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Forum Discussion
Rax80 smart connect issue wifi dropping
Ive been having issues with my RAX80 since purchasing it , if i leave the router with the seperate bands (2.4ghz &5ghz) it runs fine but once i activate smartconnect all i get is intermittent connecti...
So it's been 2 days now. And I'm still solid (220+Mbps down) on my Wi-Fi. So two things were fixed for me...
- The 5GHz radio disappearing constantly
- Wi-Fi speeds sub-50Mbps down when it should be 200+
What did I do?
- Went to Netgear's website and downloaded a Beta version (V1.0.1.100), the very latest, of the AX120 firmware. (I didn't check for other models.)
- I installed the new firmware.
- Without backing anything up, I just did the factory reset, inserting the end of a paper clip in the reset hole and holding it for 5 seconds.
- I did not restore any backed up config, since I didn't have any. I just went with the factory settings.
- I used the Nighthawk app to configure the router.
- I left it like this, not changing any settings.
I'll update this thread again after about a week or so, assuming the router doesn't reboot for some unknown reason on its own.
Hello Everyone,
Our engineering team is currently investigating similar reports and I will be sure to provide an update as soon as possible. For anyone interested in working with us directly, please feel free to send me a message with your contact info and serial number.
Thank you for your patience,
Christian
- Hello Christian, thanks for keeping us updated, it's good news I hope.
Can you be a bit more specific about which issue(s) the engineering team are looking into?- Thanks Christian. I'm so glad this has been acknowledged and I'm not just imagining things.
Problem I have now is that the router is used for surveillance of my 6 month old child. Having such instability on this £300 router is unacceptable. Do you have any info on what my options are if this cannot be resolved soon. I do not want to have to shell out another fortune for an alternative router.
Thanks.
- I would be happy to assist with your investigation. However I wouldn't be able to factory reset or make major changes to my router due to limitations on the time I have spare what with a new child.
Thanks. Good afternoon Christian. My name is Matthew K and I have been having this exact experience since I bought this router last April, 2019. I have talked with support more times than I could even begin to tell you and I haven't heard anything about a fix to this issue from a single Netgear support agent. I have always bought Netgear everything and I am so disappointed and flabbergasted that I have just dealt with the horrific issues because I feel embarrassed to have such a bad piece of equipment. I don't understand why it has taken so many different people to complain before any of us even received a notice from Netgear that they are aware of this issue. The serial number of my Netgear Nighthawk ax80 is as follows :
- Anyone tried the new firmware?
The release notes don't sound like they address any of our issues.My firmware notes only mention support for China.... I am in the USA so that does not sound promising.
My RAX200 has been just as bad as ever. Every day I debate just biting the bullet and getting a competitor's router, but the fact that I paid $600 for essentially a just-decent 2.4ghz router is making me fall for the sunk-cost fallacy.
hey, Its April and still no fix. What are you guys doing?
The only thing that I have been able to research is that every 24hrs the lease expires on your device from the router, which means that your device asks the router to stay connected for another 24 hrs. When the time expires, a new IP address has to be assigne to the device, but usually it keep the same address. For my case, the router IP address is 192.168.1.1 which is very common and it should assign an IP address to your device like 192.168.1.25. What I have noticed is that the router assigns an IP address of 169.254.7.7 or some real strange number and then makes all your devices saty offline because it doesn't keep the same IP address structure. You can try this by connecting to your 2.4GHZ band and then trying the 5GHZ (or viceversa) and see what IP address is assigned. One way to get around this (for some devices) is to assign your device a static IP. Not all devices let you do this but if you are stuck with this router this is the only thing that has worked for me. I agree with all the previous posts. Give it back. I have tried other brand routers and havent been able to find the same quality as netgear. I will defenitely not recommend any Netgear AX router to anyone. But for the time being buy yourself a negear x4s or x6s for much cheaper. You will get the same speeds on 5GHZ since we are only up to 1Gig.
Been failry solid for a few months now. Still on the older Firmware. I haven't touched it. I believe I did reboot it at least 1 time in the last few months. other than that. I have left it alone as a WiFi access point only. No LAN connections, separate WiFi for 2.5 and 5Ghz as I have always had. Seems to be fairly stable on this firmware for me.
My only suggestion would be to revert back to factory settings. Manually update the firmware before putting anything on it (settings, specific IP ranges, security, etc). test it out with factory only settings and say current firmware for a week. See if it just works not connected to anything. Then bring it over to your network.
this is a very finicky router to say the least. But, I think it "can" work. Just like a really fragile piece of glass work, but not be a total paper weight. :(