FVS318N - Unable to select wireless channel manually
Just like here https://community.netgear.com/t5/Business-Wireless/Unable-to-manually-set-wireless-channel-on-FVS318... I'm not able to change the Wifi channel. Whatever I select, it does not matter, the router always chooses channel 5 which unfortunately is the far worst selection since many routers in my (new) neighborhood uses this channel, too. Sometimes after rebooting the FVS318N the selected channel is 1, but unfortunately changes to 5 after several minutes.
My settings:
Region: Europe
Country: Germany
Operating frequency: 2.4GHz
Mode: n only
Channel spacing: 20/40
Current channel: 5 - 2.432GHz
Channel: 9 - 2.452GHz
Default transmit power: Full
Transmit power: 20 dBm
Transmission rate: Best
Regarding the questions asked on the other thread:
a) No, I was never able to change the channel. However I didn't care much in the past, but after moving to a new home the situation is not acceptable anymore. I did try to reset the router to default settings and setup everything again - no difference.
b) Browers I have tried so far: Firefox ESR/CentOS 7 (currently 45.7), Firefox/Fedora 25 (currently 52) and Google Chrome/CentOS 7 (currently 56.0.2924.87)
c) Firmware: Several ones since I do own this router since 2013. The last one was 4.3.3-6, but I just updated to 4.3.4-2 - no change in behaviour
Addendum: If I select the channel to "Auto" the FVS318N chooses channel 6 which does not seem to be a good selection either.
Re: FVS318N - Unable to select wireless channel manually
Hi DaneA,
Thanks for your welcome.
Regarding your questions:
a) I switched from "n only/Auto" to "ng / Auto" and tried to change the channel afterwards. I changed to "11" but the router chooses "5". I tried changing back to "n auto" and again to "ng" a various times, sometimes combined with "Auto", sometimes with selecting a specific channel, with no success. It seems that the router ignores the setting and always used "Auto" internally instead, in both modes, "ng" and "n only". (Sometimes I get channel "1" as result, but most of the time "5".)
b) After resetting the router to the default settings, the wireless settings selected by the router are "Europe / Albania / ng / 1 / 1". I change to "2" and the router selects "2" afterwards. I also tried 3, 4, Auto, 2, and 11, and the router always selects the given channel (resp. "6" when "Auto" was selected). So far, so good. I changed from "ng" to "n only" (and default channel spacing "20/40"), and now things are getting strange again. Most of the channel selections cause a different channel operating now, only "1", "3", "5", "9", and "12" will be accepted. All other selections results in a current channel of either 1 or 5.. Here is the mapping: 1 -> 1, 2 ->1, 3 -> 3, 4 -> 1, 5 -> 5, 6 -> 6, 7 -> 1, 8 -> 5, 9 -> 9, 10 -> 5, 11 -> 5, 12 -> 12, 13 -> 5. This seems to be reproducable, I tried every setting at least twice and got the same result.
Now I restored by previous settings I have saved before (by "Administration", "Settings Backup & Upgrade"), and afterwards I could still change the channel successfully after changing to "ng" operation mode. Changing back to "n only" and "20/40" I get quite the same behaviour as before, i.e. some channels can be selected, but most of them either cause channel "1" or channel "5" to be selected as current channel. Afterwards I tried "n only" and channel spacing "20", and here everything works fine.
So as resumee "ng" and "n only" with channel spacing "20" are working fine now, so saving the configuration, resetting the router and restoring the configuration has helped here. But "n only" with channel spacing "20/40" still gives a strange behaviour, both right after a factory reset (and nothing else changed), and with my settings loaded, too.
Based from your answers and the steps you did, it might be a possible hardware fault on the device itself. I advised you to open an chat / online case with NETGEAR Support at anytime. Kindly state your concern about your FVS318N and the troubleshooting steps you did to isolate the problem for further assistance. Attach a .pdf or .doc copy of the Proof of Purchase or Sales Invoice of the FVS318N on the chat / online case for warranty verification. If ever the hardware warranty is still valid, an online replacement will follow.
That might be possible as well. It is best to report it to NETGEAR Support because it might get escalated to the engineering team for further investigation.
That might be possible as well. It is best to report it to NETGEAR Support because it might get escalated to the engineering team for further investigation.
Regards,
DaneA
NETGEAR Community Team
I agree. But you have to understand that for someone to return a product for a possible hardware issue, and then it be a software issue that might have been solved without the downtime required for sending a unit back, it's more than a slight inconvenience.
I just want to follow-up. Were you able to open an online case with NETGEAR Support about your concern? If yes, keep us posted about the progress of it.
Re: FVS318N - Unable to select wireless channel manually
Hi DaneA,
Sorry for my late answer, usually I only find time for things like this on week-ends.
If I follow the link you have posted, the following support options are given: Ask the community (what I already did by creating this thread) or ask Netgear for a hardware replacement. Since the unit is about 4 years old no other options are available for me, I don't know how to contact the support for reporting a likely software bug.
It would help if someone with the same router model could confirm he/she has the same problem, e.g. with mode "n only" and channel spacing "20/40" not all channels could be selected manually, or otherwise could confirm that the problem does not occur on his/her copy.
Re: FVS318N - Unable to select wireless channel manually
It would help if someone with the same router model could confirm he/she has the same problem, e.g. with mode "n only" and channel spacing "20/40" not all channels could be selected manually, or otherwise could confirm that the problem does not occur on his/her copy.
Regards,
owl318
I will try to check this on one of our 318Ns that will be swapped from production with another 318N. But it might be a month or so before I get to do it if that's okay.
(Only swapping them because one has a higher firmware that allows much higher wan to lan speeds, and since we have to config from scratch after a firmware update, a lot better for downtime to do it on another unit and then swap them.)
I will try to check this on one of our 318Ns that will be swapped from production with another 318N. But it might be a month or so before I get to do it if that's okay.
That would be very kind.
Waiting time is no problem for me since I currently use Channel Spacing "20" as workaround where manual channel selection is working fine (now).
