Are all RBR750s defective?

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.
- FURRYe38
  Guru - Experienced User
  Sep 21, 2020
  The ISP modems wifi should be fully turned off so as to not cause interference problems while you have the Orbi system running. Wifi problems can be caused by near by or in same home wifi coming from ISP modems. Reason for modem suggestions presented.
  
  What is the distance between the router and satellite(s)? 30 feet or more is recommended in between RBR and RBS to begin with depending upon building materials when wirelessly connected. https://kb.netgear.com/000036466/How-far-should-I-place-my-Orbi-satellite-from-my-Orbi-router
  
  What channels are you using? Auto? Try setting manual channel 1, 6 or 11 on 2.4Ghz and any unused channel on 5Ghz.
  Any Wifi Neighbors near by? If so, how many?
  
  Try testing with AX mode disabled on the RBR.
  Also try changing CTS values to 2347 as well. Under Advanced Tab/Advanced Settings/Wireless Settings
  - astonerii
    Star
    Sep 21, 2020
    Starting off, I did yet another monotonous factory reset, I then set up the router through a hard wire, my phone did not connect for over 30 attempts and 8 minutes of trying.
    I unplugged my AT&T Modem/Router, it could cause no problems.
    When I set up my WiFi bands I did a WiFi scan and picked the least abused ones. Band 1 had 1 user on it, which I think was me, and I did not see anything in the under 100 bands for 5GHz
    I have pretty much disabled everything. And not one single thing has improved. My AT&T router is not possibly interfering with anything, as it is unplugged.
    
    Here are my settings. I went through the advanced settings bottom to top.
    
    VLAN/Bridge not enabled
    Traffic Meter not enabled
    IPv6 not enabled
    UPnP on
    Remote management off
    No static routes
    No VPN service
    No Dynamic DNS Service
    No Port Fowarding programmed.
    Router mode
    2.4GHz
    20/40MHz coexistance off for both
    Enable WMM on
    CTS 2347
    Short Preamble
    100%
    5GHz
    Enable WMM on
    CTS 2347
    Short Preamble
    100%
    Firmware V3.2.16.6 all around
    Says to use default NETGEAR NTP server
    Set to time zone eastern which is correct for california. Just kidding, east coast is right.
    Attached devices, 2 satellites, both are showing good backhaul status.
    Wireless
    1(P) + 5(S) up to 400 Mbps
    36 + 40P + 44 + 48 up to 1083 Mbps
    Security is what ever default is
    I did not set up security or speedtest by ookla
    Use router as DHCP server
    WAN setup only has Disable IGMP proxy checked.
    no guest network
    Wireless set up is 01 for 2.4GHz and 36 for 5GHz
    WPA-PSK [AES]
    
    Here are the results.
    While I went through all this, not counting resets, my phone, sitting 8 feet away from the router disconnected at a minimum of 14 times, 6 of those times it gave the "authentication error occured" message. The highest connection speed was and is 173 Mbps. Obviously, internet is not available. In case you think that my phone is lying about the quality of service, the 173 Mbps is probably an exageration, as my internet speeds are 73.9 down and 48.2 up. Hard wired through Orbi my PC is getting 644 down and 679 up. My phone can get much higher connected to the AT&T wireless right now it showed 302 and 122.
- Guy-named-Eric
  Aspirant
  Mar 20, 2021
  Hello Astonerii,
  
  I feel Your pain,
  
  (Interesting how there is no model selection in recommended selection box for RBS750...)
  It should be at the top with all the issues with this product.
  
  Have same issues as u describe over and over after purchasing just weeks ago.
  
  Never had these problems with nighthawk single router system.
  
  or any other netgear system for that matter.
  
  For $500 ORBI mesh system should not have so many connectivity problems.
  
  Appreciate all the experts trying to resolve problems yet one shouldn't be required to have a degree in computer science to diagnose items that should be plug and play.
  
  I do NOT wish to bash NETGEAR as I have been a loyal customer and have never hard issues with any of their other products including the Netgear Modem i am currently utilizing.
  
  I just feel that ORBI was not sufficiently debugged prior to release.
  
  Please send this system and software back to the drawing board.
  
  Guess this is what happens when trying to future proof technology :-)
  
  PS I do intend to purchase a nighthawk system newer than the one I previously own.

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