Nighthawk - Full speed ethernet PSA

Nighthawk Pro Gaming XR700

Firmware: V1.0.1.20

     Like many others on the forums, I was concerned initially about my XR700 purchase. When I set it up, I was not getting the speed I pay for of my ISP. I pay for 200/200 service from Verizon FiOS (I achieve 300/300 on average with the FiOS modem/router). I was getting around 50mbps for both download and upload. I tweaked everything I searched for, QoS, Anti-Bufferbloat, etc. Nothing seemed to work.

     I plugged in my FiOS modem/router, put the wall plate cable into the WAN port and placed a second ethernet cable between the modem/router in port 1 to the XR700 in the yellow internet port. Suddenly, I had the normal 300/300 speed I was used to. So, I logged in to my FiOS router. In the advanced settings, there is a MAC address of the hardware router.

     I noticed an option in the XR700 Settings -- Setup -- Internet Setup -- scroll down a bit. There is a "Router MAC Address" option.

By default this is set to "Use Default Address" which is the XR700 MAC address. I changed it to "Use This MAC Address" and input the FiOS router/modem MAC address (screenshot attached). I am happy to report, after making thie change, I am now getting the full speed FiOS connection on the XR700 without the modem attached. This should be similar on most ISP provided router/modems. There is typically a hardware MAC address attached to each device. As I know others have been having this issue, I thought I would let everyone know a possible solution. This should work with other Netgear/Nighthawk router hardware if speeds are an issue from your ISP.

Thank you,