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Forum Discussion
Replacement Battery for Nighthawk M1 (MR1100)
Where can a Nighthawk M1 (MR1100) be purchased? I believe the mobile hotspot device takes a W-10 battery? Thanks in advance Model: MR1100|Nighthawk LTE Mobile Hotspot Router
Hello Pgirl,
How old is your MR1100? If the battery is defective should't they (either Netgear or AT&T) replace the entire hotspot then under the original MFG warranty?
That said, I have no idea how long the hardware warranty is on the MR1100 -- 90 days? 365 days? The whole produce line is less than a year old, it only came out on Telstra last Spring.
Are you sure the battery is defective and not the charger? The oem charger in the box (aka wall wart) seems to be pretty subpar. Most of us have replaced them with a quality QC2 or QC3 rapid charger.
Which carrier do you have Telstra or AT&T? Make sure you have the latest firmware as (if Telstra) as some of the early firmware versions had battery charging related issues.
-Jonathan
I too have a brand new MR1100 Nighthawk ATT Router that has been having battery charge issues. Currently, I am on the second Router with the exact same issue of a battery that I have to remove the SIMM from for a couple of hours to get it to charge to 100% and 6 hours later it is already at 28%. I just today updated the firmware. Another Router (#3) is currently enroute for warranty replacement of #2. Third Router in less than a month! I found in the MR1100 Manual that it is possible to Quick Charge the battery, so I replaced the original charger with a QC2 2.4A Charger and that still doesn't keep up, so I was hoping to find another OEM battery to be able to charge and swap every 24 hours or so. Dissapointing to find out that NetGear doesn't sell accessories or replacement parts. Fortunately, I found an external antenna on Amazon that is a NetGear accessory (Netgear 6000450 MIMO Antenna with 2 TS-9 Connectors) that has helped a little with signal strength. Unfortunately, the W-10a NetGear Battery is not available from ATT or Netgear. It's specs are 3.85V, 19.78Wh, Capacity 5040mAh.
Hi MikeFl1,
I'm a little confused. Are you in the US? Are you using your hotspot at home for your internet service? If so, why use a battery at all? Just run the unit off of your QC2.0 charger. What band and signal are you getting?
That said, I've run my MR1100 on battery (mobile in the car, etc.) for more than 24 hours and the battery was still ~20% charged. But I did have decent signal strength and wasn't using the hotspot heavily.
You said you got a firmware update? That's the first in the US that I've heard of. What firmware versions are you running before / after the update?
Unfortunately, I tried the Netgear Mimo antenna, and it did almost nothing for my reception. In fact it may have made it worse.
-Jonathan
JSchnee21wrote:Hi MikeFl1,
I'm a little confused. Are you in the US? Are you using your hotspot at home for your internet service? If so, why use a battery at all? Just run the unit off of your QC2.0 charger. What band and signal are you getting?
Yes, I'm in the US on AT&T4G-LTE with 5bars showing on the signal strength. We are using the Hotspot as ISP from AT&T. Without battery, I'm not sure the Hotspot will provide uninterupted signal. I turned it off last night for two hours and got the battery to 100% and within 5 hours and plugged in to QC2 Charger it was at 28% charge.That said, I've run my MR1100 on battery (mobile in the car, etc.) for more than 24 hours and the battery was still ~20% charged. But I did have decent signal strength and wasn't using the hotspot heavily.
We have several devices, including a range extender due to the Plaster Walls in our house. We are using about 3.5gb/day.You said you got a firmware update? That's the first in the US that I've heard of. What firmware versions are you running before / after the update?
This morning the MR1100 said it had another Firmware Update to be installed. That is the second one since 02/28/18. Current firmware is 12.02.06.00Unfortunately, I tried the Netgear Mimo antenna, and it did almost nothing for my reception. In fact it may have made it worse.
The MIMO antenna from Netgear has helped to get the signal propogation point for the MR1100 at a higher elevation and allows the Hotspot to be away from direct sunlight on it. It needs to be near a window since the Plaster walls in our house make a pretty efficient Farraday Barrier to the signals.-Jonathan
Hi MikeFl1,
Many on the board have run the MR1100 without the battery on just the QC2 charger alone. Be sure you have a high quality QC2 or QC3 charger and USB C cable from a reputable company like Anker. When the Quick Charger is properly recognized you will see the words "QuickCharge" on one of the device status web admin pages.
My recommendation would be to disable the onboard wifi and connect your hotspot via Ethernet to one or more decent Wifi Access points (not routers) throughout your home. TPLink makes some decent ones that are inexpensive (EAP245) Ideally these AP's would be hardwired (Ethernet) to a common switch. Netgear makes some nice inexpensive ones (ex GS105NA). Since many of us (myself included) don't have Ethernet throughout our house, MOCA (IP over Coax) or Ethernet over powerline can be used as the backbone between the switch and the AP's. I have been using MOCA myself (Actiontec ECB6200K02) with very good success for many years, but some of the newer powerline adapters seem okay, too as long as you're not trying to run through power strips and daisychained branch circuits.
In the newest firmware version there is a setting to disable the Ethernet timeout. The default value is 2minutes. You'll need to use Chrome via the Web Admin page to adjust this setting. Additionally, you'll want to be sure your Ethernet device is plugged in before turning the hotspot on. Historically, if the hotspot did not detect an Ethernet link it would turn off this port to save power.
My suspision is that if you are using a Wifi repeater, all of the broadcast beacons and Wifi node to node chatter is keeping the Wifi radios on the hotspot busy and running down the battery. Though it is still very strange that your battery would be run down while the hotspot is plugged in an charging. I've never seen this.
There are other threads on the board about using Ethernet and dedicated AP's for the purpose I have described. Some have had good success and some have not. But it's been difficult to get to the root cause as many have had a wide variety of firmwares, settings, and procedures. Certainly there are several folks which use the MR1100 as a dedicated home broadband device.
-Jonathan
My Nighthawk MR1100 has worked well for four months. Yesterday it turned off and showed low battery power. I reset it by removing the battery and SIM card. Now it only works when the battery is removed. As soon as I put the battery in, the device is non-responsive, powers down and will not do anything. Remove the battery and it is fine working on the charger. As noted on this string, I cannot find a replacement battery. Any suggestions?
