Netgear Indicator Lights Explained

Netgear Router Lights Explained — All LED Colors & Patterns

Netgear: 8 front-panel LEDs: Power, Internet, 2.4 GHz, 5 GHz, USB, and 4 LAN LEDs. Internet LED green = working. Internet LED amber = no internet. Power LED green = normal. Power LED amber = firmware update in progress.

Router Blinking Orange Light

Netgear: Amber Internet LED = no internet connection. Solid amber = no Ethernet cable detected on WAN port. Blinking amber = cable connected but ISP hasn't assigned an IP address.

Router Solid Red Light

Netgear: Solid red Internet LED = no internet connection (same severity as orange on other brands). Solid red Power LED is more serious — firmware or hardware fault.

Router Blinking White Light

Netgear: White blinking power ring = router is starting up. White pulsing = firmware update in progress. Solid white = router is ready and internet is connected.

Router DS/US Lights Blinking (Cable Modems)

Netgear: DS and US labeled the same way. Downstream may show multiple lights (each light = a bonded channel). More lit downstream lights = more bonded channels = higher speeds.

Router Solid Orange Light (Not Blinking)

Netgear: Solid amber on the Internet LED = the router has a physical WAN connection but cannot get an IP address or authenticate. Check the router admin page (192.168.1.1) under Basic → Internet to see the error type.

Router Blinking Red Light

Netgear: Blinking amber/red on Netgear = firmware corruption or hardware fault. Netgear's recovery mode (called 'Router Recovery') can flash an image via TFTP if the firmware is corrupted. If the Internet LED blinks red: no physical WAN connection detected.

Router All Lights Off — No LED Response

Netgear: Netgear Night Mode turns all LEDs off on a schedule. Check the Nighthawk app → LED Control. Also, Netgear routers have a physical LED on/off button on some models — check if it was pressed.