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Forum Discussion
RAX120 Slow Wifi Speeds
Hello I am needing some help! I have the RAX120 Nighthawk router and I have having super slow wifi speeds. For the one computer that I have hard wired the speed test shows around 39-48Mbps download we pay for 50Mbps. I run a speed test straight from the nighthawk app and also have speeds close to what we are paying for. However running on a laptop or a Galaxy S10 phone the speeds can be as low as 1mb. I have lots of light switches and other devices that use wifi so I want to make sure it is performing at its best. I have read through and tried changing many of the recommended settings with no success. This morning I did a speed test on my phone and it was at 20mb which is much better than last night at 1mb. However even 20mb is more than half the speed of what we are paying for. I have the latest firmware v1.0.1.114 and like I said I have tried many things but I am open to working through the issue with whoever has experience to get this right. We stream everything and I even recently increased our internet speed from 25 to 50mb due to the slowness. But now I am thinkink it was the router the whole time.
Please any advice would be greatly appreciated!
110 Replies
Hello welchyboy,
We are currently running a beta firmware in our private beta community that may help resolve your issues. If you're interested, please send me a private message with your serial number.
Thanks,
Christian
I have a Gig connection that provides 940Mbps download from the internet. The first 3 months with my router I got 900Mbps wireless using AX. I am now getting only 600 Mbps and at least once a day the speed slows down to less than 7Mbps. To fix the sub 7Mbps slow down I turn off Wi-Fi for a few seconds and turn it back on to get my 600 Mbps speed back. This is happening with 3 fairly new MSI laptops and a 4 year old ASUS laptop. Two of the MSI laptops came with a Killer AX Wi-Fi card installed. The other two laptops were upgraded to Intel AX cards.
I paid for premium support and worked with the techs for 4 days. They finally RMA'ed my router and sent me a brand new one. Still have the same problem. I contacted Killer support and the only thing they found was that the Netgear techs had changed my 5G channel to a non-DFS channel. In order to get a 2.4 Gbps link between the router and the client you must use a DFS channel. I was only getting a 1.2 Gbps link on a non-DFS channel but am once again getting a 2.4 Gbps link using a DFS channel. The Netgear techs did not know this when I kept asking them about only getting a 1.2 Gbps link.
None of the actions taken have fixed the problems. I also have tried turning off all 5G emitters except for one laptop and the router. No fix yet and Netgear closed the case when they replaced the router. I don't know how to get this elevated to engineering for a firmware fix (if needed).
This is just crazy! I have never had so many issues. I was able to get things working a little smoother...reset my router a few times and left everything default. Speeds seemed much better. However there was a recent update and now everyday for some reason my internet or wifi connections completely quit and I have to reboot the router in order for it to work again. Then it would work for a day without too many issues.
- Good speed with 5gh, getting my modem connection speed of 400, 2.4 getting 30. Already had the router replaced
Dammann, have you confirmed that WMM is enabled on the RAX120 (ADVANCED | Setup | QoS Setup | Enable WMM settings (2.4GHz))?
How is the beta firmware working out. My 120 is blazing fast when wired. Once I go wireless
I can forget getting any work done. Tech support sent out refurb router with no joy. I will try the firmware if you like.
It runs fine on the latest firmware. Update, reset and test.
Spent eight hours on hold with Netgear support a few days ago without getting anywhere.
It used to take a few hours for speeds to degrade to an unuseable level, now it appears to take only minutes.
To whom at Netgear do I send my invoices for time lost due to work being corrupted due to degrading wifi speeds?
Hi EngElem,
I can assist with support following up on your case. If you wish to be contacted, please send me a private message with your contact info and case number(s).
Thanks,
Christian
Hi Christian, we've given up on Netgear.
Arranged with our supplier to have the unit returned as defective, which it clearly is. Replacing with an ASUS wifi6 router.
Reading the above posts it looks like you will be of little assistance given you have only provided input once and that clearly was of no help.
If you can forward the details of the person we send our invoices to that would be helpful.
Cheers...
Same issue happening to me. RAX120, I'm getting 900mbps upload on clients with only maybe a maxium of 100mps download via 5Ghz. Over wired connection I'm getting 960mbps. I'm not sure what's going on here. I've tried everything.
Sadly, I'm not sure Netgear is going to determine what the problem is. I had to buy another router to get a stable connection back, since my RAX120 was beyond the return window before I realized how bad this would be. I've been watching for almost 7 months now and testing each firmware and all solutions I find listed in the forums even including ideas people came up with for fixing RAX80 issues. Nothing has had any impact at all on the issue of AX Wi-Fi adapters slowing down randomly between ~5 minutes and ~24 hours when connected to the RAX120, up to and including disabling AX on both the router and the adapters. The issue does not affect any of the non-AX adapters or devices I own, but affects both completely independent systems when using either of my AX200 adapters. It doesn't affect either of those devices when using a different non-AX Wi-Fi adapter.
I've spent around 40-60 hours working with this particular unit including working with Netgear tech support hoping to find the root cause. Unfortunately Netgear doesn't seem interested in determining the source of the problem. The main response is pretending that another several hours of going through level one scripts will somehow work this time, and failing that the response is dismissal as something I must have done or be doing wrong, everything from "maybe your microwave is running" to "your signal must be bad". If they had any real interest in resolving the problem, they'd have engineers, not level one support, working with me or one of the dozens plus other people with the problem, and gather detailed debug logs to be reviewed.
