New Firmware Released RAX80 1.0.3.88

Guide

Jun 02, 2020

Just want to chime in with my experience using 1.0.3.88 for the last few days. From the client side it has been great, my wifi 6 units have been working flawlessy with WPA3 enabled. in short, no dicernable disconnects etc to report from the end user point of view.

When digging a little deeper the RAX80 still present some peculiarities, though. First a little about my setup: Internet -> ISP provided cable modem/router in bridge mode -> RAX80 (with AX, OFDMA & MU-MIMO all enabled) -> Netgear MS510TX switch connected to all wired clients. For further context; I live in an appartment building with around a dosen networks "fighting for supremacy", but using wifi 6 and a channel without much congestion wifi has been stable.

Now the peculiarities:

The "Show statistics" page on the advanced home screen still show intermittent WAN drops/reconnects (about once every 24 hours). Strangely I have yet to find corresponding log entries in the ISP modem or the RAX80 log.
The connected LAN port also seems to reconnect/drop from time to time, albeit less frequent than the WAN port. No log entries for these drops show up in the router log, nor the switch log either.
Trying to disable the "inlude known DoS attacks and Port scans" log category results in a ERR_CONNECTION_RESET page when clicking apply.
The "Attached devices" page is clearly an improvement, yet I still find it somewhat unpredictable. Devices seem to linger in this list long after they have been turned off/disconnected, even after pressing refresh several times. Also, depending on how you view the list (router web view or Nighthawk app), the number of devices may also differ.

I have no idea if the log or the statistics view are correct, but there are clearly some discrepancies between them. In general this firmware release has been nice, just some oddities evident for the network tinkerers among us.

baileyj0611
Tutor
Jun 10, 2020
I'm now running this firmware with ZERO issues - Hooked up to ATT GIgapower 1gb/1gb connection - consistent at 940 both ways.

network storage functionality working perfectly *knocks on wood*

I did however have to set WAN to DHCP to grab an IP from the att box, I htink it's something to do w/their **bleep**ty Pace modem - It doesn't like to run DMZ plus mode that wall - It sort of worked, btu had DNS issues.
magfred
Guide
Jun 11, 2020
I have lots of similar entries in my log as well, only a different date and time for some reason:

Thursday, Jan 01,1970 01:00:00
- xjn
  Apprentice
  Jun 15, 2020
  I posted the following in the LAN disconnects discussion thread... here are steps I took to get mine working fairly well since have also had trouble with RAX80 for over a year now.
  
  My RAX80 is fairly stable on newest firmware after backup settings and then reset & restore settings. There are still quite a few bugs remaining since purchase around February 2019, but I am not seeing any major issues.
  
  I have SmartConnect disabled and as many devices hardwired as possible using two unmanaged switches. The WiFi devices are locked to either 5Ghz or 2.4Ghz. I put all important phones, tablets, and laptops on the 5GHz network and moved to 5GHz DFS higher 80 width channel to reduce interference.
  
  I put SmartHome devices such as lights, Sonos Move or security camera on 2.4GHz lower 20 width lower channel since speed is not required and prefer range for those devices. I also purchased an EAX80 hardwired over Ethernet in AP mode to help spread the load so all Roku devices connect to it on 2.4GHz middle 20 width channel. I put non essential tablets and phones on 5Ghz DFS lower 80 width channel on EAX80 to also help lower interference instead of trying RAX200.
  
  Main issues I still see is temporary LAN disconnection once a day or so. I also sometimes see 5Ghz network disappear, but I think that is due to radar detection forcing router to move off of DFS channel sometimes. Usually switching to another DFS channel gets it back up running quick.
  
  I also see the QoS prioritization levels for devices sometimes change from what I set them too, so have to periodically check to make sure certain devices are low priority such as SmartHome devices and keep Smartphones and tablets at high priority. I get faster speeds on wireless and WiFi with QoS enabled even though I have gigabit service.
  
  Highest wireless speed I have seen was between 700 and 800... average speed for wireless is 500 to 600 depending on time of day and possible interference. Wired speed I routinely see 900 unless issue on Comcast's end.
  
  I had some issues with IP leases being assigned to multiple devices, so took time to reserve an IP for every device on network since don't have many. I removed External HD from router in effort to offload the amount of things it has to juggle. I keep just a small thumb drive plugged in for temporary file storage.
  
  I would like to get a Synology DS198 hardwired over Ethernet to use as NAS, but I don't really need it since I don't have a lot of files to store... until then I have been working on setting up headless Raspberry Pi to handle some NAS functions, smart home hub, DNS server, and possibly a VPN server.
  
  I have two Pi setup for redundancy now since set the PiHole DNS servers in DNS settings of Netgear Router. I have not tried using Pi as DHCP server yet, but may give it a try in order to offload more functions from RAX80.
  
  I don't use Parental Controls, traffic meter, internal VPN service, or Remote Management in RAX80. I have enabled AX, OFDMA, Beamforming, MU-MIMO, and WPA2/WPA3... I tried WPA3 only on 5GHz network since all my 5GHz devices support it but ran into frequent disconnects so switched back to hybrid WPA2/WPA3.
  
  I also enabled the new Bitdefender Armor feature and have not seen drop in performance. Hopefully they will be able to fix remaining the issues soon. I have tried to be patient over last year since spent a lot of money on this thing.
  
  I swore off buying more Netgear equipment at end of last year, but decided to try EAX80 to see if it would help since many of other competitors have issues too or less config options such as no manual channel selection, no DFS support, fixed DNS, single name 5Ghz & 2.4Ghz network, etc...
  
  I originally was going to switch to Amplifi Alien, but after reading the Amplifi forum saw many issues similar to Netgear with less options to work around then due to lack of config options such as DFS or manual channel selection. Some Alien users even had RAX series and saw even worse speeds after switching, so seems like overall these new routers aren't finished.
  
  All we can do is be patient it seems... I work in tech so understand it is hard, but just wish Netgear would communicate more with users so important issues can be resolved sooner. I don't have time to call tech support and seems like a waste since mostly firmware issues that only engineering team can fix. Hopefully Netgear employees following the threads can relay some of our findings and fixes so that a solution can be worked on.

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New Firmware Released RAX80 1.0.3.88