Received this router as a gift for father's day to replace an AC1750. Ever since setting up the Gaming router, its been having many many issues that require restarts to fix. I had my AC1750 for 8 years and had to restart it maybe 2 times a year at the most, this XR1000 has needed to be restarted 2 times a week or sometimes has to be factory reset to fix issues.
The list of issues are as follows:
1. Very slow user interface, it was slow out of the box but now its gotten even slower, about 6 second delay to any change via the website and sometimes changes dont go through (this PC is hard wired to the router too)
2. Dropping wireless devices at random and without warning. It doesn't become apparant until you try to use the internet on the wireless device by which then it'll have full wifi signal but device says "No Internet Connection" and router will not re-assign it a new IP Address.
3. Wifi Range varying drastically or even turning a mobile device causes the internet to drop. I never had this problem with my AC1750 and could even be at my mailbox with still a strong wifi signal, now i walk 30 feet into the next room and turn my phone sideways and the signal drops.
4. Static IP assigned devices will quit connecting and when looking into the settings, the MAC Address and IP Address have been swapped in the router settings (happened on my gaming consoles and all my Ring Cameras)
5. Nighthawk App locks up 50% of the time when trying to access the router through it but app has no issues with the other 3 routers linked to my account (R8500, R6700v3 and R6400)
Is this a list of common issues for other users or did I just get a defective router? Too much time has passed to return the router back to the store for a refund, does Netgear have any warranty that will offer a replacement or refund due to bad routers?
Thanks
Firmware Version: v1.0.0.58
Connected to a Cable Modem
Managing an average of 25 devices at any given point but a max of 40.
Sorry to hear you're having these issues, I'll address each point:
1. We are aware it is slower than some of the other routers but please ensure you're connecting to the interface via HTTP rather than HTTPS. Use Google Chrome or a Chromium based browser. Do you have Armor enabled? If so disable that and it may speed up.
2. Do you have Smart Connect enabled? If so it could be the automatic switching between 2.4/5GHz causing it - not all devices seem to get along with that. Change the mode on 5GHz to Up to 2400 Mbps instead of 4800 Mbps - we have seen significantly less issues of disconnects on this mode.
3. See #2, also set the antenna like this for optimal range _ | | _
4. Could you clarify what you mean by the MAC and IP swap?
5. Can't help too much on that as that's a purely Netgear venture. You can however use the DumaOS app to use some of the DumaOS features via mobile.
1. Use chrome web browser by default and i disabled Armor on day 1, not a fan of it.
2. I did disable Smart Connect after reading a few weeks back about it causing issues with wireless devices. I'll try changing the 5GHz to 2400, it was set to 4800mbps.
3. I'll rearrange the antennaes as suggested and see if that helps with range
4. i attached a photo showing. i have all my devices on static IP Addresses and my wife always complains about her phone not having internet connection, i just checked it right now and thats what it shows on the Device Manager Network Map. I can manually fix it but it will randomly do this from time to time. It may be a visual error but ive noticed when devices cant retrieve an ip address, this is what happens on the Network Map.
Side Questions:
Should I enable AX to enable OFDMA?
Enable 20/40 MHz coexistence?
Enable Implicit Beamforming?
Enable Mu-MIMO?
Sorry about the side questions, my previous router had none of those options so its all new to me.
1. Does using HTTP speed things up at all? Are you using an incognito or private browsing mode at all? Depending on the browser and type, dumaos may not be able to cache data which will slow things down.
Let us know how you get on with points 2 and 3.
4. Are you using IPv6 in your network? If not, could you please disable it in the Network Settings as this could be causing a problem. We don't see this as much with the XR range but it can cause issues on our R2 router.
Depending on the kind of speeds you get from your ISP, enabling AX and subsequently OFDMA could definitely help so it's worth trying. Same goes for 20/40 coexistance, Beamforming and MU-MIMO. As these aren't features we at Netduma implemented, we may not be able to help as much with these, though I still believe there's no harm in trying them to experiment!
