I purchased my xr500 on June 01, 2018 so i am unable to contact support directly. Starting pretty much immediatly after buying this thing have I been plagued with the constant rebooting ( Once to twice a day, irregular times not limited to any particular use, meaning it doesn't always happen when on xbox or on pc, the router just randomly reboots). I have most all my deviced connected wirelessly to it but my xbox one x is hardwired. When the internet drops all lights on the router go out then enters back into its standard boot process. I have scoured the forums constantly and have attempted every possible step to remedy it it without fail. To be clear I have attempted the following:
~Factory Reset (Multiple Times)
~Constantly maintained up to date firmware (Currently running FV. V2.3.2.32)
~ I have changed Surge Protectors, I have tried a UPS, I have plugged directly into wall, I even completely changed the wall outlet.
~I haved tried both the MAC settings from the default address and Use Computer Mac Address
~I have tried both assigning dedicated IP's to all my devices and also tried letting it chose automatically.
~On the xbox my settings are set to energy mode (Instant on is NOT activated).
Also note that I have done full reboots on my xr500 and my primary modem after making each change. At this point I am ready to throw this 300 dollar paper weight in the trash. Since I use a network extender for my cell phone I am constantly dropping phone calls when this thing reboots.. All in all this router has caused me and so many others I have read about serious headaches. Is there any news or updates that can be shared with me that may ultimately fix this seemly widespread issue?
What is the Mfr and model# of the ISP modem the NG router is connected too?
What channels are you using? Auto? Try setting manual channel 1, 6 or 11 on 2.4Ghz and any unused channel on 5Ghz. Any Wifi Neighbors or devices near by? If so, how many?
What is the mfr and model of this wireless extender?
My ISP provider is Comcast and the Modem is the Arris Model TG1682G
Channels: I have tried all them I stared out with auto then throughout the months tried switching between channels 1, 6, and 11. Currently I have it back to auto with Smart Connect enabled. But about a week ago I had disabled smart connect and was trying channel 11 and 2 weeks prior to that I had tried channel 6 and before that I was on 1. The most recent change a couple days ago I did a factory reset and changed the mac address from default to use computer mac and I left the wifi channels set to auto. In terms of issues with the current setup last night and the night before I experience a moment of severe performace drop and then the router rebooted.
Neighbors: None live in the sticks no house near me
Also worth noting I am using the Netgear Wifi Analytics tool to test my signal strength and the apps recommended channel settings are 1, 11, 153, 165 which is what I was setting my preferences too when not in auto.
Modem Combo Units: Couple of options, 1. Configure the modem for transparent bridge mode. Then use the NG router in router mode. You'll need to contact the ISP for help and information in regards to the modem being bridged correctly. 2. If you can't bridge the modem, disable ALL wifi radios on the modem, configure the modems DMZ for the IP address the NG router gets from the modem.
On each of the reboots and on my latest factory reset, I unplugged the arris for atleast a minute (sort of unplugged and walked away) then I plugged it back in let it do its full boot before plugging back in the xr. As per the XR setup recommendations I have kept the IPV6 disabled since initial setup. I experimented with turning it on but never to any positive outcome so I always turned it back off and is currently off.
Do you notice any similarities between the times it reboots such as when a particular device connects or heavy internet usage, doing a specific task or anything like that?
No I even kept a log of it for a while to try to figure it out, but it has been completely random. It occurs throughout the day and since I work from home I am able to closely monitor it. Last couple times has been in the evening when I was on my xbox, but before that it was early afternoon and the only device running was my network extender and pc. I have even did the laborious process of removing all devices from the network and turned on singlular devices like my pc or xbox and let it run like that for a while and it still managed to drop signal during my "trial" period. But from reading from other comments on this board this issue doesn't seem to be isolated to just me. What should my next steps be besides pulling this thing off my network? 300 dollars for a router is a pretty bitter pill by itself, even worse when that said router is consistently unreliable and is negatively impacting my daily routine.
Could you make sure the router isn't on a surface like a carpet where it could easily overheat. Also try taking the Arris out of bridge mode and instead use DMZ and see if that helps.
