AC1900 Extender EX6400v2 Light Stays Orange

I solved this by going to Target and buying the TP-LINK AC1750 Wi-Fi Dual Band Plug In Range Extender - White (RE450), on sale, for 1/3 the price of the AC1900. 

It took 2 minutes and zero frustration to set up, worked immediately, and is slimmer with a better interface. It also has a 2-year warranty with 24/7 support instead of 90 days.

It also seems to be working better, my connection is faster. 

Point being, don't buy the Netgear option, go for a different brand.

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Beruthiel wrote:

I unfortunately own the AC1900 WiFi Mesh Extender, and have been using it since January with limited issues (setup was terrible, but I'm using it for a wired connection so I basically just set it and forget it).

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Using the extender in Access Point mode with a LAN cable between your router LAN and the extender Ethernet port?

Here the router will assign the extender a LAN IP config from the router LAN DHCP server.

or

Using the extender as a wireless client with a LAN cable to a device to be Wi-Fi enabled?

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Beruthiel wrote:

Recently I had to reset my router, so I had to redo the connection.

In the wired access point mode, there is nothing to re-do. Just establish the router LAN to the extender Ethernet port connection, and cold boot both devices.

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Beruthiel wrote:

I was able to use the WPS buttons to create a connection, but once connected to the extender's WiFi or ethernet there was no connection. It did not ever broadcast the default WiFi SSID for setup.

Once you have done the WPS config, the SSID is replicated from the primary Wi-Fi router. The default SSID can no longer be active at this point.

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Beruthiel wrote:

I did try to do the TFTP firmware update, but the light won't change from solid so I can't get the file to go through. The response is always 'Connect request failed'

 

Side note for anyone trying to follow the TFTP instructions, they're incorrect in a few places. Mainly the desktop command, which will vary based on your computer setup, and the ethernet IP instructions are not written correctly. .

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Leaving the unqualified rant - as no useful help for the reader is supplied - alone. Here my notes on tftp recovery of Netgear extenders:

For the extender tftp recovery:

• download the current firmware from https://netgear.com/support and unpack the zip archive
• disable any WiFi (unless you know you are using a LAN different from 192.168.1.0/24 subnet)
• define the Ethernet port to something like 192.168.1.123 mask 255.255.255.0, default gateway 192.168.1.1
• establish the tttp connection to the extender on the default 192.168.1.1 address, something like (depends on your OS) # tftp 192.168.1.1 69
• set the transfer mode to binary (otherwise the transfer is likely to stuck or fail) or # mode binary
• upload the file using # put [filename.img]
• allow 10...15 minutes to finish
• cold boot (power off, power on) the new flashed extender

Hope this can be considered "more correctly".

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Beruthiel wrote:

I bought it new, but support says it's refurbished and registered to someone else and they'd need to charge me to be able to help me at all, which I've never had with any other tech support from a manufacturer.

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Clearly a reason to complain with the original seller of your extender. I see that there are players in the geiz-ist-geil mentality are taking back used or open-box units from customers, without a proper clearing and refurbishing process, resetting, testing, or returning it to the distributor - re-selling as "open box", or more or less careless re-packed again.

For some reasons, Netgear is requesting the customers to register the new product. A previously registered, by a third party - accidentally or intentionally entering a wrong serial number - would become obvious, and the customer has the option to complain direct to the seller. Or under some exceptions work with a community moderator to re-register the device in a correct way.