Here's the deal.I just got in the mail today a replacement from Netgear for my CAX80. (Hindsight says I may not have needed it, but here we are.)I am with WOW Internet as my ISP in Columbus, OH.The issue began around mid-November 2021, which based on sniffing around this forum, was the time frame a new firmware update was pushed and caused issues. That led to getting the aforementioned warranty replacement.My old modem works. It's not my wiring. But the CAX80, it won't receive Internet. If I try to even do a hardwired local connection, I can't do any connections, even router login dot net, or the 192 168 1 1 address or anything. So if I wanted to manually update firmware or roll back, I can't. It will not connect.I have done the 30-30-30 hard reset with the unit. I have called WOW, and they can't figure it out, no matter what we do.I can't return the modem to Best Buy as the window passed. I'm not paying for extended warranty assistance with Netgear -- I had to PAY to ship my old unit for the replacement, which is insane and flat out robbery after I paid $450-plus for the unit or whatever it goes for. (Can't even spring for the prepaid label to a customer.) And if WOW can't do anything... I've PAID FOR AN EXPENSIVE BRICK BECAUSE OF THE FIRMWARE UPDATE!I am extremely frustrated and extremely disappointed. Thanks for ruining my purchase, Netgear.

Sounds like we are having the same problem. I was using the CAX80 for one year with WOW and it was great. Really liked the features of the unit. All of the sudden a few days ago, no internet. I rebooted nothing, called WOW and they sent refresh signal. All lights are solid, looks connected, wifi lights good, WOW says it is connected, but nothing works hardwired or wifi. Did a factory reset, same issue. Had the extended warranty from Bestbuy, they swapped out, tried a new CAX80, same issue. Tried the C7000v2 no problems at all, everything works great so it was not the cable line. Tried a third CAX80, same problems, looks connected, shows connected on WOW's end, but nothing hardwired or wifi works. I know it is connected because I can send a refresh signal to the unit from my WOW account too. I really liked the CAX80 a lot, not sure why it would stop being compatiable after a year of no problems. Remember I tested 2 new CAX80's and the same issue. When not connected to the cable line, the unit will reboot every 4 minutes, so not much time to access the setup page. The C7000v2 is working great, but I would really like to have the capabilities of the CAX80. Everytime I want to try a new modem it is time consuming, I have to have WOW add the MAC to the account and my family goes nuts if there is no internet. Any ideas why this would happen all of the sudden? Any solutions?

Hi Users, Welcome to NETGEAR Community! First of all, we are sorry for the inconvenience this has caused you. As far as Netgear is concerned, there are no issues with CAX80 for WOW Cable. The issues had been with the WOW changes on the configuration on their side and that some of the user's devices only worked in modem mode only but not in gateway mode. Our Engineering team had already contacted WOW but has not gotten any updates from WOW in terms of what the problem was. We will update you as soon as possible once we got a response from the WOW Cable. Please do not hesitate to let me know if you need further assistance. Regards, Oliver Community Team

