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R7000 2.4 signal and wifi speeds flaky (1.0.9.34)
Wifi became frustratingly slow again for me today. Speedtest registerd me around 15Mps rather than my normal 150+. I rebooted the router, but this did not clear the problem. I rebooted it again w/...
Final thank you to those contirbuting to my understanding.
The NG implementation of band steering, which doesn't support roaming between bands, really won't work for my home unless I disabled 5G altogether; we have some areas not covered by 5G, so every device would need to be on 2.4 to support occasional use from worst case location.
So either I invest in mesh replacement or leave smart connect off. The latter approach has been working well on 1.0.9.28 for almost a month now without any problems and without any router reboots.
I'm going to move forward with single SSID and disabled smart connect for now. It has been working well for my household since I bought the router, which is not surprising. Netflix HD streaming, for example, needs some 5Mbps, which is an easy reach for us if all 5 members of my household were sharig a single band. We occasionally host events where some 40 people are all using our wifi at the same time, but in this case none of their devices are driving high bandwidth applications, and noone has issues.
In conclusion, while my house is a candidate for mesh, the dual band r7000 is more than adequate for us provided that we levarage roaming between bands. I plan to use separate SSIDs if or when we actually run into a bandwidth challenge.
Thanks again.
Really disheartenening to hear these types of posts. I've owned this router for years and have been sitting happily on 1.0.7.6 until yesterday. I skipped 1.0.8 all together (the capture telemetry branch) and have tested several interations of 1.0.9.x with unsatisfactory results. Last build I tested was .26 and like the others, it was nothing more than an epic failure.
Then I see .34 and its impressive list of changes. I tried it and was amazed. Had Netgear finally got 1.0.9 right? So far it seemed. Like others, I don't like resetting/reconfiguring from scratch after flashing, but in my experience, it does matter and can/does affect the outcome in many cases.
Yesterday was no different, so after flashing I reset the router and couldn't believe my eyes. I had full downstream bandwidth where previously I had only had 50% (even after reset). Short on time, I put it down for the evening. This morning I returned to finish configuration. Suffered my first set back. One of my settings had put me right back to 50% of my downstream bandwidth. Reset agan and back to full speed. My 24hr celebration was again short lived.
To make a long story short, I figured it out. If you want to read about it - Its here
But on to your issues. My Wifi is fine. I'm using separate SSID's 2.4 / 5g broadcasts. There is a lot of streaming going on in my house. Bandwidth, connection and stability is 100%. Nothing is flaky. I've got consistent sustained bandwidth across my wired and wireless connections and no discernable packet loss.
So I really feel for you guys. I hope you can figure it out. I've been resigned to staying on 1.0.7.6 (forever) until moving to another device. This finally changed.
For reference:
I'm using separate SSIDs - Primary wireless
Guest networks are disabled
2.4 is broardcasting on channel 1 - best (neighbors use others)
5Ghz is channel 153
Using WPA-PSK) AES
I haven't made any changes to Preamble, Fragmentation, CTS/RTS or any settings on that page. WPS is disabled, MiMo and Beamforming is enabled. The only setting I've had to give up is Traffic Meter. If that is enabled, regardless of the settings below, my dowstream bandwidth decreases by 50%. Turn it off and I'm good wired or wireless.
shadowsports I'm happy to hear that the firmware is working for you. I really wish I could say the same.
Unfortunately, I can assure you that 1.0.9.34 does not perform well for me. My upgrade process goes like this: [1] upgrade to new firmware [2] if all is well, then I'm done [3] if any problems at all, perform factory reset. This is the procedure I followed when upgrading to .34, and yes, I did pull the trigger on step #3 and perform full reset with negative results.
I let the router pick 2.4 frequency, I leave the 5G frequency at its default, I leave smart connect off, one SSID for both radios (better automatic room-to-room behavior with laptops in my home), guest networks disabled, WPA2-PSK (AES), AP mode. The only unusual setting I have is short preamble, which I'd be happy to turn off is somebody indicates important.
Unfortunately I have not been taking good notes abouts the various releases I have installed prior to .34.
My assessment of .28 so far is that it is more stable than .34 and .32, though I admit I haven't been running it long enough to reach a real conclusion. That said, I couldn't reliably reboot the router on .34 (again, after a factory reset) to clear an obvious throughput problem.
I don't stare at NetSpot 24/7. I react to really crappy browing experience. I'm running Windows 10 with all updates, and the situation gets bad enough that I have had to take action almost daily.
