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R7000P drops WIFI connections frequently
I'm finding that the r7000P frequeently drops client wifi connections. I have two PIxel 2XL's that frequently get booted off the 5GHz wifi whenever you put any demand on the router. The symptoms are the you'll be watching a youtube video or doing something that frequently requires data and then the data flow to the phones will stop for around 15 seconds and then the phone will disconnect and then fallback to 4G, shortly after that the phone will reconnect to the wifi again only to repeat the issue again and again.
Or I'll try to use a google home device and it'll just tell me it's no longer connected to the 2.4Ghz network
I've updated firmwares, I've tried factory resets. I've tried switching channels, I've tried changing to short preambles and nothing seems to fix the issue
The only somewhat reliable connection is the hardwired Xbox and PC, these devices don't drop.
After many hours of troubleshooting, I've found that disabling the MU-MIMO function on the R7000P gives my devices a stable connection.
Advanced > Advanced Setup > Wireless Setting > [Disable MU-MIMO]. Apply.
I have been able to transfer several large files from a wifi device to a wired device without constant dropouts/disconnections at the expense of actually being able to use the MU-MIMO functions of the router.
There are either issues in the way Netgear has implemented MU-MIMO or an incompatibility issue with some other wifi devices on the network. Since I replaced the r7000P with a new one I suspect it's an issue in the Netgear router not my devices (I can't confirm this though as I don't have a different make/model MU-MIMO router to test).
Since MIMO is one of the main selling point for this router this also raises a few new questions.
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I had similar issues like everyone else here, wifi would drop several times per day. The router was working just fine for a couple of years with just my phone and Chromecast, but after adding a new PC into the mix, the drops started happening. I even exchanged my laptop into a different brand as I thought it was the laptop's fault! Didn't help, same thing on the new one.
I disabled MU-MIMO (also disabled all the guest network stuff and turned QoS on) and the drops stopped, hasn't been happening anymore for a couple of days. Before it went off several times per day, every day.
I wish there was even some acknowledgement of this issue, or some reassurance that this issue is being looked into, but I guess we won't be getting it here.
(Firmware is V1.3.1.64_10.1.36, R7000P on 5GHz wifi with a smartphone, PC, Chromecast)
OMG I think this this fixed my router.
I've spent the last nine months trying to figure out what the heck was wrong with this thing. I didn't find this thread until this evening, after Googling "R7000P lemon". I had already ripped this POS off my network and reinstalling an old, slow Asus router, and even obtaining, through unbelievable difficulty, an RMA from Netgear. I didn't want to spend on the return shipping for a swap if the problem was hardware or an intractable firmware issue that Netgear would never resolve, and I was prepared to just move on and get a WiFi 6 router.
After reading this thread, I manually reflashed the firmware, reconfigured the router as an AP, turned off MU-MIMO and implicit beamforming, and pointed a few high-use devices (laptops, phones, Roku) to the 5 Ghz radio. I then simultaneously streamed YouTube and Netflix on multiple devices. Night and day difference! No disconnections, no throughput loss, nothing.
Maybe I won't do the RMA afterall. This R7000P is still a POS, but at least it seems to be working as it should now. I haven't put all of the devices back on, so I might need to update my findings after I revert the whole network.
Found this thread after my R7000P started having the connection drop-out issue in the past 2 weeks. Like alot of people here my wife and I have both observed this happening anywhere from 2-4 times per day. Only changes to settings I made were the normal ones: login settings, wifi SSID/pw, and assigned my NAS to a static IP and that's about it - left everything else on stock settings. Didn't enable Guest network ever, etc.
Currently I'm running V1.3.1.64_10.1.36 firmware and the router seemed to be working solidly prior to this issue since it was purchased in May 2019. I turned off MI-MIMU and turning on QoS as suggested before...hopefully this will work. Not ready to throw in the towel yet!
