Your Netgear router’s red light means that you don’t have internet. If your ISP is to blame, the red light is showing because of an outage or maintenance to the system.
If it isn’t your ISP, the network or its WiFi channels could be congested or a firmware update may be underway or has been interrupted.
It’s also possible that the software has hit a glitch, there’s malware in your system, or the router itself is faulty.
The likeliest fix would be to restart your router or perform a power cycle. If you tried that without success, call your ISP or try troubleshooting your system.
That includes checking your cables and the location of your router, looking for firmware updates, trying a factory reset, or calling Netgear support.
How To Fix The Netgear Router Red Light Issue
Need detailed instructions? Here’s what to do.
1. Wait a Few Minutes
If your router’s firmware is updating, your Netgear router may show a red light. It may also be a short service interruption.
Give it about twenty minutes and then look to see if the red light is still there. If it is still on, you can try a few easy fixes to get it up and running again.
2. Restart or Power Cycle
Restarting your router is as easy as turning it off, turning it on, and waiting to see if your Netgear router’s red light goes away.
A power cycle is similar but means shutting down and unplugging your router and any related infrastructure you may have and leaving it like that for about two minutes before restarting.
Power cycling sometimes works when simple restarting doesn’t because it will make your router re-initialize and may overcome issues like crashing or hanging.
3. Check Your Cables
Loose, disconnected, damaged, or wrongly connected cables are an obvious reason for losing your connectivity. Inspecting your cables is a good place to start if power cycling didn’t work for you.
Look to see that they’re plugged into the right ports and check for loose-seeming connections or visible damage to the cables.
If you have spare cables, you can try them out too, since damage to cables isn’t always visible at a glance.
For example, if your cable got kinked and the interior wiring was damaged, you might not see it just by looking.
If everything checks out OK but you’re still seeing the red light, move on to the next step.
4. Consider the Placement of Your Router
If you recently moved your router to a new location or have a new router, its placement could be to blame for your issue.
Nearby electrical and electronic appliances can interfere with your router’s signal, so that’s the first thing to check out.
Follow Netgear’s tips for router placement including a central location and a slightly elevated height if you decide that moving your router can help.
5. Check for and Install Firmware Updates
Firmware is the software that tells your router how it should work. It’s updated periodically, and if your firmware is badly out-of-date, your Netgear Router’s red light will come on and your router will stop working.
Netgear recommends using its Genie app to check for updates to its Nighthawk router. When you log in, look for the orange flag at the top of your screen.
If you see one, your firmware needs to be updated. You can initiate the update using the app.
Once the update has begun, don’t switch anything off, and do expect to see occasional red lights. Since they’re appearing during the update, don’t interfere.
Your router will restart itself during the process and it’s nothing to worry about.
You can also update your firmware using your browser. Navigate to www.routerlogin.net. The default username is “admin” and the default password is “password.”
If you already set your own username and password, use these to log in. If you need a firmware update, you’ll see it flagged at the top of the page.
To manually check whether you need to update your firmware, log in to routerlogin.net, and select the tab labeled as “advanced.” Then navigate to “administration” and “router update.”
As before, you can initiate any outstanding updates you see there, being careful not to interrupt the process until it is complete.
6. Do a Factory Reset
If your configuration has gotten messed up, trying to find the exact problem can take a lot of time. Shortcut the process by restoring your Netgear router to its factory settings – the ones you got the router with.
Once you’ve done that and it’s using its default settings, you will have to reconfigure it by following the same steps you used to set it up when it was new.
To perform a factory reset, check the back of your router. You will see a recessed button labeled “reset.” To press it, you’ll need a sharp-ish object like a paperclip.
The button is specially made that way so that you can’t accidentally press it, so don’t worry about poking something into the hole. It won’t damage your router.
Press and hold the button for about seven seconds. This should make the router reboot to its default settings. Once it restarts, follow the necessary steps to reconfigure it.
If you still have a red light, consider calling your internet service provider (ISP) if you haven’t done so yet. You may be dealing with an interrupted service that you can’t fix no matter what you do.
All the same, there are a couple of things you can still try.
7. Dealing With Malware
If you’re worried about your Netgear router having been infected with malware, a factory reset offers a simple way to solve it.
For the tech-savvy, looking for an altered DNS server address would indicate that there’s malware, and the simplest solution remains the same: perform a factory reset and reconfigure.
8. Is Your Network Congested?
If too many devices are trying to access a connection at once, your WiFi network may be overloaded. And when your signal is weak, it won’t take many devices to do that.
Try taking any devices you aren’t using right now offline and see if that helps you.
If you uncover congestion, you may be able to solve the problem by moving your router to a more central location in your home and giving it a bit of height (but not too much). Check your antennae. They should be spread apart.
If all else fails, you may need to upgrade your hardware to allow all your devices to work simultaneously without congesting your network.
For example, you can get repeaters or signal boosters, and there are routers with extra bandwidth lanes that can cope with more traffic.
9. Faulty Router
If you’ve tried absolutely everything and you still have issues with a Netgear router’s red light, the router itself may need to be replaced.
The best way to test this is to try using a spare router if you have one, but since many people don’t have spare routers, you may have to take it to be checked in-store.
The alternative is to call for a technician, but this can mean annoying waits and extra charges to your account.
Routers don’t last forever, but if yours are in need of replacement every few months, you should see if there’s a way you can get the next one to last longer.
Clearing dust and fluff out of vents once a month or so could help if you live in a dry area where the air tends to carry dust. A blast of compressed air does the trick.
You should also ensure that your router is out of direct sunlight, that there are no objects in the way of the vents and that it’s open to airflow: that is, don’t place it in any kind of housing that blocks airflow.
Final Words
A red light on your Netgear router is usually an easily resolvable problem. A restart or power cycle is often enough to fix the issue.
However, if you’ve gone through all the possible reasons for the problem and still haven’t found a solution, your ISP’s customer support helpline operators can talk you through your options.
Tell them what you’ve already tried, but don’t get impatient if they ask you to repeat some of the steps you’ve taken already.
Working with them to troubleshoot your system is governed by customer support procedures, so just play along. You may even find that you made some mistake along the way – for example, an error in configuring your router after a factory reset.
