ethernet displays connected with no ethernet cord plugged in?

[dukeace2094]

Hey guys so I noticed the past month or so my computer took forever to find my wifi. Lazy, i put it off until now. Upon going to the network preferences i discovered that my computer thinks that i have an ethernet cable plugged in when really i dont. Could this be slowing down the wifi detection process and does anyone else hvae the same issue?

FYI: 2008 MacBook Pro 15' 2.93 Core 2 Duo 4GB Memory 320 Harddrive
*OSX LION WITH ALL UPDATES*

Picture: http://i.imgur.com/JJ5QQ.jpg

 

[ct2k7]

Do you, or have you used a USB Dongle before?

It doesn't show the ethernet port on the Mac (direct) as being connected/used. It shows en4, or virtual ethernet etc.

 

[dukeace2094]

nope. not that i know of, at least. i do have a program called usb prober? possibly same effect? dont even know why i have it...

 

[stordoff]

Do you use Parallels/VMWare/VirtualBox or similar? On Windows at least, they set up virtual network adaptors to give the guest PCs network access. It might be the same in OS X.