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Forum Discussion
Solved
SOLVED: Slow wireless internet passthrough speed after firmware update
So I first purchased a Nighthawk in July 2014 and it was awesome for a while. Then in notice is past couple months my streaming services were skipping and buffering more that usual (which was almost never with the Nighthawk).
I have a 110Mbps connection (from Comcast and through an SB6141 modem) but all of a sudden was only getting 10 Mbps (or less) passthrough on wireless 5G band (at start of test speed would sometimes be as high as 50 Mbps, but over a few seconds would drop to nothing..)
Wired speeds were fine. Always 110Mbps+. Tried several different channels and factory resets of the router, wireless speed was still slow. Logged onto Netgear website and submitted a support ticket.... within 2 hours they emailed me back with an RMA and the next day a new unit was being FedEx'd to me. Tech support rep said it's a known hardware issue in some units... I was super impressed with the customer service, it seriously was a no hassle replacement that took all of 15 minutes of my time.
EXCEPT when I received the replacement router in a few days it had the SAME PROBLEM. As soon as the new router was on and I logged in, I upgraded to the latest version of firmware, did a factory reset, and ran Speedtest. And I had the same problem: internet passthrough speed on all my wireless devices was awful. Less than 10Mbps when I have a 110+Mbps connection. (Wired speeds were fine, so was not a provider or modem issue).
Contacted support again and they instructed me to download latest firmware on laptop and manually upgrade router, doing a factory reset both before and after the upgrade. They also told me to try turning off WMM (made no difference in passthrough speed, but did lower my laptops link speed from 433Mbps to 54Mbps!).
I tried all of that... still slow wireless passthough speed.
The only thing that changed since I first got a Nighthawk back in July 2014 (and I ran speedtests then and had a 110+Mbps wireless speed at that time), is that the firmware has upgraded several times... which got me thinking...
I downloaded from Netgear support the last 5 versions of firmware for the Nighthawk. http://downloadcenter.netgear.com/en/product/R7000#sear...
I then manually downgraded the Nighthawk to each previous version (doing a factory reset both before and after each installation) and ran Speedtest each time. Once I got down to Version R7000-V1.0.3.24_1.1.20 (Released 2/12/14) and ran Speedtest, the PROBLEM WAS SOLVED. Wireless speeds on all devices (laptop, HTC One M7, and iPad Air 2) were all back up to 110Mbps or more!!!
Hope this experiment helps out someone else... if your're experiencing slow internet passthrough speeds and it's not your link speed (i.e. radio interference) that's the issue, there seems to be a serious problem with the last couple newer versions.. Try downgrading to firmware version R7000-V1.0.3.24_1.1.20
I have a 110Mbps connection (from Comcast and through an SB6141 modem) but all of a sudden was only getting 10 Mbps (or less) passthrough on wireless 5G band (at start of test speed would sometimes be as high as 50 Mbps, but over a few seconds would drop to nothing..)
Wired speeds were fine. Always 110Mbps+. Tried several different channels and factory resets of the router, wireless speed was still slow. Logged onto Netgear website and submitted a support ticket.... within 2 hours they emailed me back with an RMA and the next day a new unit was being FedEx'd to me. Tech support rep said it's a known hardware issue in some units... I was super impressed with the customer service, it seriously was a no hassle replacement that took all of 15 minutes of my time.
EXCEPT when I received the replacement router in a few days it had the SAME PROBLEM. As soon as the new router was on and I logged in, I upgraded to the latest version of firmware, did a factory reset, and ran Speedtest. And I had the same problem: internet passthrough speed on all my wireless devices was awful. Less than 10Mbps when I have a 110+Mbps connection. (Wired speeds were fine, so was not a provider or modem issue).
Contacted support again and they instructed me to download latest firmware on laptop and manually upgrade router, doing a factory reset both before and after the upgrade. They also told me to try turning off WMM (made no difference in passthrough speed, but did lower my laptops link speed from 433Mbps to 54Mbps!).
I tried all of that... still slow wireless passthough speed.
