No need for drastic action; this is normal. It simply means the NIC does
not see a connection to the network. This would be normal if you have a
machine with both a wireless NIC and wired NIC, and you are connected
through the wireless (or you have more than one NIC in a computer but are
only using one of them). If this is the case and everything is working fine
for you, then you can either just ignore it or disable the unused NIC.
If you actually have a problem with not being able to connect to the
network, then check for a bad Ethernet cable connected to the computer.
Just swap it with another one. I have had some cases where a particular
RJ45 connector just wouldn't make connection properly in a specific NIC, but
worked fine in others. Almost all NICs, hubs, and switches have a green
LED that lights up if the cable has a good connection on both ends, even
when there is no activity on the network. If you don't see this light, then
that would be consistent with a bad connection. And the light will either
be on at BOTH ends of the cable (if the connection is good) or neither end
(if there is a problem) - never on just one end unless you have one of the
rare NICs that does not have the LED at all. Sometimes just wiggling the
cable or unplugging and replugging it will fix the problem (or show you that
the connector is bad if the light starts going on and off as you touch it).
One last suggestion - make sure you are not using a straight cable if you
really need a crossover cable, such as when connecting two computers
together WITHOUT a hub or switch. If you ARE using a hub or switch, many of
them have one jack that is marked as "uplink". These jacks are crosswired
and not normally used to connect to a computer. If you are using the uplink
jack to connect a computer instead of another hub or switch, you would
actually need to use a crossover cable to make the crosswired uplink jack
work like a normal Ethernet jack. Hope that is not too confusing. Good luck
Km