If any Netgear engineers actually read this forum, feel free to reach out to me directly if you want to bypass your tech support, who have been stonewalling anyone trying to get to the backend teams, and work towards an actual root-cause analysis on the issue.
Looks like I'm in the same boat. I'm rebooting the router 1-2x/day currently until either there's a fix or a replacement (considering going with an Amplifi Alien).
FWIW I'm on 1.0.1.122 firmware, WMM is enabled for 2.4G and 5G.
within 8 hours of doing a factory reset my wifi speeds are 1/3 of what they were. A fresh reboot and speeds are back, but only for a few hours at a time. I'm about done with this router.
I've had it two days now. It sounds similar to my problem. I'm getting amazing results on 802.11 AX (near 900 Mbps) and on 802.11 AC I'm getting around 1 Mbps with frequent drops. I've tried nearly every combination of settings and restarts. After a restart I mat be able to pull 150 Mbs on 802.11 AC for a minute tops. Using 2.4 Ghz on AC is still slugish but not as unstable.
My Comast AP is still up and on the same system, same location, I can get 300-600 Mbps on 802.11 AC 5GHz.
I'm bummed i recently bought this router and the new range extender. Nothing but drops and slowness.
I have fiber to my home.
A wired connection gives me close to 1GB up and down.
My WiFi is clocking in on multiple devices at 50-70mb's up and down
I have been a loyal NetGear buyer for 15 years. Looks like i am on the hunt for a replacement.
- Seems definitely like a firmware issue rather than hardware as mine has been solid as an AP. It’s been 3 months since the last update so hopefully they take care of this soon, otherwise most of you with this issue are probably better of changing models or switching vendors at this point.
I have official thrown in the towel on this. I went with an Amplifi Alien and am seeing faster wireless performance by about 75Mbps and much further range/signal strength.
- Horrible router. I have better speeds with the modem/router from Comcast . I pay for 1tb speeds and with this router, I’m lucky to break 50mb. 5g on my cell phone tests faster. A lot of money wasted for a paper weight.
Try the new 1.0.1.128 firmware, no official mention of fixes for DNS or slow down issues in the changelog but sometimes they don't mention some fixes even if included so maybe worth a shot....
New Features and Enhancements:
- Supports the ISP profile menu, which includes ISPs from Europe and Asia
- Supports Orange France IPTV
- Supports Singapore Singtel IPTV
- Supports the time zone auto detection feature
Bug Fixes:
- Improves the stability of NETGEAR Armor
- Fixes the issue where the router is unable to access the USB device using the ReadyCLOUD portal
- Fixes the issue where the Nighthawk app does not display devices in attached device list
- Fixes some minor issues in the router web interface
Security Fixes:
- Fixes security vulnerability issues
Change where you live. If you are streaming everything and have phones and other things connecting, your performance will be slow as you are only paying for 50 download. I have on most good days 480 down and 20 up and even with those figures I have to watch how many things are currently connected. Currently 22 things in the house connect and am getting good performance from all....
- When I was using this router, my phone was the only thing connected online. Everything else in the house was off, I was the one not one home. My phone on 5g would run circles around this router. It’s like comparing a nascar to a hover round. Huge speed difference!! This router works best in my garbage can. Netgear got my money and they dont care about anything else. My new asus is 100 times faster!!!
On to Teir 2
Nope. On to Teir 2 support
- On to eero, never looked back
I have a similar issue, and I'm done.
I have a RAX120 with a RAX80 acting as an access point. The 120 gets around 10% speed even over ethernet, and the 80 stopped providing WiFi at all after the last firmware update.
No more Netgear. I'm buying a router from a different brand today and throwing the Netgear routers in the garbage where they belong. I can't take this anymore.
- This was the best decision I’ve made. Less stress in my life with this POS in the garbage. Worst investment I’ve ever made!!! It’s comforting to know that netgear has got our backs. Lol 😂
- I moved on to Asus AX86U a while back. It just works to the point I've forgotten it is there. I'm using full 160 Mhz and routinely get 800 to 1200 mbps. It's half the cost as well.
I don't understand why the RAX gets such good reviews. Only way could be if people are only using 2.4 GHz channel. Sigh.
I went back on what I said.I did a factory reset on both routers, readjusted the various settings, and things went back to normal. The only difference is that I didn't turn remote management back on, so now the Nighthawk app is kind of useless (or rather, it can only work on the router it's actually connected to).
These routers are so finicky. When they work, they work spectacularly. When they don't work, it's like trying to use an anvil as a networking device.
- Any updates to this? Is the issue still persistent?
The only solution I have noticed on the other topics was to disable port aggregation.
You will have to Pay for more internet speed. I have the same router and my internet provider sets my base speed at 300mbs download and am getting much more than that wifi or hard wired. check your provider and modem. your router will be limited by your modem and or provider. During peak internet hours your speed will drop off. as for streaming everything I suggest you Pay for more speed, and maybe move your router
especially if you have alot of walls btween you and the router. Main problem is still your modem, and internet speed/provider. but you already know that...... My 2.4 gig side is between 90 and 150 mbs and I have all kinds of things accessing. If you are paying for more than your getting, just call and offer to pay for what you are getting until your provider resolves your issues. Also some routers and modems arent compatible with all providers. Check the list of compatible routers and modems they have on file. I am using one of my providers new 3.1 modems which is compatible with the RAX120. Hope this info helps you
Good looking out on factory reset. I just assumed that was already done when you talked with netgear techs.
