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NightHawk RAX50 does not have labels on antennas
I just received my RAX50 this afternoon. I was ready to get it open and get it fired up. Finished work and shut all devices down to begin the install of my new router. No labels on the antennas. ...
The early one's appeared to have specific inner and outer antennas. The latest builds do not, all 4 are the same so you are good.
Make sure you download the latest firmware (.72 I believe at the moment) and update it from a wired connection before you make any changes. Then factory reset and make any of your own custom settings ( like ssid and passwords). This router should be nice and stable for you on this latest version.
Now that printed manuals are rare, I suspect that you did not get one when you bought this device.
Visit the support pages:
Support | NETGEAR
and feed in your model number and check the documentation for your hardware.
Thank for the advice, Michael, but the documentation is inaccurate. While I did not read the entire manual, I read the part that concerns attaching antennas, and if there was a change in the way this is done it should be noted right there. As of now, it still says to make certain the labels match up, and the antennas must be connected to the correct antenna post. Poor quality control and communication from Netgear, in my opinion.
I had an email exchange with NetGear supoort on this topic of a period of a week. The bottom-line is that there has been an update to the RAX50, new firmware means that the antennas do not need to be in any specific position, there has been a change from the prior version and the documentation is up-to-date.
Below are my specific questions:
a) It is normal for the antennas NOT to be labelled. Correct? Yes, correct.
b) The antennas used to be labeled for side and back, but this is no longer the case. Correct? Yes, correct. You can attach them anywhere.
c) Based on your email, the firmware updates have enabled the change mentioned in (b). Yes, correctSo, it should be fine. I had the same question. I do not have an noticable degradation in the performance.