Received the second replacement today. Did absolutely nothing with it until I called WOW. This is the extremely detailed process I went through in calling WOW, so be prepared for a long read. TL;DR VERSION: It's definitely WOW, and not a darn thing got resolved on the 2h15m call. The WOW tech rep had me connect the coax cable for the first time, and then plug in the power supply to turn it on for the first time. All lights came on and cycled on like you'd normally expect -- including the 2.4 and 5G symbols, and the push-button symbols at the bottom. During this time, I gave the WOW tech rep my MAC address so he could activate it on the ISP's end. (I had no Internet connection up to this point, but I wasn't saying anything as I was unsure what he had to do on his end.) He then confirmed my MAC address, and asked me to unplug it for 30 seconds, and then plug it back in. He then allowed 2-3 minutes for a reboot to happen. During this reboot, the 2.4/5G symbols and the push-button symbols did not light up at all. It was just the top four lights, as well as the 1 flashing for activity for the ethernet connection of my laptop in the first port. Once the 2-3 minutes passed, I still had no Internet connection, and suddenly it went into a reboot. This was a repeat of everything I had been experiencing in mid-November, and the two prior units, and the repeated calls with WOW tech support. The tech rep took longer than that 2-3 minutes to speak again, and he asked me to connect to the Internet. I told him I had no Internet connection. He asked to confirm my MAC address again. He then went silent for a few and then said he did something on his end and to allow 2-3 more minutes. My unit rebooted during this. The rep confirmed that I was using a modem/router combo from Netgear. Mid-reboot, he asked me to power cycle the unit by unplugging it. I waited a couple of minutes, then he asked me to plug it in, and allow it to reboot. Once again, everything lit up except for the 2.4/5G and the push-button lights. No Internet, either. There was no change in status. I told him as much. And it rebooted yet again. And once that finished, still no change in status. Clearly, everything is being caused by WOW. At this time, I took over the call and just flat out told the rep that whatever WOW did in mid-November, it has "bricked" my unit from working. I could safely hypothesize it was a WOW issue from mid-November, because if the modem/router was incompatible with WOW, it would not have worked when I got it in mid-September, and not worked for approximately two months without a flaw. He sent another signal and it rebooted. During this, he tried to say that a tech needed to come to my house. I said no, because in October, we hooked up all brand new wiring from the outside hub for the neighborhood to support the speeds I upgraded to. Everything was working perfect. There was no need for that because that wasn't the issue. He took my info to escalate this, but I said maybe let's try to speak to someone in escalated tech. (When he said we needed a tech sent to my house, that was about the point I realized the tech rep had served his purpose and could not provide any more help.) He transferred me to the escalation team. I explained everything to the new rep. She agreed that perhaps it was the signal from WOW being sent out that was causing the issue. She said maybe it was too strong of a signal. She sent me to an escalated troubleshooting team that can do more looking into things. I confirmed with her this wasn't the basic troubleshooting team I just got done talking to. I was put on hold for 40 minutes, then spoke to an agent. She claimed that there is an Internet issue which is preventing modems from being activated. I said that was an Amazon Web Services outage, but this issue has gone on for closing in on a month, so it's not related to AWS. She wasn't able to help much because of the AWS issue, so she said to call back tomorrow. She gave me a direct phone number and a PIN for my case, and I call that tomorrow to repeat this entire process all over again. In the meantime, I swapped back to my old setup, confirmed I had Internet, and the call ended. So, what the heck, I'll do this tomorrow I guess and see what happens. I have no faith at this point. I will update on this tomorrow. But I really need something to happen tomorrow one way or another. I've spent too much time messing with this.

I'm experiencing the same issue with my CAX80 and WOW isp in Chicago area. Stopped working about 2 weeks ago (worked fine for approximately 1 year) and recently had a WOW technician out to my house. Switched me to my old Motorola modem/router which works but is a temporary solution because it doesn't support full speed I'm getting from WOW. Switched back to my CAX80 to troubleshoot and had a ticket setup with Netgear. Waited 1.5 hours on hold to speak to someone. Had an appointment I had to be at and never anticipated being on hold that long so was only was able to speak to the first Netgear rep for a few minutes. Called back and they had me do troubleshooting to connect to router. Practically begged both Netgear reps I spoke with to look at these forum posts because I feel they accurately describe what is going on and might point toward a larger issue outside of individual hardware. They weren't interested. First rep laughed then told me it wasn't possible that WOW internet wouldn't work on their modems because of all modems being built to ISO standards. Second rep told me to buy a new modem/router and there was nothing they could do. I was told I might possibly hear back from someone via email if they discover a work around but I'm not holding my breath. Feel like I was just told that to get me off the line at that point. Incredibly frustrating - I think Netgear could learn a lot from what has been posted here by others but it appears to me that the reps have their standard check the box troubleshooting steps they have to follow and won't deviate from that. I'm convinced based off the posts of others, buying a new one would accomplish nothing other than wasting my money. Netgear comes off with being far more concerned about getting you to sign up for their tech support plans than actually listening to a customer.

