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Forum Discussion
RAX120 Frequent Crashes
Hello,
I've had the RAX120 for a few weeks now. Just upgraded to the latest firmware (V1.0.1.122) the next day after it was released. Before the firmware update, everything was smooth. But just about once a day, the router will crash. All internet traffic will freeze. Even when trying to directly connect to the router via wired (192.168.1.1), it will not accept a connection. These crashes typically happen in the afternoon or early evening (between 2-7 pm). Requires a power cycle for the router to come back online.
We have a large home, with about 15-20 hard wired devices attached at any given time, along with another 5-10 wireless devices. To manage this traffic, I have a 16 port gigabit unmanaged switch feeding into the router. I took my old routers and turned them into wireless bridges so that the extremities of the home had adequate access. The DHCP is turned off for the old routers, and all DHCP reservations are being dished out by the Netgear RAX120. DNS queries for everything on my network are handled by a Pihole, which is running on a small Raspberry pi. Internet is via Comcast with Gigabit speeds and my modem is Netgear CM1100 (docsis 3.1).
I looked at the router logs and modem logs. There were a bunch of DOS attacks, but from what I read on google, this is pretty standard for netgear routers. I'm attaching a copy of both logs in case anyone would like to have a look. I don't see any other pattern, and was wondering why I'm having nearly daily crashes. The only thing that works is to turn off the power to the router and then back on. Within a few minutes everything will be back up. During these crashes the modem lights are all green - indicating good signal.
This is becoming very frustrating. We have a family of 4 people all who need internet access for work/school. I'm thinking of returning the RAX120 for another brand router if this persists. Any advice would be appreciated.
30 Replies
Perform a factory reset using the rear pin hole method. Set up as new without using a saved cfg.
see if that solves your issues.
Thanks for the feedback. So it sounds like you think the culprit is the new firmware? Reseting to factory settings would go back to the original firmware. Happy to give it a try.
When you perform a factory reset it does not default to the original firmware. A reset clears out the Nvram of low level stuff.
normally it's best to perform a factory reset after an update but many don't but issues can pop up.
What I'd start with?
A factory reset and manual reinstall. Any time theres an issue after a firmware upgrade, that's a goodl place to start. Potentially an old setting could be carried over improperly and causing the issue.
Have you tried this?
Ok thank you all. I'll do a reset later tonight and report back. Appreciate the prompt feedback.
Hello - I just reset the router using the pinhole at the back. Will keep a close eye and see if this fixes the problem.
Same issue for me but it was rebooting with 1.0.1.108 so I updated to .122 and still seeing the issue. Reboots randomly.
Just reset the router with the pin hole reset and reconfigred all settings by hand (no loading of old backup config).
Will see if this fixes this for me too.
Today I was uploading about 500G files to my NAS over internet. It crashed a lot(at least 6 times today).
both .118 and .122, all confined manually.
without massive uploading, it was stable, only notice twice reboots before.
Hello another update here:
After 4.5 days of uptime, the router crashed last night. About the same time of day (5 pm). All lights on the modem and router were green. I tried to connect an ethernet cable to connect directly to the modem to see what was happening, but could not login to the modem config screen (192.168.100.1). I then moved the ethernet cable to the back of the router and was not able to enter the config screen (192.168.1.1) either.
So this required me to power cycle both the modem and router to get everything running. Checked the logs and nothing suspicious. Any other advice? This is getting pretty frustrating.
Just FYI if you have the NETGEAR CM1100 it has the dreaded and defective Intel Puma 6 chipset in it. Please refer to list below.
Intel Puma 6 Modem List Chipset Defects
https://approvedmodemlist.com/intel-puma-6-modem-list-chipset-defects/#modemlist
Disregard wrong list
I had the same stability issues with V1.0.1.122 losing connectivity at least 10 times a day. I tried both upgading and a factory reset with the same problems
I ended up loading V1.0.1.118 and everyhting is now stable for 3 weeks
I am running a similar config with a CM1100 Comcast Gigabit service and a 8 Port switch. I am using WAN aggregation(LACP) from the RAX120 to the CM1100.
I have 25 devices on 5G, 14 devices on 2.4G and 14 Wired Devices
Hello all,
Thanks for all the valuable suggestions. Indeed it definitely appears to be a problem with the new firmware. I took returned my RAX120 back to Best Buy and switched to my old router.
My network has been up for 2 weeks+ without a crash. So it definitely was not the cable modem (CM1100). It looks like others are having the same problem. I didn't realize that it was possible to downgrade the firmware. But its too late now, I've already returned the router.
