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Weak Wireless Connection Crashes Entire Network
My R6100 wireless router works well so long as connected devices recieve a strong signal. If a device's wireless connection receives a weak signal by moving too far away from the router for a few seconds or a few minutes it typically results in the entire wireless network crashing. Connecting one's cell phone to the wireless network and then driving away from the house is a great way to easily crash the network. That means someone will have to power cycle the router in order to get the wireless network back up. I have already set the wireless channel to 6 in order to avoid interference, disalbled UPnP, disabled guest network, and disabled dual band 5G so that the WiFi router only broadcasts at the 2.4 GHz frequency. Firmware version is V1.0.1.28. I'm aware it's a pretty old router but it should work for our family if devices could just experience slower internet speeds or get disconnected from the network whenever its signal reception becomes too weak instead of causing the entire network to crash and kicking all connected devices off the internet. Any suggestions on how I can avoid these frequent network crashes? Thank you.
> [...] It still kept the newest firmware version after resetting
> though. [...]To be expected. "factory reset" is a misnomer. It's a _settings_
reset, and has no effect on the firmware.> [...] potentially resetting to the original firmware. [...]
Visit http://netgear.com/support , put in your model number, and look
for Downloads. (For older versions, under Firmware and Software
Downloads, look for "View Previous Versions".) Find the kit(s).
Download the kit(s) you want. Read the "Release Notes" file for
instructions. (In the User Manual, look for "firmware", and,
especially, for a topic like "Manually Upload Firmware to the Router".)
When that fails because of a deficient User Manual, try:
9 Replies
What happens when it crashes? Do wired devices go down?
Do the wireless devices disconnect or do they say "connected, no internet?
What firmware is on it?
What modem is it connected to?
Did you ever try a firmware re-install followed by a factory reset and then clean install (not from a backup)?
-When the wireless network goes down all wirelessly connected devices lose internet access and get disconnected from the network. Wired devices can still access the internet just fine though.
-After the wireless network goes down, scanning for available networks will reveal that our wireless network is still visible and at full strength but usually no one can connect to it. If someone does manage to connect to it though they will not have any access to the internet. For example, after the WiFi goes down and I somehow manage to reconnect my cell phone to the WiFi anyway, I will see the wireless symbol at the top of my cell phone screen and I will notice that only the upload arrow blinks, there will never be any downward arrow blinking which always let's me know my cell phone won't be able to access the internet.
-Firmware version is V1.0.1.28.
-My modem is Arris Surfboard model SB6183.
-No I have not tried doing a clean firmware install thank you for your suggestion.
Sometimes using the Windows 10 troubleshooting "Fix/repair my internet connection" corrects the issue and everyone can access the internet via WiFi again by reconnecting to our wireless network but that tool does not always work. All connected devices have unique IP and MAC addresses and obtain them dynamically from my ISP. I have already set the wireless channel to 6 in order to avoid interference, disabled UPnP, disabled guest network, & disabled dual band 5G so that the WiFi router only broadcasts at the 2.4 GHz frequency. I have not opened any ports in the port forwarding section. Indicated by the title of this tread I thought one pattern to this issue might be that a weak signal triggers the wireless network to crash, I still think there's something to that notion because the last crash I was spaced away a little out of my comfort zone, but now I'm really starting to think there may be more to this issue than just how distant one is from the router. I'm suspicious that my router may be going into a temporary lock-down state related to the PIN in the advanced router settings so I just disabled the PIN. I've taken good care of the router over the years, never overheated, never dropped etc. so I would be surprised if there's a hardware issue. This router works so well when it's not booting everyone off the WiFi lol. Any further assistance is much appreciated thank you.
I'd try a factory reset/manual reinstall. That router is a 7 year old device. MIght not hurt to clear out old settings and start fresh.
Same issue here on same firmware.
After "crash" some wireless devices drop, some remain connected. Nothing can connect after the "crash".
Router's web UI down. No ping response from device.
Am network engineer for 20+ years. I know bad firmware when I see it. This is bad firmware.
p.s. What genius decided to disable pasting in the "confirm" field for email and password to register here? Extremely annoying in the age of long passwords and password managers.
Sounds like you and I are in the same boat Bob. I guess our best bet is to try and manually reinstall the firmware like how antinode said huh? I'll look into manually reinstalling the oldest firmware version and then a few minutes later I'll do another manual reinstallation of the most recent firmware version. After all that is my best understanding of what it means to do a clean firmware reinstallation.
