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Forum Discussion
Orbi RBK53 ethernet backhaul issue
I have upgraded my Orbi router and satellites to the latest firmware (2.1.2.18) and I am seeing some weird behavior with regard to what's shown on the "Connected Satellites" section of the orbi route...
If your router is working in AP mode, be sure to connect it to the switch using the first LAN port and not the router port. If your LED ring stays a solid magenta afterwards… this seems to be a bug in the Orbi firmware. I switched the LED ring off, since this cabling is also the way Netgear has stated on their support site on how to connect the satellites via ethernet.
In this setup, either the satellites as well as the devices connected wirelessly to the satellites are displayed correctly on the Orbi's web page.
So I definitely had the router plugged into the WAN port still even though it was in AP mode. I moved the cable over to the leftmost switch port on the RBR50 and now I'm really getting weird behavior. Internet access from the RBR seems to be working fine, however both satellites now show up as 5G... at least they now both have the correct IP addresses. In addition, any devices connected to those satellites have no internet access and are having issues connecting to local nodes as well.
Let me try resetting everything and starting over to see if that fixes anything.
So I did a hard power-on reset and then disabled daisy chain topology and one satellite is now up and running on wired but the other is still forcing itself onto 5G. What gives?
Netgear, if you're listening, it would be great if you could have an option to select the backhaul to use. Eg Auto, ethernet, 5g. That was some of us could force a specific satellite onto ethernet when these weird cases crop up and the satellites don't seem to use the faster backhaul.
Throwing out obvious questions, have you verified the cable to that satellite is good, no faults? Any way to check it or substitute a different cable to make sure? Same for switch port?
Yes I know the cable is good and the switch ports are fine. If I connect that cable directly to my PC, instead of the satellite, I get consistent speeds of over 100MB/s. There's no way to switch the cable as it is run through the walls from my top floor down into the basement where the network closet is.
Btw, my router is listing the IPs of all the satellites correctly now and the ManCave orbi that was originally on 5g is now on ethernet backhaul, but the orbi that was on ethernet is now on 5G (at least according to the router page here):The speeds from the downstairs router are pretty good, so it's not a huge deal, just more of an annoyance that I can't figure out why it says it's on 5G. Obviously when ethernet is available I'd prefer the Orbis to run on that due to latency and reliability concerns. On every AP I'm getting around 450Mb/s+ when I run Speedtest on my phone in the different rooms. The big deal was the ManCave AP. That AP is far enough from the router than when it runs on 5G the speeds are attrocious... around 20Mb/s, which for that room is unnacceptable given that there are 3 computes and a TV that runs a bunch of devices like AppleTV, PS4, etc.
I already disabled daisy chaining, but that doesn't appear to have done anything obvious. Is there a way to tell if the downstairs Orbi is, in fact, running on 5G? Maybe the router is just displaying the info incorrectly and it's actually on ethernet now?