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AX12 RAX200 band keeps changing by itself.

MB_82
Aspirant

AX12 RAX200 band keeps changing by itself.

So, just installed my new router. The Internet is working fine. However, when I try to play World of Warcraft, I keep getting disconnected. It's only when playing. I noticed that after a disconnect the band that I am connected to is different than when I started; I may have been on 5GH band 2 and when I exit from the loading screen after the disconnection error, I may be on band 5GH 1 or even the 2.4 GH band. I have no idea what could be causing this. The router I upgraded from was an Netgear AC5800 and it did not give me any problems. Any insight or info on how to fix this would be greatly appreciated!

Model: RAX200|Nighthawk Tri-band AX12 12-Stream Wi-Fi 6 Router
Message 1 of 7

Accepted Solutions
rinthos
Luminary

Re: AX12 RAX200 band keeps changing by itself.


/h@MB_82 wrote:

Thank you both for the advice!

 

I had the options in the attachment selected, I did not enable the smart connect, but I did have the OFDMA options selected. Not sure what that is, could that be the cause? 

 

As far as channels, I left them on the default; 2.4 is on auto, 5GH1 is on 44 and 5GH2 is on 100. Should I turn down the transmission power on the two channels I don't want to use for gaming?


OFDMA is.a specific setting for 802.11ax devices to have dedicated subchannels used, not related...

 

With SmartConnect disabled, I'm a bit at a loss for why your device is switching to different WiFi networks..?

On your router, make sure you have a separate SSID for each one of the 3 networks.

 

Just to validate, can you remove all configurations for all 3 WiFi networks from your computer? Then just add one of them (perhaps one of the 5Ghz ones)? 

 

Your computer won't automatically be able to switch unless it's be configured to accept the others.

Tri-band Wifi isn't intended for a single device to be on 3 bands, but rather to spread devices across all 3 bands for more optimal WiFi capacity.

 

Also thanks for the screenshot, made it easy to understand these WiFi settings.

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Message 5 of 7

All Replies
plemans
Guru

Re: AX12 RAX200 band keeps changing by itself.

The RAX200 does bandsteering. Meaning it'll switch devices between bands as needed based on distance, interference, rssi, bandwidth, etc. 

If its causing issues with gaming, you can disable it and set seperate names for each band. 

Message 2 of 7
rinthos
Luminary

Re: AX12 RAX200 band keeps changing by itself.


@plemans wrote:

The RAX200 does bandsteering. Meaning it'll switch devices between bands as needed based on distance, interference, rssi, bandwidth, etc. 

If its causing issues with gaming, you can disable it and set seperate names for each band. 




Agreed, I would suggest turning off band streering (Netgear calls it SmartConnect I believe). Create a separate WiFi network for each band and you should be in good shape.  Either that, or you may want to change the channels being used for each wifi band..but my guess is your computer fan/gpu when busy (or if CPU is maxed) is creating some sort of hiccup and latency and Netgear is trying to "fix" it by moving your computer to another wifi band, which really isn't a fix.

 

Could also be WiFi drivers on your computer, so worth a shot updating those as well...

 

Message 3 of 7
MB_82
Aspirant

Re: AX12 RAX200 band keeps changing by itself.

Thank you both for the advice!

 

I had the options in the attachment selected, I did not enable the smart connect, but I did have the OFDMA options selected. Not sure what that is, could that be the cause? 

 

As far as channels, I left them on the default; 2.4 is on auto, 5GH1 is on 44 and 5GH2 is on 100. Should I turn down the transmission power on the two channels I don't want to use for gaming?

Message 4 of 7
rinthos
Luminary

Re: AX12 RAX200 band keeps changing by itself.


/h@MB_82 wrote:

Thank you both for the advice!

 

I had the options in the attachment selected, I did not enable the smart connect, but I did have the OFDMA options selected. Not sure what that is, could that be the cause? 

 

As far as channels, I left them on the default; 2.4 is on auto, 5GH1 is on 44 and 5GH2 is on 100. Should I turn down the transmission power on the two channels I don't want to use for gaming?


OFDMA is.a specific setting for 802.11ax devices to have dedicated subchannels used, not related...

 

With SmartConnect disabled, I'm a bit at a loss for why your device is switching to different WiFi networks..?

On your router, make sure you have a separate SSID for each one of the 3 networks.

 

Just to validate, can you remove all configurations for all 3 WiFi networks from your computer? Then just add one of them (perhaps one of the 5Ghz ones)? 

 

Your computer won't automatically be able to switch unless it's be configured to accept the others.

Tri-band Wifi isn't intended for a single device to be on 3 bands, but rather to spread devices across all 3 bands for more optimal WiFi capacity.

 

Also thanks for the screenshot, made it easy to understand these WiFi settings.

Message 5 of 7
lmanpunk
Star

Re: AX12 RAX200 band keeps changing by itself.

It is a horrible product. If you still have time, send it back.   Maybe Netgear will trade straight up the Orbi RBK753S for RAX200 because the RAX200 is a connection dropping piece of crap.  You can go through all the various troubleshooting in these forum but you would better off sending it back if you just got it.

Message 6 of 7
MB_82
Aspirant

Re: AX12 RAX200 band keeps changing by itself.

@rinthos All my SSIDs are different... the same basename, but the 5GH frequencies have 5GH-1 and -2 at the end.

 

I don't see an option to disable the other two channels, at least not like how the guest wifi settings show it. I can make it so the SSID isn't broadcast but it still is active and would change to it; it was part of my troubleshooting when the issues first arised. 

 

So far I have not had any issues with the bands changing on me after dropping the the transmit power to 75% on the 2.4 and second 5GH bands, so I think that might have been what was causing it to switch; as one got worse, it hopped to a better one. It seems they're playing nice... for now.

Message 7 of 7
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