Netgear AX6000 EAX80 Mesh extender. Devices don't reconnect to the Netgear router

I have similar problems with mine. Devices that are literally within feet of the EAX80 prefer to connect using a weak signal to my main Nighthawk X10 R9000 router.

I had a EX8000 that I used for years without much problem. It mysteriously died with a blinking LED. I replaced it with the EAX80 thinking that it was going to be much better performance than the older EX8000. I was mistaken. It's been nothing but problems since I got it.

In my case it seems that devices won't connect to it after the extender restarts, preferring my main router instead. After some period of time, perhaps days, I'll notice that they have switched over to connecting to the extender. Sometimes by toggling the device's wireless on and off or restarting the device it may switch over.

Getting connected is only part of the problem. Usuallly, despite the extender telling me that it has good connections to my wireless router and good connections from my device to the extender, speed tests will reveal that I'm getting 2Mb/s download speed for 5ghz wireless (out of a 400+ Mb/s connection from the street to my main router). Oddly enough, the upload speed is what would be properly expected. 2.4ghz connections are marginally better with download speeds of around 30Mb/s.

Other wireless devices connected to the main router will get proper high speeds 5 and 2.4Ghz.

Looking through this forum there are dozens of other threads with people with the same kinds of issues and it seems that the issues with the AX6000 EAX80 is just being ignored.