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Forum Discussion
t_k
Feb 08, 2018Luminary
What you can expect with your Orbi system
I'm writing this mainly because a post like this would have saved me a lot of time and effort. If you're thinking about buying an Orbi system, or recently purchased one, here's a few things you can e...
Dustin278
Mar 06, 2018Apprentice
t_kwrote:I'm writing this mainly because a post like this would have saved me a lot of time and effort. If you're thinking about buying an Orbi system, or recently purchased one, here's a few things you can expect:
- The devices look great so you can set them up anywhere.
- The wifi speed is impressive - 200-300Mbs actual throughout most of the coverage area.
- The band steering (the feature that tries to keep 5Ghz capable clients on the 5Ghz network), doesn't really work. 5Ghz capable devices keep ending up on the 2.4Ghz radio even though a useable 5Ghz signal is available.
- You'll keep lossing connectivity, partial or complete, for a few seconds or a few minutes. This will happen a few times a day if you use it all day.
After working for over a year trying to chase down and fix problems, here's the situaton with those last two problems.
First, the band steering implemented by netgear just doesn't work very well. There are no magic switches or settings to change, it's just not reliable. There isn't way to make it reliable, but you can work around the issue. There is an undocumented way to separate out the 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz SSIDs that a helpful user detailed. If you use this, you just avoid the bandsteering problems.
Second are the disconnects. They will seem random, they are hard to reproduce, and restarting any satellite or the router will resolve them when they show up. I spent months trying to track this one down specificially and never got farther than confirming it's a layer 2 issue with the Orbi backhaul. The fact that it's a layer 2 backhaul issue is easy to confirm. When you're having any connectivity problems with a device, just change the device radio's MAC address, wait a few seconds for a new DHCP address and "viola", the connectivity problems will be fixed.
If you dive deeper into the sauce, poking around the Orbi's customized OpenWRT system using their telnet access, you'll find that the WDS system is incredibly unreliable. All it takes is a few laps around your house switching APs to cause a MAC address to get "stuck". Roaming isn't a requirement for the backhaul to start messing up, but it's easier to cause it to happen that way.
There is no fix for this second issue. It's something you have to just live with. If you don't use your system for work, and rarely roam between APs with your devices, you probably won't notice it too much. If you do - sorry, this is going to drive you crazy.
If you call netgear, you'll be told to restart the system, reload the firmware, play with channels, and a host of other things. None of them will help. You're just wasting time.
Note, these problems have existed for at least the past 8 revisions of their firmware and have shown no improvement. There is no reason to think that netgear will fix this, ever. They have the easy "reboot and it works again" fix available. So, this is one of those things you'll have to live with.
This is so spot on!
ossiangrr
Jul 10, 2018Initiate
Hi. I'm currently looking at purchasing the Orbi and I came across this thread.
I was mainly looking at the RBK33 3-pack, with the main router and 2 small satellites. My house is quite long and thin and the router is on one end. Most usage would be in the center of the house, but it would be nice to have a boost in the laundry room/garage, so I was investigating mesh solutions.
I'm not sure if the latest firmware revision - 2.1.4.16 - is newer or older than the last post here, but if it is newer, I'm wondering: Does it address the issues that OP was describing?
Thanks.
- FURRYe38Jul 10, 2018Guru - Experienced User
v.16 is the most current version of FW. Theres nothing newer. Yet.
This post is a few months old and theres been FW updates since then. You can check out there release notes for each FW update to see if anything is addressed.
There maybe differences between your 33 series and the OP 50 series so there maybe problems not seen with the model you have. If any. Something you'll have to try and see what happens.
ossiangrr wrote:
Hi. I'm currently looking at purchasing the Orbi and I came across this thread.
I was mainly looking at the RBK33 3-pack, with the main router and 2 small satellites. My house is quite long and thin and the router is on one end. Most usage would be in the center of the house, but it would be nice to have a boost in the laundry room/garage, so I was investigating mesh solutions.
I'm not sure if the latest firmware revision - 2.1.4.16 - is newer or older than the last post here, but if it is newer, I'm wondering: Does it address the issues that OP was describing?
Thanks.
- ossiangrrJul 10, 2018Initiate
Thanks for your response, FURRYe38, but I am looking for any first-hand experience from the posters in this thread who were previously experiencing this low-level issue, to see if the firmware updates have made a difference for them. Especially the very knowledgeable OP who looks like he has gone above and beyond with his research and testing on the issue.
- FURRYe38Jul 10, 2018Guru - Experienced User
Hopefully someone will respond. Again, there maybe differences between 33 series and 50 series models
Good Luck.
ossiangrr wrote:
Thanks for your response, FURRYe38, but I am looking for any first-hand experience from the posters in this thread who were previously experiencing this low-level issue, to see if the firmware updates have made a difference for them. Especially the very knowledgeable OP who looks like he has gone above and beyond with his research and testing on the issue.