The issue that others are having is mainly to do with disconnects not full on reboots.
I switched my Arris out of bridge into using the DMZ Hosting method.It caused a bit of issues with my wifi speeds were severly compromised and it has already rebooted a couple times in this time frame between our conversations.And yes I did a full on reboot of both routers after making the changes. But my immediate reaction is it doesn't seem to be much better but will monitor and will report back. As for the reference to the other posts the few I was referring too was from PBandJ 4-19-2018 , Cosmic_Ancestry 8-30-2018 , ThinkMcFlyThink 9-18-2018 and over on the net duma site directly there was quite a few... I don't want to turn this into a argument of sematics but in the various articles the term "Full Reboot" or "Restarting" was brought up multiple times which I interpreted as reboots not "disconnects" which in fact is the same issue I am having.Figured it is good to bring it up so if there was any cross simularities we can better determine the cause of the problem.
Which version of the firmware are you now on? There is a .32 firmware that contains a hotfix that might help with your problem. It's 'V2.3.2.32-802-3-az-1009'
I will PM it to you now in case you don't have it.
Be sure to disable ALL wireless on the Arris modem after un-bridging it.
You might try going back to initial first version FW. Load it up and see if your problems still continue. If it does, I believe you just have a bad router and it needs to be replaced.
I switched my Arris out of bridge into using the DMZ Hosting method.It caused a bit of issues with my wifi speeds were severly compromised and it has already rebooted a couple times in this time frame between our conversations.And yes I did a full on reboot of both routers after making the changes. But my immediate reaction is it doesn't seem to be much better but will monitor and will report back. As for the reference to the other posts the few I was referring too was from PBandJ 4-19-2018 , Cosmic_Ancestry 8-30-2018 , ThinkMcFlyThink 9-18-2018 and over on the net duma site directly there was quite a few... I don't want to turn this into a argument of sematics but in the various articles the term "Full Reboot" or "Restarting" was brought up multiple times which I interpreted as reboots not "disconnects" which in fact is the same issue I am having.Figured it is good to bring it up so if there was any cross simularities we can better determine the cause of the problem.
You might try going back to initial first version FW. Load it up and see if your problems still continue. If it does, I believe you just have a bad router and it needs to be replaced.
Try upgrading to the hotfix firmware I sent you too - it might solve your problem.
If it does not, I recommend you contact NETGEAR's official support abd raise a Case ID with NETGEA. They might be able to send you another beta firmware to help with your problem.
I have recently been having problems with the internet dropping every few days, causing me to have to reset as well. I currently have firmware v2.3.2.32, is this the newest version or is there a newer one that might address this problem? This is sort of a new problem for me, I’ve had the xr500 for months but lately I’ve been having to reset it. The only new thing that has been added within the past couple of weeks is a Ring camera. Any suggestions?
I am also on V2.3.2.32, as you can see from this long string of posts I ended up being sent to tech support. They sent me out a new router, which I am too still have the same reset issues on. My advice beyond the basic stuff such as IPV6 Disabled, and using the "Use Computer Mac Address" feature selected. Go into the Monitoring tab then to logs and at the bottom of the screen is a bunch of checked boxes, I untoggled all of them. Once I did that I saw a massive reduction in the amount the router rebooted, I am down to it only rebooting once every few days instead of multiple times daily. Also on xbox i turned off the bufferbloat feature in QOS, which sucks since it is a unique feature to this router but noticed that when it was set to "never" it has reduced my rebooting while gaming. Also note that it is super important that after any changes you do a full power cycle on the router, I unplug for 30 seconds then plug back in, and I do this on both my Modem and nn the nighthawk. Other than that and what has been said in this forum previously I am about out of solutions for a definitive 100% perfect fix. I just think this router has a lot of bugs and untill they address it with future updates we are left dealing with the speradic reboots. Hope this helps, and good luck.
Hi Okemo, I'd suggest the same things above, I'll also send you a firmware. Weird that those settings would affect it as I don't think they could be related.
