A customer has called to let me know that they cannot see other computers or access the network. You ask the customer if there is a red X through the network icon in the notification area. The customer informs you that there is not. You then ask the customer if there are lights on the NIC (at the back of the PC) & if they are flashing. The customer informs you that they are on but not flashing. You also ask the customer to check if there are lights on the switch. The customer informs you that there are, but these are not flashing. what could the cause/s of this problem be?
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good outline.

No network activity, sounds like a dead switch or router to me.

Possibly a dead nic, but I would suspect a switch / router has failed.

Obviously, reboot all the switches and routers and modems and whatever else is in there, and see where the failure starts.

No blinking is not normal. Possible also bad cable, though that depends on how the place is wired. Sometimes customers have a fondness for tying all those loose cables together to make them neat so tight that the actual cable end gets worn out and you have to replace the nic and cable.

But my first guess would be a dead switch/router, my second guess would be a dead nic. A dead nic can be invisible to windows if I remember right, it thinks it's still working, though if you open up event viewer you should see a lot of networking errors listed.
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thanks so much for your help
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