Nighthawk M6 Pro Overheating Update

From what I observe with a M6 Pro using firmware NTGX65_12.01.48.00, the "overheating" issue despite Netgear's repeated announcements isn't fixed, at least not if a throttled performance when reaching a certain temperature threshold in order to prevent that very overheating falls into a similar category.

In my case, while the device itself continues to work without interruptions or restarts, the performance gets significantly degraded whenever the temperature rises above 62°C and the up- and downstream resources (3CA for LTE, 2CA for 5G) are more or less fully occupied, which with my current operator means about 32 Mbps upload and 320 Mbps download. Then, within minutes, the downstream droppes to 40-100 Mbps with higher latency times between 400-1000 ms. Cooling the device down by a fan reproducibly resolves the performance hit by significantly lowering the temperature (about 10°C less).

Whoever wondered how the heck a manufacturer wants to resolve a pretty clear hardware/implementation issue by pure magic of remote software (e.g. updating the firmware) might have an idea. He can't. Netgear's portable routers obviously lack the required hardware-based cooling and the very least they should provide is a heatsink one can attach inside of the freed-up battery slot when in stationary use. At least as of now, their devices are simply not suitable for power users and for the light ones, one can ask oneself whether a way cheaper pocket wifi doesn't suffice as well.

The heat issue for me comes to no surprise at all here - other manufacturers either use the mentioned heatsink in their devices or even add an additional fan to that, e.g.:

https://www.cnx-software.com/2023/05/04/gl-inet-spitz-ax-gl-x3000nr-5g-nr-wifi-6-router-review-part-1-specs-unboxing-and-first-boot/

With Netgear's M-series though, consisting only of some simple plastic case around relatively high-performant chipsets, raises the rhetorical question where the heat should be conveyed that quickly - physics is greeting.

The temperature result in concrete is mostly made up of the following variables, taking the environment aside:

- chipset efficiency

- cooling/heat convey strategy

- programming code efficiency

- load

For the first two, it's already too late. The thing is built, packaged and shipped already. Only the second might be indeed an option if Netgear would deliver such a heatsink retroactively (with a more or less fiddly gel-pad included DIY-kit after one paid about 1000 bucks for that thing, hurray).

Third is possible, but not very likely to make a huge difference. Leaving number four, simply throttling the performance when this thing gets too hot. Which is exactly what happens.

Printing the return label ...