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Nighthawk AC1900 R7000 router drops internet connection
Greetings, I am experiencing repeated issues with lost internet connection on my home network. I have fiber optic service thru Metronet and use their Nokia modem with a new R7000 router which I s...
Hello,
First, thanks for taking your time to offer your thoughts and suggestions. Let me try to respond to your comments:
Firmware / I updated the firmware to v.130 during install of this brand new device a few days ago
Anti-virus / Use Norton 360 Deluxe
Connected devices / 4 Apple devices running current iOS, HP PC Wifi network adapter is current, will check out firmware on 3 Samsung TV's
Routing parameters set to ISP standards / not sure what this means
QoS and Auto update / disabled
Logging / I don't know what that is and how to disable
UPnP / currently active - If I disable, will I lose connections with my devices that are currently connected to my home network via a password? If I disable UPnP, does this help prevent bad actors from accessing our network?
WiFi power setting / searched Netgear GUI and can't seem to find this setting
My home is 3 stories with about 2,800 sq ft. When I switched to fiber optic service (200 Mbps down/up) 15 months ago, I opted to use my existing D7000 modem/router combo with the ISP provided Nokia modem. ISP installation tech suggested this because ISP provided router (Eero) would not provide the coverage strength I was getting with D7000. Our service needs include streaming, email and general web surfing. Within a few months, started to experience repeated buffering issues with streaming, most particularly on YouTubeTV. Eventually realized that my old D7000 was likely not up to the task.
Chose R7000 because of prior experience with Netgear and expected it would provide similar strong signal as the D7000. Understood that it was not latest WiFi 6 technology. Install of R7000 Unit One purchased at Best Buy (only electronic retailer in my area) was bumpy and required multiple interactions with NG support. Once install was complete, service was stable for a few days. Speedtests showed 5G band at 200Mbps in most locations of my home with 100Mbps on the 2.4G band. Then, started to have issues with dropped connections to internet. NG tech support kept telling me to perform power cylce which always worked but system was not stable. Because Best Buy return policy was almost up, I decided that this unit might be defective so I returned unit One and bought another R7000, Unit Two.
Installation of R7000 Unit Two went much smoother and system was stable for a couple of days before I started to experience dropped internet connections. In each instance, power cycle of R7000 would restore internet connection. Checked with ISP tech support and they couldn't find any service issues. Yesterday, ISP tech support did a "rip and rebuild" on my service which they said should bring my service to best possible. Two hours later I lost internet connection again. I called ISP and they will have technician come to my house on 2/7 and install their no charge Eero router (single base model). They will perform trace route and check modem This should help isolate the problem.
I remain curious about one aspect of this problem. When I lose internet connection, devices such as a TV which are connected and successfully playing a streaming signal such as YouTubeTV remain active and connected. We only realize that our internet connection is down when we try to connect a "new" device such as an iPhone, iPad or PC to the network / internet. When we try, we find that the currently un-connected device shows a connection to our home WiFi network but we receive a message that the device is unable to connect to the internet. No one at NG or our ISP can explain how a connected device remains connected while a "new" device is unable to connect to the internet.
Thanks again for your helpful comments!
bdfm I'd just like to point out, I'm no expert, anything I suggest is just from personal experience using the R7000.
I no longer have my R7000 setup due to me having replaced it (it's shoved away in my loft unlikely to ever see the light of day again!) so I can't tell you exactly where to find what you're looking for. If you interrogate each of the tabs in the GUI in Advanced settings, you should find all of the settings I have referred to. In my opinion, the browser GUI isn't very user friendly at all.
UpNP, as I recall, when I had this disabled, it didn't cause any issues with my WiFi connections. Try disabling it and see what happens.
If you've successfully had the WiFi working, then the router is probably operating within the ISP parameters. There may be some tweaking required for your particular environmental setup. There's settings like MTU etc, which is out of my depth so I couldn't tell you whether you should try tweaking that for example. WiFi transmit power, the setting is there, I had mine set at 100 percent all the time. Some countries however might not have that particular option due to local regulations.
I'd wait for the engineer home visit to interrogate your setup and make any recommendations. It could just be that the R7000 is not up to the job in your home. I'm slightly suprised that you decided to give the R7000 a second try after returning the first unit, but it is what it is. You might want to consider a more up to date Mesh system or perhaps purchase a Mesh extender to use with the R7000.
I've had zero issues with my own new setup, now using a tri-band router that suits my environment 100 percent better than I had with the R7000. I'm on full fibre optic, 150mbps down, 30mbps up. My router is plugged straight into a socket in the wall which runs directly to the ISP installed ONT.
It's funny, when I had the R7000 up and running, aside from my Wife losing her WiFi connection on her work computer because my WiFi6 enabled desktop continually wiped out her wireless connection, with my new router, her work supplied laptop just absolutely would not connect at all to the new tri-band router. It was made worse by the fact that my Wife's work computer is completely locked down, so we couldn't interrogate anything. It took the IT team at her workplace to fix her network adapter remotely by updating her computer network drivers, and fix it they did, no problems since.
Let's hope your engineer visit provides some answers.
Thanks for your additional comments.
New Eero Pro 6 router (Wifi 6 with tri-band) was installed by ISP provider (Metronet) on February 7. Total install time including firmware update was about 10 minutes using the Eero app on my iPhone. Connected total of 8 devices to the network. Strength of signal throughout my home is good and there appears to be no need for an extender. As a note, the install process from Eero is significantly simpler and faster than what I experienced with the Netgear app and the R7000.
I am hopeful that this new router will perform as expected and does not experience the same internet disconnect problems that I've had with the R7000. Time will tell. If the new Eero router has no issues with internet disconnect, we will likely have isolated the problem. Since the ISP provided the new Eero router, troubleshooting will be simpler as they will take ownership for any issues with either the modem or router.
bdfm Thank you very much for the update. It's always interesting to see how these things pan out. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for you that all continues to go well.
I certainly don't regret getting rid of my R7000, it had become an immense pain in the rear!
I've just googled the router you have had installed, and it looks good. My GX90 looks like a massive spider on steroids lol!
Good luck with your new router!
As a follow-up to my 2/8/22 message, the Eero Pro 6 router has performed without incident. Signal strength is good throughout my home and I have not had any issues with lost internet connections.
Both R7000 units experienced lost internet connections on an intermittent basis so it appears that the issue was with the R7000 units.
I plan to return the second R7000 unit to Best Buy for credit.
I now have a functioning home WiFi network!