Forum Discussion

astonerii

Star

Sep 21, 2020

Are all RBR750s defective?

RBR750

ORBI

RBR750

V3.2.16.6_1.4.4

The symptoms of the defective units in my case are. My phone will show it trying to connect, then nothing, then trying to connect and this will go on for several cycles taking up to 30 seconds before it just simply stops trying or gives the "authentication error occured" with the very rare connected followed by a long checking connection quality sequence. When I check my connection quality on my phone, it will say 173Mbps or less. 173 Mbps is the absolute limit that the base unit will communicate with my phone. Maybe it is my phone? Well, my wife's phone, my daughter's phone, MY PC, the Wife's laptop, pretty much everything that connects to the ORBI base unit has a terrible time of it. While I typed this paragraph my phone has lost connection to the Orbi RBR750 base unit 9 times.

I am on my 4th RBK753 system, the latest one is an RMA base unit direct from Netgear.

The satellites in general seem to work very well. But the base units are always coming in as if they are defective, except the very first one I bought. It worked splendidly for 10 days!

The first unit I bought installed quickly and gave gigabit WiFi all through the house and well into the yard. I never noticed a large number of disconnects nor "authentication error occured" messages on my phone. I do not recall any at first. Until day 10 of ownership when the only communication I got was "authentication error occured" I burned 3 work hours trying to get it back to working and finally returned it.

Waited a week for a replacement. Got the replacement, and it started out either failing to connect or "authentication error occured". It took me hours and many factory resets to get it through initial set up. I spent 2 hours on the phone with their tech support and got no where with it.

After failing to get anywhere with technical support, I spent the next day evaluating things. I discovered that if I left the base unit room and connected to the satellites that I would get great connections in the near gigabit range and many fewer "authentication error occured" messages. I wrote up a very detailed message for Netgear only for their system to eat it and refuse to give it back. So I sent that unit back and bought another one. Third time's the charm sort of thing.

Waited another week. Costco 2 day delivery is the worst 2 day delivery in America! That was even with paying the extra money to get it expedited. Anyways, to my surprise, the 3rd unit came in worse than the second one. It was so bad that I actually did the initial setup using a satellite. Called up tech support who immediately asked me to do a factory reset! Blew 3 hours on this trying to find a solution. No good. I finally had enough, figured I would have Netgear send an RMA unit, maybe Costco got a bad batch.

Got the new unit today. Another week, always get them on Monday... Set it up and the first thing it spits out is no connection, then "authentication error occured" and finally connected, 173Mbps. Seriously? What is the meaning of 173Mbps? I have never once gotten a better connection on the base unit. Satellites my wife gets over 1Gbps sometimes.

So, what is the deal with these RBR750 units? Are they all like this? If not, how on earth can I get 3 of them in a row like this?

I have done everything possible to make it work. Here is the list of actions.

Obviously I did the set up. No love.

I called tech support and spent hours doing all kinds of stupid worthless things.

Multiple factory resets.

Reinstalling the firmware.

Rolling the firmware back.

Reinstalling the latest firmware.

Did I say multiple factory resets?

Turning off the AX on one, then the other then both bands. Why did I buy an AX router again? Why is this an option on a $700 WiFi 6 router?

Restarting my ISP modem? What on earth do they expect that to do?

Oh, the one I loved and am still loving, wiping out my internet history in my web browser on my PC which is not even connected to the WiFi! But what the hell, I gave them every opportunity to get this thing working.

Turning off my ISP WiFi, I can see the point of that a bit, but seriously? People have dozens of wifi signals to hundreds of wifi signals around, this stuff should not be required, and of course, it did nothing. What do you expect, theoretically I should be able to connect 254 devices to this thing.

Well, maybe it is my computer room that is causing the interference, so I take a long ethernet cable and move to the other end of the house. Nope, nothing new. No connection, dropped connection, "authentication error occured" and 173Mbps!

I even tried doing it without it connected to anything in the middle of the living room, and still no benefits.

Any solutions out there? Is anyone else having these problems? Am I really this unlucky with the silicone lottery?

17 Replies

astonerii
Star
Sep 21, 2020

Mstrbig

Hero

‎2020-09-21 03:42 PM
Re: Are ALL RBR750s defective?
Let's start with:
Who is your ISP and what equipment did they provide? AT&T lightspeed BGW210
What is the current firmware on your Orbi device? Listed above, it is latest and greatest.
What device is your Orbi router connected to? BGW210 from the ORBI box.

Let me go through this and report back...

