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Nighthawk R7000 - Acces Point limitations
Hi everyone,
First of all, sorry for my bad English, it isn't my native tongue.
I'm owner of a Netgear R7000 with firmware V1.0.7.2_1.1.93, the latest available at this date, for two years now.
I used it mainly as an Access Point. I was pretty happy with access control on MAC addresses, speedy and stable WIFI, most of the time, and the possibility to turn off the WIFI signal on scheduled hours.
A few Months ago (after upgrading from V1.04.30_1.1.67) the access to the feature "Access control" wasn't available anymore in the web interface (greyed out). What a strange idea to disable this functionality! As a matter of fact and in my view, this feature is a must have for an Access Point. By the way, this isn't the only option greyed out after this firmware upgrade, the LAN is also not available anymore.
Anyway, after googling and check which options to deal with I had, I decided to move my Netgear Access Point to a Netgear Router for which the access control was still available.
After a few tests I ran into another issue: when you use the R7000 as a router, if you're not connected to the internet (I'm still using a LAN port on the router and I disabled the DHCP feature), it can't access an NTP site in order to synchronize the router time and date, therefore the ability to schedule the WIFI signal off isn't available.
Please let me know if you have an idea in order to help.
To Netgear:
a) Are you going to correct the "Access Control" bug? I can't believe you did that on purpose!
b) Why do we need to connect to a NTP site in order to get correct time and date? Could we have a field in order to enter time and date manually?
Thanks in advance for your answers.
Thank you JamesGL.
This KB article is useful but my point was that I had access to the "control" feature and after upgrading the firmware, it went away. I hope that this feature will come back in a next firmware.
Finally I manage to have access to an NTP server and now I can schedule my wifi signal. It's better than nothing.
Thanks to everyone who tried to help me, that was nice and helpful to me.
Urban-Tarika
10 Replies
Did you perform a factory reset after upgrading firmware?
Yes I did. I had to go through all the configuration again as it was not recommended using the configuration backup that I did before.
Thanks for trying to help!
Urban-Tarika wrote:Hi everyone,
First of all, sorry for my bad English, it isn't my native tongue.
I'm owner of a Netgear R7000 with firmware V1.0.7.2_1.1.93, the latest available at this date, for two years now.
I used it mainly as an Access Point. I was pretty happy with access control on MAC addresses, speedy and stable WIFI, most of the time, and the possibility to turn off the WIFI signal on scheduled hours.
A few Months ago (after upgrading from V1.04.30_1.1.67) the access to the feature "Access control" wasn't available anymore in the web interface (greyed out). What a strange idea to disable this functionality! As a matter of fact and in my view, this feature is a must have for an Access Point. By the way, this isn't the only option greyed out after this firmware upgrade, the LAN is also not available anymore.Anyway, after googling and check which options to deal with I had, I decided to move my Netgear Access Point to a Netgear Router for which the access control was still available.
After a few tests I ran into another issue: when you use the R7000 as a router, if you're not connected to the internet (I'm still using a LAN port on the router and I disabled the DHCP feature), it can't access an NTP site in order to synchronize the router time and date, therefore the ability to schedule the WIFI signal off isn't available.
Please let me know if you have an idea in order to help.To Netgear:
a) Are you going to correct the "Access Control" bug? I can't believe you did that on purpose!
b) Why do we need to connect to a NTP site in order to get correct time and date? Could we have a field in order to enter time and date manually?
Thanks in advance for your answers.
I ran V1.0.7.2_1.1.93 last weekend, for a couple fo days on the R7000, in AP mode. I got NTP to work by pointing to a DNS Server IP address, setting up the LAN (IP etc).. Can't speak to the Access Control, as it has no vaule whatsoever IMO. You want secure wifi? Use a strong wifi passphrase. None of the consumer routers have an internal clock,( or any of the high end stuff I have ran into) thus the reason for NTP. Worst case, if you don't like NG's stock fw, migrate to 3rd party fw..Thanks for your reply netwrks. It gives me some food for thought.
Maybe "access control" has no real added value but the point is if you give that feature to customers and take it back later, that's no sens for me. Furthermore, this feature is still available in router mode. By the way, I used it before in AP mode and was not able to change the list of mac adress without turning my AP to a router, Netgear should have think about that or put a note in the release notes at least.
Yes I have a strong wifi passphrase.
I'll try to get my NTP working in Access Point mode, that could give me a solution for me point B. Can you please check if you have the LAN option available in AP mode? I guess it's where you can point to a DNS Server IP address. I might have to turn my AP into route mode again in order to do that.
If you have 3rd party fw to advice, be me guest. It could be interesting for me.
Thank you for your help.
Yes, the LAN tab is availble in AP mode.