Worst comes to worst I'll load a 3rd party firmware, probably DD-WRT. I had the R7000 before that need frequently reboots (so effing annoying) until I loaded DD-WRT onto it and presto! it became a rock solid router for years. I remember reverting it back to stock being not-so-straightforward which is why I want to avoid going down that route again.
I've had this router for about 8 months and just stared having the 5ghz wifi drop out issue the past three days. Nothing has changed on my network, so it's frustrating. I have disabled MU-MIMO as per the advice in this thread, so lets see if it works.
I had DD-WRT on this router but would not recommend using it if you have gigabit internet. With DD-WRT I could never get above 250mb/s which is a shame because I do like DD-WRT. Reinstalling factory firmware and I can get 800mb/s.
Unfortunately, disabling MU-MIMO did not resolve the problem for me. Just happened again on the 5ghz band a few minutes ago. Really aggravating.
Thanks for the info re: DD-WRT - you probably save me a few hours of work :)
Turning off mu-mimo + turning on QoS seemed to improve the drop out issue as I haven't experienced it since making those changes.
I was googling for a program/app/whatever to monitor my actual wifi up-time and found a simple site - just search "star trinity internet connection monitor". I'm gonna leave it running on my laptop for at least the day to make sure all is well... or not.
phetamine Yeah, I purchased the R7000P for the strict reason to run DD-WRT on it so I could a scrip that gave me run per-device bandwidth usage. Comcast was capping my data to 1TB a month and I was constantly going over it so I needed a way to determine which device was taking up so much data, and as ridiculous as it sounds, the only way to do it was installed DD-WRT on a router and running custom scripts.
DD-WRT was a PITA to get running on the R7000P. There wasn't any click-her-to-flash easy to run stuff like other DD-WRT capable routers. The R7000P seems to be a fringe router for DD-WRT so you end up running some modified version of some beta firmware that you can't even find online anymore (author isn't making it anymore and all downloads for it were 404) and I had to ask someone for the flash files on Reddit and it was never being updated.
Eventually I was able to upgrade to Xfinitiy's X1 gigabit internet service which includes unlimited data. Unfortunately, after that upgrade, I was still barely able to break 250mb/s with DD-WRT on the router. I went through the painful process of trying new DOCSIS 3.1 modems, messing with every setting I could find on the X1 router, putting the X1 in bridge mode, even new Cat6 cables. Nothing worked until someone told me that DD-WRT is on most levels emulating hardware compression and it will never be able to obtain the raw processing speeds and power of an unmodified router running Netgear's firmware.
So I reset it back to factory settings and immediately was at 750mb/s or higher. Plus, uPNP worked better for some of the family's games (it never worked well with DD-WRT).
Anyway, time to see if my 5ghz drops out again. Only seems to happen at night, as crazy as that sounds. When it drops out the only way to fix it is to reboot the whole router, or go into the admin area and disable and re-enable the 5ghz radio.
If you want to capture some logs to go through you can configure the R7000P to log everything it tries to do.
http://192.168.1.1/debug.htmReplace the Ip with the IP of your router.
Just remember to turn it off once done otherwise it'll use up all the space available eventually.
joejoeinc Read my mind! I was going to ask in another thread how to get better/more detailed logs from the R7000P.
What is the process for using that? Is the Start Capture button ONLY for packet capture, and do you think I should use Packet Capture to determine what's going on when my 5ghz radio dies?
Or is it already generating log files just by being powered on and I just have to download them?
It's been almost 30 days since I've turned off mu-mimo and turned on QoS - so far so good (knock on wood) re: wifi connection stability. I haven't bothered with logs tho' so I can't say 100% for sure but day-to-day uptime has been pretty solid. Still this is not exactly confidence inspiring by any stretch of the imagination for this product.
The regulars over on the networking sub-reddit frequently recommend the ubiquiti amplifi line so I just might give that a try. Not exactly cheap but might be worth the extra $ since I'm so tired of spending countless hours troubleshooting.