Did you reboot your ISP modem/router, before starting the Orbi router install? Between 10 and 15 times.
Have you changed the network cable connected from the ISP device to your Orbi router? 3 times, every time I get a new system.
Are your satellites wired or wireless? Wireless and they are the only part of the system functioning as intended.
Disable Circle, Armor, Daisy Chaining, Fast Roaming, IPv6 and uncheck 20/40Mhz Coexistence.
Enable WMM, Implicit BeamForming, Mu-MIMO,
Set Short preamble mode. Save settings, reboot Orbi.
If wired, what cable size was used, as wrong size can cause slow speed.
- FURRYe38
  Guru
  Sep 21, 2020
  Modem Combo Units:
  This would be a double NAT (two router) condition which isn't recommended. https://kb.netgear.com/30186/What-is-Double-NAT
  https://kb.netgear.com/30187/How-to-fix-issues-with-Double-NAT
  Couple of options,
  1. Configure the modem for transparent bridge or modem only mode. Then use the Orbi router in router mode. You'll need to contact the ISP for help and information in regards to the modem being bridged correctly.
  2. If you can't bridge the modem, disable ALL wifi radios on the modem, configure the modems DMZ/ExposedHost or IP Pass-Through for the IP address the Orbi router gets from the modem. Then you can use the Orbi router in Router mode.
  3. Or disable all wifi radios on the modem and connect the Orbi router to the modem, configure AP mode on the Orbi router. https://kb.netgear.com/31218/How-do-I-configure-my-Orbi-router-to-act-as-an-access-point and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7LOcJ8GdDo&app=deskto
  - astonerii
    Star
    Sep 21, 2020
    Just to be clear, I bought the Orbi RBK753 because of the almost universal constant that the Orbi 782's get great reviews, and instead of getting great reviews quality service out of their slighly less amazxing, I have burned over 30 hours of my life trying to get them to work over a near month long period of time. I am angry and I think rightly so. So, do not take my anger personally, unless you are a Netgear employee.
    
    Before I go through this kind of alteration to my work at home network that also is required to keep my kid's educations going, can you answer me one question...
    
    If I take this Orbi 753 system out to the desert, 5 miles from the nearest anything, having 3 inverters connected to solar panels to power them up where I place them exactly 25 feet apart in well ventilated electromagnetically transparent tents where they are kept cool enough to function, starting up the 2 satellites first at the outer sides and having the base router unit in the center powered up last, Should I have a problem connecting to them with my Galaxy S8 plus?
    
    I ask this because it seems that people are not understanding where the problem is with this unit or all of the units I have gotten so far.
    
    It is not an internet connection problem! period!
    
    The first problem is that my phones will not easily connect to a brand new unit wirelessly. This includes the following phones. My personal Galaxy S8 plus, my daughter's Galaxy S10 plus and my wife's Galaxy Note 10 Plus. What does my ISP or the Modem have to do with this? Even unplugged from any ethernet cables, this thing should function as a wireless router, no? If i click on any other network, even at walmart, lowes, home depot, or AT&T at home and click connect, it starts to connect, and then is connected. If I try to connect to Orbi##, it will say it is trying to connect, then nothing, then trying to connect, then nothing, then trying to connect, then nothing, then trying to connect and if I am lucky, it will then say something about evaluating the quality of the connection, and then connected. When I go to check my connection quality, it is always 173 Mbps. These Orbi Routers are the only devices that I have this specific connection quality limit on.
    
    The second problem is that it constantly fails to aunthenticate my login credentials, even after having been connected. I seriously doubt that my ISP or the modem/router I connect to them through is causing this problem either. I do not think my phone is sending bad credentials.
    
    The third problem is that at 6 feet, I should have a fast and stable connection to the WiFi. Instead my Galaxy S8 plus that can connect to the BGW210 at 866 Mbps when it is in the other room behind a wall cannot connect to the Orbi router base unit any faster than 173 Mbps. It then has half life measured in seconds rather than hours or days.
    
    It has nothing to do with the technology in general. If I go upstairs to where the satellite is, I assume the satellites use the same WiFi technology as the base unit, I will get a 650 Mbps WiFi connection through Orbi, my wife's Galaxy note 10 Plus occassionally exceeds the gigabit spped. If I then check my internet speed, I will get a good proportion of that connection speed as internet throughput.
larryindublin
Luminary
Sep 21, 2020
I upgraded from an RBK53 set to the RBK753. Kept same SSID and all default settings (except added smtp for log emails). Everything reconnected, connection quality is as good if not a little better (My Note 20 Ultra is only device that supports Wifi 6). One Satellite is in the basement, 1 is on the first floor and the router is with the ISP cable modem (Aris 6183, modem only) up on the 2nd floor.

Only problem I've seen so far seems to be a pretty well documented but not fixed yet issue with DNS occastionally.

Have been on several multi hour video calls with no issues while others are streaming netflix.

Not sure why some people have issues while others see Orbi as rock solid.