I just had a major problem with my new Netgear router. It stopped responding to any attempt to communicate with it and appears to have factory reset itself, partially.
It's a Nighthawk XR700 Pro Gaming Router. Firmware Version: v1.0.1.20 (before and after the factory reset problem occurred)
It's only a few months old. Everything seemed to be working fine before this happened. It's plugged into a surge protector. Power did not go out or surge.
It was working fine one night and the next morning I couldn't connect to the internet with any device (Android phone, Win10 PC, smartTV...) The devices were not connecting to the router anymore. The router did not show up as an available device under the wifi connections (its default factory name WAS NOT showing up in available wifi device list either.) The lights on the router were all on, as if it was working fine. Some lights were blinking (Internet, 5g, 2.4g) as if it was sending data, but nothing was happening.
I tried to login to the router via wifi, but since the router could not be seen as an available device this did not work, of course. I connected a lan cable between my PC and the router and tried to login to the router again. My PC could not connect via the www.routerlogin. net address, 192.168.1.1 address nor my custom address (192.168.1.XX), but the PC DID see the default name of the router under the PC's Internet Lan Settings Info. So the router could be seen. It had just reset back to its factory default name and stopped responding.
I power-cycled the router several times. Made sure all buttons on the router were "On" (like the wifi.) I tried connecting again to the router via wifi and then also lan. Still, neither worked. The router could be seen by Windows when using a lan cable, but the router would never respond to any attempt to connect to it. The default login screen would not appear and the setup wizard wouldn't appear. The browser would just timeout eventually. I tried this many times. Power-cycling between attempts.
At this point all the main lights were Solid and the Internet light was blinking as if it was transmitting data, but nothing was really happening.
Finally, I just used a paper clip and pressed the factory reset button. As soon as the router rebooted it connected to the PC, opened a browser window and went to the setup wizard. I was able to set it all up again like new.
Why would the router just stop working like this, reset its name, stop responding and need a hard factory reset? Anyone else have this happen?
I noticed the fan on top of router (under the wire mesh) never spins. It never has. The router gets fairly hot too. Not too hot to touch, but very hot. The router is in a well ventilated area. Is the fan defective/broken and the router overheating, maybe? Or is the DumaOS just unstable and buggy (and slow?) Or could a hacking attempt cause this to happen???
I've had other routers that never did anything like this. They were on for years. Stable as can be. It's a pain to have to set everything back up again including all the device names. This thing doesn't seem to be so "Pro" if it's unstable and slow. I'm already disappointed that it doesn't have older Netgear features, like Access Control, especially for how expensive the router is. Hopefully, this reset issue doesn't happen anymore.
Any advice on how to prevent this from happening again or what might have gone wrong is much appreciated. For instance, does anyone else know if the fan on the top of their XR700 spins (never, sometimes, all the time, fast, slow???)
It's impossible to say why it happened from what you've mentioned, without having some information during the time it happened. Should it happen again find out what IP your PC has when connected via ethernet by doing ipconfig in command prompt. Whatever it says for the gateway try accessing using that IP.
The fan will spin if it gets hot enough but it's not like a computer fan, it won't be very loud. You can adjust the fan settings from routerlogin.net/debug.htm but this isn't necessary to do. First though upgrade to this latest firmware https://kb.netgear.com/000061714/XR700-Firmware-Version-1-0-1-24-Hot-Fix then I would suggest doing an immediate factory reset to ensure no issues carry over and then monitor it to see if it happens again.
