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Orbi RBR40 WiFi drops out
I have a base and satellite on one floor in suburban home. I use Cox cable modem for internet. I got this system July 2019 and has worked great until maybe two weeks ago. We are getting random intermittent drop outs in the wifi signal. The only cabled connection to the base station was a garage door opener remote. When we started having issues I connected my desktop (late model iMac) with a cable which had been on wifi.
When drop out occurs (wife's laptop), I ran Speedtest on my phone (wifi) and desktop (wired) at the same time. Wired connection is great, >150 Mbps. (So it is not a Cox problem.) Wifi is sometimes <20. Wired connection is solid. Wifi can come and go. I did a reset (using tiny button) and that restored wifi to nornmal speed. Sometimes a power cycle will restore it.
Suggestions? Thanks,
Mike M,
michaelkenward wrote:The .img thing has baffled many people. There are only so many three character extensions available. Another one that Netgear likes is .chk.
The orbi router itself uses .img files and the satellites use the .chk file. In the orbi dashboard there are two separate spots. The top spot is to upgrade the router which will always be a .img file and then below that you check which satellites you want to update and use the bottom update button under the satellite listing and you select the .chk file for those and click update.
Sean
38 Replies
MJMackowski wrote:
I got this system July 2019 and has worked great until maybe two weeks ago.
Anything changed? Have you checked the wifi channels you are using? Maybe the neighbours have moved in with something that clashes with your wifi.
MJMackowski wrote:
I use Cox cable modem for internet.
Make and model?
MJMackowski wrote:
When we started having issues I connected my desktop (late model iMac) with a cable which had been on wifi.
Always the best idea. Wired beats wifi hands down.
MJMackowski wrote:
Wifi is sometimes <20.
Not very good for an Internet link at that speed.
Have you tried playing with the wifi clients? The source can be the fastest on the planet but if the users don't play ball you cant blame the router.
You have posted your message in the section of this community given over to Nighthawk WiFi Routers. (This is easily done, given Netgear's complicated community structure.)
Many questions apply to different types of device, so you might get responses here, but you might get more help, and find earlier questions and answers specific to your hardware, in the appropriate section for your device. That's probably here:
Orbi - NETGEAR CommunitiesI have changed nothing on my end. I don't know how to check or change wifi channels. What do you mean by a wifi client?
I would not know if my neighbord changed something since I don't keep track of other wifi signals. I know there are many I can see.
Cox modem is Cisco DPQ3212.
Wife takes laptop all over the house. Can't always rely on cables.
Happened again this morning. Was listening to streaming radio on an iPad and it shuttered and went dead. Speedtest could not even connect. Then the signal strength icon disappeared. By the time I went to Settings to look for my wifi connection it was back, and a minute later Speedtest was normal (>150) and everything worked. Something intermittent is happening. Like the radio part of the base station is starting to fail. Has anyone seen this behavior?
MJMackowski wrote:
I have changed nothing on my end. I don't know how to check or change wifi channels. What do you mean by a wifi client?
Visit the support pages:
Support | NETGEAR
Feed in your model number and check the documentation for your hardware.
Check the section in the manual Specify Basic WiFi Settings.Then read the bit To change the WiFi channel, select a number in the Channel list.
Wifi clients are things like your wife's laptop, mobile phones, tablets and anything else that connects to your wifi.
MJMackowski wrote:
I would not know if my neighbord changed something since I don't keep track of other wifi signals. I know there are many I can see.
When you connect a wifi client (see above) to the network, it will see a list of SSIDs. Your network will be in there, but so may be those from the neighbours. If you see a lot of those networks, that is where the interference can come from.
I can confirm this just started happening to me. This was right after I did the latest firmware update about a week ago. Wifi goes out. So far it has happened twice. My devices connect but say there is no internet access.
I thought a DNS issue as I use google dns. So I switched to my ISP dns and saved the configuration and it came back online. Thinking that was the problem. Then I woke up this morning to the same issue. Went in to the admin panel and resaved the configuration and it started working again.
I am probably going to see if I can roll back to the previous firmware as I have never seen this behavior before. Currently on V2.6.2.104. I think there is an issue with the firmware since that is the only thing I updated in quite some time.
Sean
I'm adding my name to the list as I also have the RBR40 and started to experience random drops in the wifi connection after upgrading to the V2.6.2.104 firmware a while ago. I have tried a factory reset of the router and satellite, but I still get maybe one or two drops a day on devices connected to my network.
/Robin
I now have a third scenario. This morning I had wifi signal but no internet. I also had no internet on my wired connection. Previously the wifi had to disappear before the cabled connection died.
I started having these issues before I updated the firmware to V2.6.2.104 so I doubt that is the problem.
I'm thinking the hardware has an issue of some sort. But it's less than two years old. Is that typical for Netgear designs to have early hardware failures?
It just happened to me again this morning after already having the same issue earlier today. I was connected to wifi but it had no internet access.
So I did some testing. So I know my phone was not connected but my VPN on my work computer which connects through an IP address and not a resolved name was still connected and I was able to do things on it and it was connected through wifi. My alexa and google minis were still responding to "are you connected to the internet" and they said they were.
My nest cameras were still actively recording too as when I reconnected I went through the footage and there should be a blank spot when the wifi goes out as they are connected to wifi and need wifi/internet to keep recording.
Very strange. I'm going to roll my firmware back and see what happens. I didn't start seeing this until I switched firmware. My orbi is several years old.
Sean
I have the RBR 40 also, and it just got upgraded to 2.6.2.104. None of my mobile devices can connect, or at least can only connect intermittently right after a reboot of the router.
I noticed that the downloads page for RBR40 show the latest version as 2.6.1.36 (https://www.netgear.com/support/product/rbr40.aspx#RBR40%20Firmware%20Version%202.6.1.36?cid=us-best-wifi6-srch-cpc) and that version 2.6.2.104 is listed for device RBR20, so I'm kind of wondering if it's possible that they didn't properly limit the available versions for the router when I told it to upgrade.
I also have the RBR40 and last night updated to the 2.6.2.104 FW and have not had stable internet through my router since then. I've gone through the suggestions above, even "downgrading" FW to v2.3.5.32 for RBR40 and to 2.5.1.16 for RBS20s but have mostly had to rely on mobile hotspots for any internet usage today. Any other suggestions anyone can think of?
It has been over 24 hours since I downgraded to the March version of the firmware. There has been no issues with the wifi connectivity.
Sean
Where do I find the old firmware?
MJMackowski wrote:
Where do I find the old firmware?
As for all Nertgear stuff. Visit the support pages:
Support | NETGEAR
Feed in your model number and check the documentation for your hardware.
That page will also have any software, firmware and drivers for your device, if they exist.
Orbi RBR40 | WiFi System | NETGEAR Support
