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General discussion

light flashing - ethernet plug

by phyl33 Jun 2, 2007 1:29AM PDT

I have a new HP desktop with vista and just noticed that my ethernet plug in has a flashing light even when the computer is off. My internet connection is cable broadband. Is this normal?

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1 Posts

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Yes

by jackson dougless Jun 2, 2007 2:36AM PDT

There's always a small amount of standby power being used by the system, and it's often plenty to power little things like LEDs. And since most network cards support Wake-On-LAN functions (though usually not enabled for security reasons), it's not uncommon for the network card to be active listening for that Wake-On-LAN signal to come in.

It's nothing to worry about.

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