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Forum Discussion
EX8000 - Dropping Internet Connection Moving Around House That Has 3 Extenders
Have a 6100 sq ft house, 2 levels.
Equipment:
Cable Modem - CM1000
WiFi Router - R9000 Nighthawk X10 AD7200
3 Extenders - Nighthawk X6S EX8000 (all in EXTENDER mode)
* All running the latest available firmware
* Using Smart Connect and one SSID for 2.4GHz and 5GHz frequencies.
* Guest network is disable (to help eliminate possible issues during troubleshooting.
I have very strong and stable internet connection in all areas of the house, at least for semi-stationary devices (smart TVs, laptops in office, several Nest devices, etc.)
The problem is that when I roam around the house with my phone, I remain connected to the WiFi, but the internet connection frequently gets dropped. I have to turn off wifi on my phone, and reconnect in order to get the internet connection back.
Per Netgear chat agent's instructions, I disconnected and unplugged the cable modem, wifi router, and all 3 extenders, and then plugged everything back in starting with modem, router, and then the extenders, waiting for each to power up and connect prior to connecting the next device.
For whatever reason the internet connection is evidently dropping during the transition from one extender mesh area to the next (or from the router's wifi to an extender's wifi).
If I roam within what I believe to be close proximity to a single extender's range, no problem. But if I explicitly walk from one end of the house to the other, which would definitely cause me to connect to another extender, the internet connection is dropped.
This is extremely frustrating, as this is the whole reason I purchased the extenders, to seamlessly stay connected as I move to all areas of the house.
Attached is the "connection" map for all 3 extenders. The one with the "red" connection from the router to the extender is probably the farthest away from the router (and/or has the most direct-line interference). Even though it's the lowest link rate at 195mbps of the 3 extenders, I would think that this should still be sufficie nt for a stable connection. Also the WiFi Connection light on this particular extender is solid white, so still a solid connection with the router. Odd though that the graphic map shows the connection as red for the 5Ghz band even though light is white.
Any ideas?
5 Replies
- I completely reset each extender to the factory defaults, and one by one configured each one and added it to the network. After adding/configuring the 1st one, I'd unplug it and then add/config the 2nd one, unplug it, then add/configure the 3rd one. After unplugging the 3rd one, I then plugged in the 1st one, 2nd one, and 3rd one (spread around the house). Again, strong internet signal everywhere, but when I go to an area that is on the far end of the range (i.e., garage), I have a signal / good internet, but then when I go back into the house (and closer to the router), the internet connection is dropped. I have to turn off wifi, and turn it back on again to get an internet connection. This is extremely frustrating, as the whole reason I purchased 3 extenders was to have seamless coverage throughout the house, and to have a stable / strong connection as I moved around the house. Is there a setting that is not set correctly that is causing this problem? I didn't change much from the default configuration outside of SSID, security, and disabling USB.
Have a support ticket opened up with Netgear on this issue, but they are slow to respond and help has been very generic, i.e., reset extender to factory defaults, reflash firmware, turn everything off and back on again, etc.
I have over $1200 invested in new Netgear cable modem, wifi router, and extenders, all purportedly to be seamless robust solutions. I have spent 40+ hours on this problem troubleshooting and researching, and am at the point I'm going to return the entire set of hardware, never buy/recommend Netgear again, and seek out another vendor's solutions.
I'm an IT guy (software dev, but have also set up networks), and take an engineer's approach to solving problems, so it's not like I'm your clueless Joe Consumer fumbling through this stuff.
UPDATE: After a 4th chat session with tech support (which lasted 3.5 hours, and included 3 dropped chat sessions, and 3 different agents, each of which had to be debriefed on problem domain), I found out why my 3 extenders were not working as expected.
As I just learned, if you want to deploy multiple EX8000 devices, and want to use it in extender mode (wireless connection to router), each device must have it's own unique SSID. Yes, you are correct, this negates the feature of a single seamless SSID for convenient roaming throughout your house. I had 3 EX8000 devices setup all using the same SSID as the router, and this is what caused all my dropped connections - The devices were confused and could not differentiate between the router SSID and each of the other EX8000 SSID's that were being broadcast.
If you want to deploy multiple EX8000 *and* want to use a single seamless SSID, the only way to do this is to deploy each of the EX8000's in Access Point mode, meaning each one has to be hardwired to the router.
Prior to purchasing the EX8000, I had a presales chat session and explained to the agent what I was planning on doing (using 3 EX8000's in extender mode with same SSID), and was told by agent that this would be fine.
Due to timing of purchases, I can only return 2 of the 3 EX8000 devices for a refund. I'm going with a Google Nest WiFi system (using 4 of their router devices for a better wireless mesh system), so also have a nearly new Nighthawk X10 AD7200 wifi router to sell as well.