RAX120 V2 Constant Random Reboots

Send DarrenM a PM. 

Also recommend turning on the Thermal Fan on the routers debug page as well or installing a laptop cooler for additional cooling. 

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Müser17 wrote:
How do we get a copy of the beta firmware?

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I beta tested the original unit in 2018 (release was 2019) My RAX120 has never rebooted but it has the UK variant power supply, same as the beta unit. The v2 has no new features and was not available in the UK, its sku was RAX120NAS (north American) the UK only ever sold V1 units RAX120EUS, Amazon for a while sold v2 units but as I said they have no different features from the v1 even though the v2 chip is compliant with both UP and DL OFDMA it still only does UL only. It would be good to have a new firmware after 10 months, that's a big gap and there must be security issues not patched in the 120's buy now, that I find a concern. Also it does make the router feel somewhat abandoned.

This article may be relevant to the dialog: Understanding and Measuring Power-Supply Transient Recovery Time

In the spirt of brainstorming, perhaps the ADS-65MIA-19 (UK) and AD2073F20 (US) power adapters have different load-transient recovery times – namely, the former (with a larger size) is able to provide a steadier voltage as changes in load current occur as a consequence of varying demands placed on the router?

Could transient voltage variation, perhaps more of an issue with the AD2073F20 (US) power adapter, be one factor (among potentially others) producing kernel panics that cause high CPU utilization, increased internal temperature, and ultimately a reboot of the RAX120v2?

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Topology wrote:

This article may be relevant to the dialog: Understanding and Measuring Power-Supply Transient Recovery Time

 

In the spirt of brainstorming, perhaps the ADS-65MIA-19 (UK) and AD2073F20 (US) power adapters have different load-transient recovery times – namely, the former (with a larger size) is able to provide a steadier voltage as changes in load current occur as a consequence of varying demands placed on the router?

 

Could transient voltage variation, perhaps more of an issue with the AD2073F20 (US) power adapter, be one factor (among potentially others) producing kernel panics that cause high CPU utilization, increased internal temperature, and ultimately a reboot of the RAX120v2?

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Thank you again for your post. I am not an electronics engineer, but this theory matches my findings and also my gut feel 😃.

I am a firm believer that NG USA should investigate the root cause and start with the reason why a different model - bigger and bulkier - power adapter was chosen for the markets outside USA for RAX120. Who in Netgear made this decision and on what basis? What are the known technical differences between ADS-65MIA-19 (UK) and AD2073F20 (US) or its visual equivalent AD2003200 (UK) supplied originally here in the UK with Netgear R8000-100UKS routers. All these three adapters are compatible with UK voltage, have the same connector at the router end and deliver equivalent nominal output of 19V and 3.16A.

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Killhippie wrote:

I beta tested the original unit in 2018 (release was 2019) My RAX120 has never rebooted but it has the UK variant power supply, same as the beta unit. The v2 has no new features and was not available in the UK, its sku was RAX120NAS (north American) the UK only ever sold V1 units RAX120EUS, Amazon for a while sold v2 units but as I said they have no different features from the v1 even though the v2 chip is compliant with both UP and DL OFDMA it still only does UL only. It would be good to have a new firmware after 10 months, that's a big gap and there must be security issues not patched in the 120's buy now, that I find a concern. Also it does make the router feel somewhat abandoned.

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Thank you for your response. I recognise your name from the SmallNetBuilders forum where you sang praise to RAX120 back in 2020.

I actually bought the V1 router from Amazon UK then -  just to find out that the firmware at the time was littered with problems related to variable connection speeds. The behavour, that you argued with several forum users, was not observed by yourself. Nevertheless, I purchased and returned the RAX120 V1 then just to experience first hand that the forum users were right and you were not.

While the comment you left in this thread is kind of benign I find it OTT, as you are not talking about the V2 random reboots experience. More over, I found your other post in early 2021 on this very topic of random reboots, when your received the following reply:

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@mudbone wrote

I read your recent comment and it took me a little time to figure out how I was going to respond so here it is. First off you sort of gave yourself away with the comment "cant really commit due to the NDA I signed" which tells me your opinion is biased at best. Secondly I think your posts are kind of insulting. You can clearly see by reading the posts in this blog and many others that a lot of Netgear customers are having serious problems with the Netgear AX series routers. So please stop acting like its just something I am doing wrong because its clearly not just me.

 

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I think this guy hit the nail on the head - if you signed an NDA with Netgear, please do not post OTT comments to distract the discussion in the thread. I maintain that the current version firmware, while possibly not perfect, is not the root cause of the random reboots. It is the US supplied power adapter that is. Do you have anything to add to this statement backed by my evidence?

Right, all beta testers sign a NDA at the time, it does not mean we are biased, it meant we were not allowed to discuss the hardware at that time. That simple. As to your issue I never have had that problem and neither did many others, but I always factory reset after updates and that helps I cant remember you but many people never factory reset and you really need to do that, also your surroundings and other environmental conditions can cause different problems from any I may have had, which have been few and far between although the logging has still got issues.

 As I said the v2 does not have new features over the v1 unit, that simple and if it is a power issue then people who got units from North America should be helped by netgear if possible or if they have any warranty left of course after all this time. Or possibly should have bought units with the SKU RAX120EUS (Europe) not RAX120NAS (North America) unless you lived in the USA of course.

 Now I hope that's answered your question as firmware wont fix a power issue with a router not that was for NA not Europe, anyway this router is 3 years old now and probably approaching EOL, since I have not had reboots I was hoping firmware could be released to cover any security issues tht was all.

 So in short a NDA is a thing all hardware and software beta testers have to sign no matter what company and Netgear do not like you breaking that in any way, its not biased its simply because you are testing hardware the public does not know about and we signed a document saying you would not discuss it which is legally binding. The same goes with firmware under some circumstances, so factory reset your router if you have a V1 or 2 and try a UK power supply, if you were one of those people that said they didn't want to reset then that's your problem not mine. Merlin who does Asus forks recommends factory resets too sometimes, and he writes firmware so he knows what he is talking about. Have a nice day.

In response to a RAX120 rebooting issue, one individual posted the following comment on Reddit:
The Power Brick is the issue , replace it with this
PN: 332-10631-01 Model: AD2003F10, Output: 19V 3.16A
Input: 100~120V 50/60Hz

If there is an adventurous RAX120v2 owner on this forum who is experiencing the reboot problem, it may be worthwhile to consider purchasing and testing the AD2003F10 power adapter as an inexpensive experiment (while recognizing and accepting any potential risk).

However, as FURRYe38 noted in a very helpful prior post, “NG feels that this is not a power adapter issue” – and, based on NETGEAR’s expertise, the likelihood of success of that experiment therefore may not be high.  Consider that if the power adapter were the single root cause of the reboot problem, then the issue should be ubiquitous.  Alternatively, the power adapter could be a contributing factor.  I remain curious….