D7800 X4S WIFI connection unreliable

[Richo88]

So for many months, probably even years i have been putting up with my D7800 wifi just dropping out, stalling, disconnecting and going into limited connectivity. Its been hard to figure out whats happening but the signal is extremely unreliable. The internet connection seems fine. We run a few phones, laptops and tvs on the network and all seem to have issues. One laptop would go into limited connectivity every 2 mintues, but when running an external wifi adapter it was better, but not perfect.

I have gone back to using the modem i was given when i got NBN, its signal isnt as good but it doesnt seem to drop out.

I have updated the firmware on the D7800 but i makes no difference, i have played with a few settings but don't really know what to change. What should i try?

[michaelkenward]

You might get better and quicker replies, and find other answers, over in the appropriate section for your device:

DSL Modems & Routers

No need to repost there, unless you want to – that will just clutter up the place with duplicated messages – but you might find advice related to your hardware.

I have asked the Netgear moderator to move your message.

You could also add a bit more detail. Is this every wifi client? All bands and channels? Have you tried changing bands and channels? Perhaps there is local interference.

What do the LEDs show when this happens?

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@Richo88 wrote:

I have updated the firmware on the D7800 but i makes no difference, i have played with a few settings but don't really know what to change. What should i try?

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What is the number of that firmware? It may or may not be the latest, depending on how you did the update.

Did you reset the router to factory settings after the firmware flash?

New firmware sometimes introduces changes that are not compatible with the old configuration.

So while it isn't guaranteed to fix problems a factory reset is the first thing to try if you have issues with new firmware.

This is a nuisance because you then have to reconfigure the device all over again.

You can backup your settings before you reset and restore them later. But that may just bring back the fault. Then again, at least you will know if the reset fixed the problem.

The factory reset is more a "witchcraft" move than a technically informed solution, but it does seem to fix problems, especially on the wifi front.

[MR_Chapel]

I'm in the same sinking boat. I've had the router for over a year now and it has to be reset several times a day. I've gone through all of the usual "reset this - reset that - flash - update - rollback - pick a bale of cotton" steps literally a dozen or more times. Nothing has worked to prevent the random drop outs. Using it at another location where we've never experienced a network dropout before, the D7800 lunched itself 3 times in 24 hours. 

We run 3 ethernet connections (2 consoles and a PC), and 5 wireless devices, 2 on 5Ghz and 3 on 2.4Ghz. The router is in line of sight of these devices during most uses. 75% of the traffic is streaming Netflix (@1080p)  and Youtube (locked to 720p and under),  20% is xbox live.and the other 5% is being productive - the honest, average usage of the world's most significant technology.

For the hefty pricetag, this piece of "hardware" (we all know what word better fits that sentence) just doesn't deliver. Even the standard routers provided by IINet and other NBN suppliers outperform this thing. It was toted as being a gaming router, yet running two gaming connections through it causes a massive latency spike for one or both players. It doesn't matter if it's Xbox + Xbox, or Xbox + PC, or PC + PC. Setting up QoS makes absolutely no difference either.

The UI is atrocious. The Genie app is functionally useless. Setting up parental controls to block certain content and domains was a feature that was incredibly important in our choice of product, but it doesn't work. Genie can't connect to OpenDNS despite our credentials being correct. Trying to propegate the controls in the router itself is futile too.

The only thing it is fit for, in my humble opinion, is a tenement building for cockroaches.

[your-name-here]

In case it helps someone else.

I've just tried switching off implicit beamforming (in Advanced at the bottom of the wireless settings page).

During the 3 minutes it took to switch this off I lost my wifi connection FOUR TIMES but eventually it stayed alive long enough for me to turn off beamforming. It's now been running without a dropout for 40 minutes.

This is on a D7800 X4S, bought and installed March 2020, running firmware V1.0.1.56.

(I had the same dropout of the wifi connection with my old D7000 nighthawk, and for 4 years never found a solution, which is why I took a punt and upgraded to the newer model in the hope that it was having 30 or so wifi devices around the house that was causing the problem. I was very disappointed to find out that it still has the same hideous bug. The one thing I never realised was that it was possible to turn off beamforming)

[your-name-here]

Update: turning off implicit beam forming seemed to help for a couple of days, but then the problem returned, even worse than before. My laptop lost its connection every 2-3 minutes. My SkyQ box lost its connection several times and then was completely unable to connect back up for 2 days (several reboots of router and SkyQ, and SkyQ network resets failed).

I was running 2GHz + 5GHz main networks plus a 5GHz guest network. So I tried turning off the guest network. Within 2 seconds of turning the guest network off my SkyQ box reconnected happily. Suspicious coincidence. But both SkyQ and laptop are running perfectly now.