So, I was hesitant to make a post like this, but I've found that I'm unable/unwilling to move forward with my homework tonight if I don't make a post -- essentially griping about the XR500.
My previous Netgear router gave me several good years, through several moves and bumps across the country... Don't ask me what it was, I got it from the Walmart near Fort Stewart, GA back in like 2011. Either way, when my 2.4 band recently started giving me issues, I figured I might as well upgrade... Moving forward into present day reality, I not only wanted to be able to watch muh shows, I also wanted to be able to play games online and stream without facing any latency issues. After doing quite a bit of research, I decided to get the XR500. I feel like I did a fair amount of due diligence... I chose the XR500 over the newer 700 because of the price, and the reality that it still seemed to be a solid router by most commentary... I CHOSE to ignore a lot of comments discussing issues people were having with their QoS because I told myself, "I can just disable that, like recommended..." Blah blah blah.
Fast forward... I had to plug my PS4 (please set gaming console criticism aside, I also PC game) directly into the router because the latency issues I was having on the 5ghz band were so severe when doing something as simple as playing Fortnite WITHOUT streaming. That immediately defeated the purpose of wanting a capable WiFi router. Moving forward though, the 2.4 speed tests on my phone? Garbage. Speed tests on my PC in the next room on the 2.4? Worse than garbage... But the 5ghz band seemingly was working fine(not good), so I decided staying connected to that on my PC. Today, I tried to do something really simple... Play a game of Jackbox on my PC with friends while streaming on Twitch. I'm not a big time streamer or anything like that, but I had 16 people on my channel when my stream started to experience issues. Not only is that the most I ever had (compared to my average of six), but a lot of people were participating in the conversation -- especially when they started to tell me my connection was dropping. I'm already pretty ugly, I can only shudder to think what frames my face became frozen on as they tolerated my stream.
Now, I wasn't planning on streaming for very long because I wanted to get started on my paper... A few hours ago... I called Netgear support because I was even having difficulty loading the webpage I submit my assignments on. This poor tech support guy. I honestly feel bad because of the fact that he had to be on the phone with me for about 2 hours as he walked me through and even "teamwork"ed my computer... Only to have to tell me that he was going to have to call me later, hopefully with a solution. I could go through and list all the things he did to address the issue with my 2.4 band in particular, but I think saying it was exhaustive is fair enough. Unfortunately, a lot of what he did was essentially repeats of what I already tried based on other Netgear community and third party help discussions.
I don't know, Netgear. An ELITE gaming router that costs a consumer $300 should not result in so much disappointment. I don't even want to think about "upgrading" to the XR700 because of some of the Amazon comments... I'm going to pay attention to the red flags this time. I really hope the tech support agent is able to appropriately help/fix my issue whenever he calls me back later tonight... Otherwise, the damn thing is going in the trash -- I don't even want to pay to return it, and I'm going to try my luck with a Linksys router or something.
For the potential future support tech who may read this, my ticket is #42539729. Goodness, I really hope I don't have to throw this thing away. I'm a grad student who wants to spend his squandered dollars away on Popeye's and beer... Not failed tech expirements...
Sorry to hear you're having these issues. I'll be suggesting some things to try, apologies if you've tried them already - I don't have access to Netgears ticket system.
What is your exact physical setup? It sounds like you may have Smart Connect disabled, is that right? If not I'd suggest doing that. Use a WiFi analyzer to find the least congested channels in your area and change 2.4/5GHz to use those, that should help with the speeds. Have you disabled WiFi on your ISP hub? If not you should do that to prevent the two networks conflicting. Have you input the speeds you pay for/expect into Anti-Bufferbloats option menu and are you using QoS? If so that will throttle the speeds.
When you're streaming using Twitch I would recommend you disable Traffic Prioritization and that should help, any other time I would recommend it is enabled. I'd suggest going through these optimal settings guides and make sure everything is setup properly: http://support.netduma.com/en/support/solutions/folders/16000090646
