What happens if an LED on my router flashes red and what should I do?

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WiFi routers have a series of LEDs on the front to inform us of the general status of the router. To know if the router is working well, we can look at the LEDs and check that they are all white or green, however, if there are any red LEDs, this means that there is a problem with the router. In principle, all the router status LEDs should flash, except the LED that indicates that the router is on. Today we are going to explain what it means when an LED turns red, using several routers as an example.

Why does the router have a red LED?

The status LEDs of a router are a fundamental and very important part to know if there is a problem, without the need to get into the firmware via the web or use its application. Today we have status LEDs for different parts of the router: power on, Internet connection status, LAN status, WiFi network status, and also USB port status, if the router has this feature. . In the case of having a Wi-Fi mesh system, we could find an LED that will indicate if the device has joined the Mesh network correctly, or on the contrary, there has been a problem that requires our attention. In the case of having the WiFi wireless network activated, the LED will appear turned on in a certain color, and if it is deactivated, then the LED will appear completely off.

Synology RT6600ax WiFi Router Status LEDs

Routers generally have a red LED on the Internet connection status indicator, since it is the only thing that can fail in a router. Depending on the type of our router, this LED indicator can mean one thing or another:

  • xDSL routers: a red LED means that there is no ADSL or VDSL synchronization, and therefore, we do not have an Internet connection. In addition, we may have two LEDs, one that tells us if there is synchronism and another if the Internet connection has been correctly established.

Comtrend AR-5381u working in ADSL Jazztel

  • Cable routers (coaxial): the red LED means that it does not receive a signal from the operator through cable, so it cannot establish the Internet connection. In this case it is also possible that we have two indicators, one for the status of the cable connection, and another for the status of the Internet connection.

  • Fiber optic routers: if we have the integrated ONT, we will generally have two status LEDs, one that tells us if it receives power from the OLT, and the other indicates the establishment of the Internet connection. In the event that the ONT is external, the ONT itself will have its LED indicators that also use the red color when they do not receive power or when the authentication against the OLT has failed.

  • Neutral routers: if we have a neutral router with an RJ-45 input, either from the operator or one purchased by us, if the Internet WAN appears in red, it means that we have not correctly connected the Ethernet network cable between the main router or the ONT and our router. However, this also means that it has been unable to obtain an IP address for the Internet WAN.

Depending on the type of router used, when we get a red indicator in the part of the Internet WAN, it can mean different things, what we must be clear about is that we will not have an Internet connection for one reason or another.

What to do if I have a red LED on the router?

The first thing you should do is check which status LED you have in red, generally it will be the Internet connection. Next, the best thing you could do at first is to investigate what is happening, for this you have to get into the router through its default gateway, mainly it is the IP 192.168.1.1, but this depends on the router that we are using. Once we are inside, we can see in the main menu if there is any type of error and we can even go to the log section to see all the logs that have been generated in the router.

As we have said before, the main cause of the red LED on the router is usually because the Internet connection is not established, be it a problem with the cabling, synchronization or OLT of the operator, or that it does not obtain an IP address in the WAN for some reason. If you have this problem for a long time, you could try resetting the operator’s router, in order to see if it works correctly again, if it does not work, it is probably an operator incident.

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