it to work, you need to have in your Windows network adapter settings to have the local IP in auto asigned, it'll be so by default unless you asigned a fixed IP. The web interface to handle router config, usually is accessed by browsing to http://192.168.1.1 or http://192.168.2.1. Some times, probs that I had with homeplugs (we're talking about these devices, right?) got solved by rebooting the router, but don't do unless you know it's safe and you know some basics about configuring there.(in case stuff gets reset, depends on the router. Some miss some firewall settings.
    – S.gfx
    Commented Apr 19, 2011 at 7:46
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This happens to me sometimes, it could be something going on in your powerline.

What I usually do is hit the reset button on all adapters to reset them back to factory and then they all usually pick each other up and you have a running powerline again.

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My interpretation of the question is that you used powerline ethernet adapters, but you lost network connection. You plugged ethernet directly from PC to router, and still had no connection, so it seems that the problem is your onboard ethernet card and not the powerline adapters. You are wondering

  1. whether there is somewhere in Windows that will tell you if the ethernet card is broken
  2. whether a usb ethernet card will work to get you back on the network
  3. whether you need a new PC

To answer 1, you can go to the Device Manager and see what devices are attached to your PC and whether they are working ok. If the network card driver is broken, you'll likely see an error mark. If the card itself is broken it probably won't appear as a device at all.

Why would it break? Maybe a power surge came through the powerline and the powerline adapter didn't shield your computer. Maybe the card is still ok, but you moved your PC and the card was bumped and came loose from the motherboard and needs reseating. Maybe the powersupply is breaking and is starting to slowly kill things off.

To answer question 2, yes, a USB ethernet adapter should work. You may be able to plug it back into the powerline adapter if that looks to still work (maybe look into ethernet surge protection though).

Do you need a new PC? Probably in the next year, as 3-4 years is a typical life span (though some might get to 7+ if you don't need to run new software and you look after it). If more things break, you'll know it's time. I'd recommend making sure all your valuable files are backed up on dropbox/google drive/one drive/external disk in case the issue really is power surge related as another surge could kill your disks.

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