R7000P losing 2.4Ghz wireless completely after a few hours

Question

Purchased R7000P December 2020; worked flawlessly for all wifi on both 2.4Ghz and 5.0 Ghz using default settings, latest firmware since new until 2 days ago when the 2.4Ghz wireless just stopped working; rebooting the R7000P brings it back, and it works again for several hours, broadcasting SSID, assigning IP's via DHCP, authenticating, etc. and then poof, after a few hours, stops working, all the while 5.0Ghz continues working no problem. I tried a few workarounds:

- disabling guest networks completely

- disabling mu-mimo feature

Neither had any affect. Logging on the R7000P is worthless and shows nothing. When it fails, it is still broadcasing the SSID on 2.4ghz, but any attempt to connect fails, no IP is assigned, client wifi devices tend to fail by saying "incorrect password" but 100% the password is correct, no log entries, so something is broken after the very very early handshaking. I've read other reports on the community forum of similar failures, but other than downgrading firmware from reports 2 years ago, and those workarounds above, nothing else. My assumption is the device is completely Fubar'ed and will need replacement. I'll most likely request a hw replacement.

plemans · Answer

You're actually a bit behind on firmware.&nbsp;the current version is 1.3.2.134might be worth installing that over a hardwired connection and seeing how it works.&nbsp;

repomannv · Answer

Yeah, just noticed newer firmware is available as well.&nbsp; i was under the mistaken impression I was on the latest because I'd ask the router to check for latest firmware and it would come back and say nothing newer was found...&nbsp; Clearly a bug in the auto-updater, as I checked the support site and found V1.3.2.134_10.1.66. &nbsp; I&nbsp; just reflashed with that.&nbsp; It took a power cycle to get the R7000P back up and working after the reflash, but the 2.4ghz is working at least for the first 5 minutes.&nbsp; I'll keep an eye on it and report back a bit later.&nbsp; thanks for the responses.&nbsp;EDIT:&nbsp;&nbsp; Well, its about 15 minutes later, that didn't take long, 2.4ghz dead again.

plemans · Answer

What actual firmware version are you on?&nbsp; (a number and not "the latest")Have you tried a factory reset and reinstall?

repomannv · Answer

Thanks for the reply.&nbsp; Firmware version is V1.3.1.64_10.1.36&nbsp;&nbsp;I have done a factory reset (hold button 7 seconds, power cycle, R7000P goes back to factory defaults, and then I set device pw, SSID, and wireless password, leaving all other settings as factory defaults.&nbsp;Immediately after factory reset, 2.4ghz did not work at all; I found through experimentation, that changing the 2.4ghz wireless channel setting from "auto" to a fixed number, like 4, 8, or 11&nbsp; would start working immediately after "applying" the channel change, for about 1 minute, then freeze up again.&nbsp; So, whatever is failing is not a "hard" failure, it can come back to life without a&nbsp; power-cycle, but it doesn't live long.&nbsp; Switching channels wakes up the 2.4Ghz, at least for a short time.I did not reflash the firmware image to the device as it was already loaded with the latest .36 firmware; I suppose the next thing to try would be doing a reflash, so I'll do that when I have time and continue to try random other things, and report back here. &nbsp;&nbsp;I'm not hopeful, this problem has been going on for years, reported by dozens of people across many different versions of firmware. &nbsp; I think its a hardware issue, I think netgear knows what it is and has decided its not cost effective to fix it in this product, so they've gone silent about it.&nbsp; It's likely some devices are just longer lived than others, if its because an individual component is wearing out, then its luck of the draw when it finally gives out, could be months, could be years. &nbsp;&nbsp; Even if I get netgear to replace my R7000P, I would expect the replacement to fail eventually the same way, the only real solution will be to throw away the R7000P and replace it with something else.

plemans · Answer

Did you factory reset after the update?&nbsp;The only over version of the firmware I'd recommend would be 1.3.0.20.Its the verison prior to netgear armor being added to the firmware. When armor first came out, it seemed like many devices struggled with it. Maybe your router is one.&nbsp;its a big enough change that if you do downgrade to it, make sure to do it as a clean install (not from a backup). Netgear had to remove several services to add armor.&nbsp;

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R7000P losing 2.4Ghz wireless completely after a few hours

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