The real tell with speedtest.net is the upload speed. I'm paying for 10, typically get 12, and I just never see it below 10. But when the problem manifests, upload speeds craw at 2 or 3Mbps, even though download might be 25Mpbs (paying for 400). I'm aware that proximity to the router affects speed.
We've used online gaming, Netflix, smart TVs, skype, and others, yet never has the entire household been concurrently frustrated with network performance.
Given this is not my main router, I guess I don't have to worry about the russian router hack, but I would like to have security fixes wrt crack. So I'd love for .34 to work well, but so far, it just isn't.
Given stated problems with .26, I guess I'm thinking I likely will go back to 1.0.8 if .9.28 doesn't hold up.
Day 3 after rolling back. Huge difference. Devices are no longer dropping out. Speed tests are great, and repeatable. On 1.0.9.xx I was getting ~30 Mbps. On 1.0.8.34 I'm consistenly getting ~330 Mbps, even over wireless connections. I would like to know why some users are experiencing good results while others like myself are not. But, that's a question for Netgear to figure out....
***EDIT - Funny... we were both posting around the same time, so you've rolled back then...
Greetings,
If you aren't going to use "SamrtConnect" I would not suggest using SSID's with the same name and password. This is still a "newer" feature in consumer based Wi-Fi products and only became common as mesh solutions started becoming mainstream outside of business environments. Notice that the default SSID names are different by default. I would suggest enabling Smart Connect if you are going to use identical SSID names. Not doing this might cause your dual band connected devices to jump back and forth between the two braodcasts which could cause issues. Note I said could, not will. But do test to see if it helps.
Advanced > Wireless settings. Documentation states not to change these settings from default unless you are troubleshooting. At least try returning to "Long Preamble" since "short' is not working for you. I know it changes the length of the packet header, and if you are using newer wireless hardware both standards are likely supported. Also ensure "Airtime Fairness" is enabled if you live in a wifi "congested" area. Restart the router after making these changes.
Yes, indeed strange that our results are "so much" different than one another. I'm testing the only 2.4Ghz single band device in the house today and its working great too. How did I get so lucky?
If you do rollback, I'll be interested in your results. ALL of the issues I experienced on 1.0.9.xx are gone on 1.0.8.34. The one thing I have not done is restart my Netgear WiFi extender. I unplugged that puppy on 1.0.9.34 when my two network printers wouldn't stay connected. Unplugging the extender didn't make a difference. If the network status on 1.0.8.34 remains good, I may reenable the extender to see if things get wonky again.
Greetings,
I have no reason to roll back. The .34 build is working for me. Wired and wireless performance rivals 1.0.7.6 and the connections on both interfaces have been stable. (Lucky I know). I've dodged a bullet. Whew!
Almost 4 full days now, and 1.0.9.28 is behaving fine in my environment.
I have occasionally run speedtests, and all acceptible. I must admit that I'm too lazy to move my laptop around my house, so I'm only looking for clear anomalies and am ignoring expected 2.4 vs 5 and proximity variances. In other words, my internet is behaving well for me throughout the day. I work at home, so the wifi gets thorough exercise.
I did notice the Attached Devices issue metioned by @KY with the .34 firmware. There was one point where my iPhone was not showing up on .28, but it is now, and I am seeing a mix of 2.4 and 5 devices. I did not do an extensive reveiw of the device list, but the dozen or so devices is probably a complete list.
I have reservations regarding shadowsports suggestion of using separate SSIDs or enabling smart connect. I tried smart connect when I first bought the router, but it appeared to be playing games with the signals in that one of the radios would sort of disappear from my laptops perspective (Is/can it play games via beamforming, or was I experiencing signal dropouts?). Furthermore, I could not locate any clear description of the algorithm it uses, and am therefore reluctant to rely on it. My home is large enough that we need to use 2.4 in some rooms and in the back yard, I don't want to ask my family to manually switch to a new SSID, and frankly all of our PCs, iPhones, and macs are making solid radio decisions and automatically switching radios as devices move around my house. I have wired connections for my main router (erlite-3), TVs, and NAS, and the semi-frequent online gaming, Netflix streaming, etc has never caused any problems. All of that said, can somebody clearly articulate exactly how smart connect works? Does it handle roaming well, forcing devices down to 2.4 when the 5G signal gets week? How does it force a device to use a particular radio?
I reviewed release notes, and it appears that 1.0.9.28 has some (mysterious) security fixes that are probably not in 1.0.8.34, so I guess I stay at .9.28 barring further problems. But please offer any advice you might have on this matter. And why does the .8 release branch contain only one version?
Thanks guys!