Greetings! So recently, i spent a few hours coding software. After i was done and i shut off my pc, i noticed both of the ethernet lights were on and blinking. Does this mean that Microsoft is sending data to their servers before the PC fully shuts off? I am scared that this might be the thing it does. How can i get rid of this issue? I have no idea if it’s related to Windows or the PC itself.
No it’s not. If you don’t believe me, unplug your PC’s power cord and watch the light go out.
If the power cord is plugged in but the computer is shutdown, and the light is still on, then that means the network adapter supports WoL or OOB management and must stay on for that reason, but the network switch connected to the adapter is not physically powering any lights.
Also worth noting that Windows is especially bad about actually shutting down when you tell it to shut down because something something fastboot. I’ve seen similar inconsistently on Linux but I strongly suspect that to be more edgecases with specific hardware and my install.
Fastboot shouldn’t affect networking as the hardware itself is powered off.
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Except neither of those things are true.
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sure it depends on the design, but no standards-compliant non-PoE Ethernet design is going to light up an LED, it barely uses 1 volt.
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I was not refuting that, yes drivers can control the LED since forever. The original comment was “the link light is powered by the switch”, which I’m saying is not possible. An ethernet switch (assuming it’s not PoE) cannot directly power an LED on a network adapter in your PC let alone the rest of it, that’s all I’m saying.