It's not a Netgear issue. It has been pinpointed to an ISP issue. Having someone at Netgear contact me may not help any more than past calls have, unless someone at Netgear wants to call WOW.

CAX80 won't work at all on WOW Internet; firmware update ruined it

136 Replies

epicfeline
Aspirant
Apr 15, 2022
My CAX80 is 54 weeks old (siiiigh) and it's bricked this week. I am also told that there was an update done yesterday on WOW which is when my service quit working (in Mid Michigan). Have done soft, hard, factory resets, have requested a signal refresh. Nothing changes. Intermittently the wifi lights will not even light up. So now it fails the setup test (low signal) and we have not had any changes to a fairly new wire run and I've confirmed my coax cable is finger-tight, not damaged through the basement, etc. We have had some high winds so the other real possibility is some damage (even hyper local damage) to the lines. But I am concerned because I can't even get the CAX80 to talk to the setup wizard. When connecting a computer via ethernet it says "no internet." Grrrr.

What else are we running on WOW successfully, and what are we expecting them to do (like send a new firmware update)? I don't have a lot of good ISP choices where we live. I'm highly annoyed to have to think about buying another router so soon. But staying dead in the water isn't a choice here either. (Nor is boosting the phone hotspot data every day thinking this is temporary.....)
- FizzyOtter
  Tutor
  Apr 17, 2022
  I take it this issue is still going on with WoW.
  I've been having the exact same issue with the CAX80 with WOW. Unable to access routerlogin or the 192 168 1 1
  No gateway address. Can't access with the nighthawk app. Just a big ole paperweight.
  Was on the phone for an hour with Wow and they were telling me to call Netgear, and had Netgear tell me that its WoWs issue.
- Jinguni
  Guide
  Apr 18, 2022
  I've been using the CAX30 / CAX30S with WOW's service, no issues after 4 months. Fortunately I was able to return the CAX80 I initially purchased.
  - FizzyOtter
    Tutor
    Apr 18, 2022
    I might just turn in my CAX80 for a CAX30S
    I've basically been playing phone tag and had both WOW and Netgear pointing fingers at each other, and seeing folks having no issues with the CAX30S I might switch to that.
    I mean I have to work and need a modem.
FURRYe38
Guru - Experienced User
Dec 28, 2022
Moocow1980 Supmario89 Basha94 wziemer zanfly Jinguni Pawel-Miga Lucas_Sz ChiFast FizzyOtter

Can you all comment on your current status or updates on this?

Still having problems or has this all been resolved for you?
- Basha94
  Guide
  Dec 28, 2022
  I can say that my CAX80 has been up and running with absolutely no issues after switching providers (wow to spectrum).
  - wziemer
    Star
    Dec 29, 2022
    I went through some alternative Netgear channels and was able to work with an engineer from Jan to May of this year and in May, they were able to work with WOW to determine the issue and roll out the fix after I loaded several engineering firmware to gather additional debug info and provide that data back to them. It was my understanding that this fix was rolled out to all CAX80 devices, but of course I have no way of validating that. That said, I can say that I'm a WOW customer that was transitioned over to Astound and I've had 0 issues with my CAX80 since, but I also run only in modem mode (router mode = no) at this time and have no interest in switching over to Router mode = yes for the foreseeable future, so I don't think I'm a very good case to validate if this is or is not working on Astound.
- Jinguni
  Guide
  Dec 29, 2022
  I switched ISP from WOW/Astound to Xfinity, got tired of hassling with WOW since they couldn’t identify issue or provide workaround. They had me swap out 3 modems and issue still persisted. No issues occurred with Xfinity.
  - ChiFast
    Guide
    Dec 29, 2022
    The issue has been resolved for me and the CAX80 is working but I've been switched to Astound RCN because they acquired WOW customers in this area.

Forum Discussion

CAX80 won't work at all on WOW Internet; firmware update ruined it