Connection Dropping

Geoff332  Not only did you not have the latest firmware on your router, the version the router has/had on it, appears to have been pulled by Netgear some time back because from what I can see, it doesn't even appear in their previousl downloads list. By my reckoning, your router was/is, at least six firmware updates behind the current version.

As has been told many times on this forum, the auto update feature is not to be trusted. I'd also be very wary of enabling the auto update feature anyway, even if it does work. I just leave mine disabled and I check the Netgear firmware page once a month.

There's a couple of threads on this forum relating to the firmware you state your router has/had on it:

https://community.netgear.com/t5/Nighthawk-WiFi-Routers/R7000-Bricked-by-Auto-Firmware-Update-to-1-0-10-90-10-2-90/td-p/1833270

https://community.netgear.com/t5/Nighthawk-WiFi-Routers/How-did-my-router-firmware-get-updated-to-1-0-10-90-10-2-90-that/td-p/1868373

Despite all of the doom and gloom you see pedalled on this forum about the R7000 AC1900, it's actually not a bad router at all, provided it's set up properly and in the right environmental conditions. People shove their routers up in their loft/attic, or in the basement, or the thing is trying to transmit WiFi through walls that are 3 feet thick (ok, that might be a slight exaggeration!), or folks are trying to operate 40 WiFi devices off it all at the same time. It seems also, quite country dependent on how well your router is performing. Personally, I don't have any issues with mine.