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Forum Discussion
Problems w/ New WiFi 6 Nighthawk 8AX - EAX80 Range Extender w/ New WiFi 6 Nighthawk AX12 - RAX200
Please help. I am a long time Netgear customer, and have been buying Netgear products since the early 2000s. Upon receiving my Nighthawk AX8 (EAX80) and configuring it I found myself fairly disapp...
Hi there I have a rax120 connected via Ethernet to two eax80s set to access point mode with smart connect enabled everywhere and one wireless network name set to all 3 units. Good speed but poor switching of devices from main router to the eax80s and vice versa.
my question is about whether a configuration of this type is really functioning as a mesh network?
I would guess not. It doesn't work well for me and my devices frequently fight with either the router or an extender for wireless access and often will preferentially go for the rax120 even if situated far from it and next to one of the eax80 access points.
it's all setup in wifi6/ax and I notice that the rax120 has an option for wpa2+wpa3 authentication but the eax80 are limited to wpa2.
is this an issue for mesh? I thought that all stations need to have identical authentication for mesh or smart connect to work.
can someone advise and could wpa3 be built into eax80 via firmware update?
thanks
Hello Nehmendi1,
I see you mentioned that you are running 2 EAX80 units. Are the 2 units linked to eachother in AP mode? Meaning. RAX120 to EAX80 to EAX80. Or do you have them wired seperate of each other. RAX120 to EAX80 and RAX120 to EAX80?
I have done 2 extenders in the past but both are feeding from the router. That is the key thing. I ran smart connect for the entire house and it work flawlessly. Have you tried one EAX80 as AP and the other as WiFi mesh with smart connect? They both can't run smart connect from the router as their is a chance they will link with each other which will cause no internet. The link below from the supervisor explains all of that. I hope this will help you.
If you want a mesh system then please read the this link that discusses 2 extenders on one network. This is from a supervisor.
Thanks very much for this. Both eax80s are wired directly to the rax120 through a very good central Netgear switch and both are set to ap mode. I have noticed from time to time that these get a bit confused and loop, usually during initial setup but this usually sorts itself out and all the ap get their own discrete IP addresses just fine. I also have two older ex8000 setup in the network. One as above and another as a wireless extender to the rax120. So 4 total units (we have an old house with multiple thick solid brick walls.
Now that I moved everything back to wap2 authentication with identical wireless net names I think I have a smoother setup but will keep testing. Thanks for the link. I will investigate that
If it helps, I have also run my AP/Extenders off of one switch with no issues and used smart connect. The most I have run was 3 AP/Extenders. The router feed the switch and the 3 extenders we connected in AP mode. The house I set up was around 4800 sqft 2 level new build. They wanted coverage inside and outside the home. Well they we covered!! lol
I too live in an older house. I know the pain over coverage. I hope you are able to stay up and running on a stable network.