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Forum Discussion
Nighthawk X6 R8000 Dropping 5G-1 at random.
The 5g-1 network is crazy flaky, it will regularly drop internet connection. During the "good" times streaming music will regularly stop for a few second before reconnecting. The Logitech Circle security camera will notify me it's gone offline, before minutes later notifying that it's back online. During the night I might get a few 100 notifications from the camera. The Arlo baby monitor will stop streaming and I need to push play to continue viewing it.
During the bad times, depending on the device, the 5g-1 network either can't been seen, or devices are connected, but have no internet. My iPhone will show as connected but has a privacy warning in settings saying the network is blocking encrypted DNS traffic. but most devices simply can't see the network.
I've been having these problems since I got this router, I should have returned it, but couldn't due to covid lock downs.
I have tried resetting the router several times AND rolling back to differnt firmware. This seems to fix things for maybe a few days and up to a week, before it all starts up again. I have taken to fournightly full restores to keep thing working.
Currently running firmware V1.0.4.76_10.1.82, my new Virgin Hub 5 is set to modem mode.
During a bad time, If I connect via 5g-2 on my laptop I can login and see the "attached devices list" nothing is actively connected via 5G-1, to resolve this I either have to reboot the router or if that doesn't work, reset to factory settings and set it up again.
Recently I discovered the router logs are weird. I have attached a screen shot of them.
One device seems to keep being assigned IP addresses by the router every 10 seconds up to a few minutes, this is constant.
What could this be?
I decided to look at the attached devices list to figure out what this device is, it usually doesn't show in attached devices, but when it does....
Plugged into the secret 5th ethernet port?
It shows as being one of the 5 wired devices, which is kinda odd as the R8000 only has 4 ethernet ports and I am able to identify the devices connected to them.
What on earth can be causing my 5G-1 to be so bad, and what is connecting to the mystical 5th ethernet port?
7 Replies
What channel is the 5ghz-1 set on?
What firmware are you currently on?
Do you have an external hard drive connected?
Firmware Version V1.0.4.76_10.1.82
In advanced/home it shows as channel "36 + 40 + 44(P) + 48", in wireless settings the drop down is on channel 44
I do have an external hardrive connected.
I've seen a few rare instances where an external hard drive causes issues.
If you unplug the drive, reboot the router, and try it, does it stay stable?
I have the both the R8000 which worked for a year, then it started to have wifi and internet drop issues. So bad it was unusable. It would ONLY start working again after a reboot. I tried everyting to fix and of course Netgear was no help. So I bought a new R8000P in July 2021. Same issues. About every 6 hours it will drop out completely. Dead, until a reboot. Still Netgear was zero help and can really careless.
R800P
At first, I was NOT using smart connect, so I tried it. No help.
Next I reconfigured the settings to the bare minimum. No help.
Lastly, I flashed back to a few older versions of firmware (1.2.1.6 and 1.4.1.24) niether worked. My 8000P is now stuck in the older firmware and I can't install any firmware on it any longer. It works, but it drops the connections about every 6 hours or so.
So I went back to my older R8000. Latest firmware installed (V1.0.4.76_10.1.82). No Smart Connect. External Drive off, all features off. Minimum Configuration. It works great for 6 hours or so and hangs. Only a reboot will fix it. Then it does it again.
So here is what I did. I connected it to a power device with a timer. Every 6 hours the power shuts off for 3 min, then back on. Once it reboots it works until the next power cycle.
Sadly I have to use a power cycle device to make my SECOND $250 Router work.
It is unaccaptable. But Netgear can careless.
At my next upgrade point I will be dumping Netgear and switch to another companies devices. I am done with Netgear.