The only thing that changed since I first got a Nighthawk back in July 2014 (and I ran speedtests then and had a 110+Mbps wireless speed at that time), is that the firmware has upgraded several times... which got me thinking...
I downloaded from Netgear support the last 5 versions of firmware for the Nighthawk. http://downloadcenter.netgear.com/en/product/R7000#sear...
I then manually downgraded the Nighthawk to each previous version (doing a factory reset both before and after each installation) and ran Speedtest each time. Once I got down to Version R7000-V1.0.3.24_1.1.20 (Released 2/12/14) and ran Speedtest, the PROBLEM WAS SOLVED. Wireless speeds on all devices (laptop, HTC One M7, and iPad Air 2) were all back up to 110Mbps or more!!!
Hope this experiment helps out someone else... if your're experiencing slow internet passthrough speeds and it's not your link speed (i.e. radio interference) that's the issue, there seems to be a serious problem with the last couple newer versions.. Try downgrading to firmware version R7000-V1.0.3.24_1.1.20
- UPDATE: Yes, I actually tested the speeds with several different devices (an HP laptop, HTC One M7, and Nexus 9) all of them on 5G band, all ac enabled with latest updates. I also used a couple different speed test sites (speedtest.net, comcast speedtest, cnet speed test), inconsistently had the same result across all devices and hosts.
However, I've actually been communicating with Netgear L2 support for last month... beta testing a couple different versions of the Nighthawk's firmware and even spending over an hour on the phone one night with nice guy who told me he was on an island in Southeast Asia, part of the Philippines... that's where Netgear tech support is halfway between China where they build them and Taiwan where the engineers are. After trying every tweak he could think of for an hour and not getting better wireless speeds, he finally gave up and wished me a Merry Christmas lol. Not a one of those beta firmware's made a bit of difference and I loathe the hours they tricked me into screwing around with them!
BUT TODAY they released vR7000-V1.0.4.14_1.1.50 http://support.netgear.com/product/r7000
And to my shock it actually worked! Not only have my high wireless speeds returned (120+ Mbps)
http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/4078979293 (laptop)
http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/a/1131321713 (nexus 9)
http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/a/1131332778 (htc one m7)
but also my previously incompatible Seagate SRD0SD0 (3TB) USB 3.0 external hard drive now works, too. What a bonus! The whole reason I bought the Nighthawk was to use as DLNA server and the monster external HD I picked up 6 months ago just happened to be on the long list of ones incompatible with this finicky router.
But now it all works (at least for now).
P.S. Maybe it's in my head but I swear since this last firmware update when running speedtest now or transferring files (any heavy streaming) I can hear the router making a higher pitched electrical humming/whistling noise, it's a little disconcerting... I'm not sure having my brain fried by overclocked wifi is going to be worth the high speeds in the end... :eek:
22 Replies
- V1.01.14 was pulled last week 'We have found an issue with OpenVPN connectivity issue on the new R7000 release Firmware v1.0.4.14, so this release has been withdrawn from our firmware upgrade server. We are working on a new firmware, with a fix for the issue, to be available by next week'
On my 7500 I resolved this by turning Dynamic QoS off. Which sucks, as I want Dynamic QoS on. But why is my download speed halved when no other devices are on??? That's weird!!
So glad Netgear support replied to my question about why does Internet speed get cut 50% if I turn Dynamic QOS On - NOT! What horrible support.
Absolutely awful support and they want to charge me to troubleshoot this R7000 what is still within it's warranty period. I've tried resetting and a couple different firmware versions and I can't even get 1mbps download. It's at 60 mbps down when I'm connected to my modem. My old cheap $30 router was better! Wish they would release a good updated firmware to fix this common issue.
Thanks for your answer...I had the same issue with mine and the downgrade of firmware did the trick!!
- Same issues with nighthawk r8500. Had r7000 that seemed to have wifi issues so, to keep user (aka family) noise level down, dropped $400 for the 8500 and had wifi issues still, had numerous support interactions and it was eventually factory warranty replaced yet still experience fairly regular intermittent wifi issues. Losing confidence in Netgear's ability to provide a quality consumer wifi product. Time to research other brands.
