Is my satellite dead?

Question

I have an Orbi 970 set - router + 4 satellites (5 devices). I’ve extended warranty and all that.

Mine was one of those sets where the router was “overheating” and dropping. And putting a fan on top fixed it. In any case, Netgear replaced the whole thing with a completely new set which fixed that problem. All that played out on these forums.

It’s been rock solid since then (almost a year iirc) until 2-3 days back. The network in my master bedroom where a satellite is started showing something I’d not seen in a very long time - WiFi network drops on my iPhone. It got worse really fast as I noticed the satellite would start blinking white as soon as I took the iPhone (16 Pro Max - from Sept 24) out of airplane mode. The satellite is in line of sight from my bed so I can see all this.

And then, inexplicably, restarting router + all satellites would do anything to recover this satellite. It’s always blinking white with all device wired to it having no network.

So I try swapping it with each of the other satellites. Every place it goes to - it’s the same, Blinking white with no wired connectivity. My desktop wired to the satellite wired to the router would not be able to connect.

Removing it from the router config and trying to rediscover it failed. So I was down to 3 satellites. 1-2 hours later, it showed up again in the Orbi app as “connecting” over 5 GHz WiFi with no assigned IP, and no connected devices. The router is permanently “optimizing…” the satellites.

Is there anything obvious I should try before starting a support case with Netgear for just the satellite?

Off topic: Unfortunately this is not my only problem - Netgear armor which I paid for is constantly asking me to wait 24 hours to update its status. There’s an open online case since March that no one is responding to. It’s some backend thing because a full reset and restore did nothing fix it.

FURRYe38 · Answer

Does it connect to the RBR with a ethernet wire connection in the back of the RBR?&nbsp;
Still happens with ALL RBS turned OFF accept for this one?&nbsp;
&nbsp;
Might try a 30-30-30 reset on the RBS as well, then try to re-sync it.&nbsp;
If this fails, open up a support case.&nbsp;
&nbsp;
What is the size of the home in sq ft?&nbsp;

kjx · Answer

You'd helped me before in this thread --

"Orbi 970 Constants Reboots - Solved!!! (Router overheating is the cause)"

- TL;DR of that -- fans over the RBR prevented random reboots.
- Netgear replaced the whole set of RBR + satellites - no issue after that even without fans. I keep running fans anyway over the RBR for good luck and longevity, I guess.

I got a fourth satellite for a Wifi 6Ghz deadspot on my third floor after everything was stable. And even that has been stable for many months. The issue is currently with one of the satellites in the original 'factory-new' replacement set.

All units connect over ethernet to the RBR. It's not the wiring to each location (or the power adapters) because the problem follows the satellite, and none of the other satellites have a problem in this satellites original location (or any other location) or the power adapters.

To the layout, RBR on first floor at the center of the house. 3 satellites on 3 extremities of the second floor - one on the north-east corner, one on the south-east corner, and one far west (equidistant north to south - this is the one that has the problem). The fourth satellite is on the third floor far south - equidistant east to west. All units are separated by several walls and at least 50 feet in direct line of sight from any other unit if all walls were transparent.

What I've done now to reduce the impact to my day to day - I've swapped the third-floor unit with the 'broken' unit.

On the Orbi browser page, the satellite is showing (for the past day until now) as alternating between having an IP and not having an IP (page self-refresh) and the connection type as 5 GHz (even though it's wired) and persistently stuck in Config Sync. As I'm writing this out and staring at that page, it went from Config Sync to Disconnected (with a button to 'Remove' showing up). I've been doing literally nothing with any unit as the browser page ('Attached Devices') kept changing.

This is crazy - as I'm writing this - it's showing up again with an IP with connection type 'Wired' and with Config Sync. And a couple of seconds later, it goes to Disconnected.

It looks like it just keeps looping through these states over and over (now again on '5 Ghz Wifi'). I'm convinced there's some hardware fault with this now.

Will try the 30-30-30 reset and seeing what happens with only that satellite turned on.

Netgear's already opened a support case based on this thread. Thanks!

kjx · Answer

Update:&nbsp;I reset all satellites (including 30-30-30) and the RBR and set everything up from scratch. Doubly verified everything was truly erased by ensuring none of them was 'zombie broadcasting' the WiFi networks I'd set up.&nbsp;Everything came back up fine, except the same faulty satellite. The RBR is able to see there is a satellite during discovery and fails to add it.&nbsp;But it does show up in the attached satellites list, and it's able to correctly capture the MAC address - that's about it though. Explicitly removing it from the browser interface and readding there or in the app never succeeds. In the app, it just says 0 of 1 satellites added or something like that.&nbsp;The only thing different post reset is that sometimes the satellite shows up with a solid white light for extended periods (trying to add or sync does nothing except it starts blinking again). Probably because the 30-30-30 reset wiped out any recollection of its "former self"? And now it's just exhibiting the underlying hardware problems that are persistent?&nbsp;Having done log collection for Netgear before - I think all I'll be able to do is provide logs from the RBR. Without any IP to hit the satellite with, I don't think I'll be able to interface with it to collect anything.&nbsp;&nbsp;

FURRYe38 · Answer

What is the size of the home in sq ft?&nbsp;

kjx · Answer

~3300 sq ft spread over 3 floors with the 3 floor just being a bonus room of about 600 sq ft. ~40 ft wide, ~55 ft deep and maybe 35 ft high.

One portion of that 3rd floor open-floor room is a complete Wi-Fi deadspot for my iPad and iPhone [Wi-Fi disappears completely], so that's where the final satellite (wired) I reluctantly purchased went, and now it's the resting place for this broken satellite.

Two satellites are in the far front of the house on the second floor in the furthest 90degree corners of the house structure. They are about 40 feet apart separated by 2-3 walls in 'line of sight'.

The location of the broken satellite (and now hosts what-used-to-be the bonus room satellite) is 50 feet from the front of the house on the second floor. The broken satellite used to notably host a wired pi-hole resolving DNS queries for a ton of devices (IoT & otherwise) across the network.

The RBR sits in a walk-in clothes closet on the first-floor smack in the middle of the house - where all my networking, cable and fiber wiring terminates. It has a large steel panel refrigerator behind a wall on one side limiting range backwards. The broken satellite compensates for some of this - it used to sit wired in a master closet initially but I was hitting frequent network drops in the bedroom and first floor living areas for Wi-Fi 6 devices so it made its way there.

The house structure extremity placement for satellites is also for optimal WiFi camera performance and personal device performance in the yards too. If one satellite goes down, network perf goes down from 1.5-1.6 Gbps on my phone down to 200 Megs. It's abysmally low for things like my desktop that go down to 10 - 30 Megs over "remote-satellite" or RBR wifi connections.

I run spectrum analyzer regularly and generally have each network band assigned to interference free channels (w.r.t neighbors). That was the first thing I rechecked when the first intermittent drops started happening on this satellite.

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Is my satellite dead?

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