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Forum Discussion
RAX80 range is not that great
So, it seems the range is a little lacking. Using one Linksys Velop node placed in the same location would give me 5ghz and of course 2.4ghz to my outdoor camera. with the RAX80, I get zero signal. I have a 2800sq wood frame home (2 story).
25 Replies
- Grertings,
Your post is one of the first I've seen in regards to the RAX80. There's not a lot of real world feedback on these boxes yet as they just started shipping.Have seen a couple of the famous drops issue, but is the first I have seen about range. Sure not what this is advertised as.
myersw wrote:
Have seen a couple of the famous drops issue, but is the first I have seen about range. Sure not what this is advertised as.
Camera is about 60ft from router (straight line), 1 interior wall and 1 extertior wall. 5ghz is not strong enough for a connection, 2.4ghz is off and on, no solid connection. I tried DFS channels, made good speed increase, but not range. My Samsung Smart tv's also would not connect to DFS channels, so had to stop using them.
I have the exact same problem. The range is less than my 7 year old R6300v2.
- That’s odd my home is also mostly wood/drywall interior (~2,600 sqft), with the router on the second floor I get close to full bandwidth one floor below and pretty close to that even in the basement (5Ghz) infact I even get 5Ghz signal in my driveway. It’s not much different than the R7800 in the range aspect. HT160 mode nets me a full 1,120 Mbps even one floor below when doing transfers to the connected Samsung T5 drive when doing transfers to my laptop with a 9260ac WiFi adapter.
Honestly it’s should be outperforming any mesh device by far, especially in range (comparing single unit without satellites), that inclues the Velop.
Lastly make sure it’s updated to the 1.0.1.36 firmware.Don't forget physics. While design can make a difference, there's a physical limitation on how much range you can squeeze out. Vendors love advertising "awesome or extreme range" but in reality physics beats them every time
avtella wrote:
That’s odd my home is also mostly wood/drywall interior (~2,600 sqft), with the router on the second floor I get close to full bandwidth one floor below and pretty close to that even in the basement (5Ghz) infact I even get 5Ghz signal in my driveway. It’s not much different than the R7800 in the range aspect. HT160 mode nets me a full 1,120 Mbps even one floor below when doing transfers to the connected Samsung T5 drive when doing transfers to my laptop with a 9260ac WiFi adapter.
Honestly it’s should be outperforming any mesh device by far, especially in range (comparing single unit without satellites), that inclues the Velop.
Lastly make sure it’s updated to the 1.0.1.36 firmware.My router is also on the second floor, but it's not possible to center it in the home. The camera is the oposite end of the router and when I stand at the corner where the camera is outside the home I get zero signal. I have used many routers and this the only one I have come across with zero signal in this area. Maybe there is outside interfearance. In that area is my smart electric meter and also the Celluar for my solar panals. But it does not seem to affect other routers. Maybe the antenna arrangement? Though with my other routers if they had external antennas I always kept them straight up.
Returned a Nighthawk X10 AD7200 to Best Buy yesterday for reboots. Best Buy no longer carries the 7200. they had the RAX80 which I purchased. I live in a 3000 sqft home. All my smart devices including the rings doorbells on the front and back of the home are working fine. I have noticed an uptick in download speed through Comcast. Its still early but that's my experience after 24 hrs
For me RAX80 has been a reasonably pleasant experience. Speed is great, and coverage is not worse than my other routers. VPN has been speedy and reliable. Noticed some speed degradations over time but reboot has fixed them. Not fond of the GUI and wish firmware development would have been speedier. Other than that, its been a great experience.
I need a bit of help on my RAX80 setup. I heard that HT 80 and HT160 may give better range or performance. On my 7800 you could see where you could enable Ht160. On the RAX80 I cannot find that option.
- Firmware Version V1.0.1.40_1.0.22
- I've turned on QoS.
- 2.4Ghz
- Auto and 1,000 Mbps
- No coexist between 20 and 40 Mhz
- Security at AES only
- 5Ghz
- Its set at Mode 1,000 Mbps and Channel auto. FOund out you cant set Auto on higher Mode settings
- Security is set at AES only
- The setting is in the Advanced Wireless settings just like with the R7800. At the bottom section of that page.
Also note the you need to use lower numbered channels for HT160 to work. It needs contiguous channels which are only available in that channel section as non contiguous 80+80 split bonding required for HT160 in the higher numbered channels isn’t supported by many devices, ie not even the Intel 9260ac aka Killer 1550 seen in many new laptops.
Understand that unless you have client devices (phones/laptops) that support the HT160 feature it won’t really help, as the Intel card mentioned above is the only one I know in terms of laptop cards that support it. HT160 can actually lead to more interference and reduced range depending on how many nearby APs and their signal strength. Additionally it uses DFS channels so things like weather radars and other priority public/military utilities using that spectrum will cause the router to fall back to HT80 when detected. Overall I saw a ~120 MB/s (960 Mbps) transfer rate with HT160 when doing transfers between my laptop with an Intel 9260ac and my Samsung T5 SSD connected to the router vs 75-80 MB/s (640 Mbps) in HT80.
Unless you have a NAS or something that you do massive transfers to or really use gigabit ISP speeds, leave it on HT80 for greater stability. Doesn’t make much difference with phones and tablets even if those support HT160 as you would never need that much speed on those.
