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Re: All sorts of connection problems with RAX80 and EAX80s

Scobleizer
Aspirant

All sorts of connection problems with RAX80 and EAX80s

I'm having a ton of problems. Had this setup for about two weeks now, RAX80 hooked up to an AT&T fiber line and two EAX80s. When they work everything is amazing and fast. The problem is they almost always lose connection after a few hours. First my Sonos system stops working (that's on 2.4Gz). I have a Sonos Beam, subwoofer, and two satellite speakers, all sonos, and the link between them stops. If I don't reboot all my Netgear equipment it eventually will lose connection. Today it did again and my wife couldn't use it to make an important call.

I have reset them many times, and have tried many different configurations. The one that seems to be most reliable is to keep them as factory default as possible, with a separate SSID for 2.4Gz and 5Gz with smart connect off. I'm using the latest drivers, says everything is up to date. 

 

Anything I should try on this end or should I just call tech support and see if there's anything they suggest before I return this whole set?

Model: RAX80|Nighthawk AX8 8-Stream WiFi Router
Message 1 of 23
GabboCH
Apprentice

Re: All sorts of connection problems with RAX80 and EAX80s

There are lots of threads with basically the same connectivity issues. 2.4, 5G or both drop randomly & repeatidly.

Given that an RAX80 & two EAX80 would be south of $1000 I'd just return it.

 

The only support suggestions seem to be selecting a manual Wifi channel, disabling SmartConnect or downgrading to an old firmware.

Message 2 of 23
Scobleizer
Aspirant

Re: All sorts of connection problems with RAX80 and EAX80s

Changing the channel settings to 11 for my 2.4Gz setting fixed my problems. Thank you for the suggestions!
Message 3 of 23
GabboCH
Apprentice

Re: All sorts of connection problems with RAX80 and EAX80s

Will be interesting to see if the problem stays away.
Are you running the latest firmware (64) because in the release notes of this software it says that channels 1, 11,12,13 will not be used if the channel is set to AUTO mode.

However, I am using this firmware & the router still used channel 1, which is giving me these connection problems.

I'm waiting for an answer of the release notes are wrong or the firmware isn't working as it should be.
Message 4 of 23
Scobleizer
Aspirant

Re: All sorts of connection problems with RAX80 and EAX80s

Sorry, I was mistaken. I set it to channel 6. Yes, I'm using the latest firmware. I also turned off Smart Connect. Have separate SSIDs for 2.4Gz and 5Gz.

Message 5 of 23
Christian_R
NETGEAR Employee Retired

Re: All sorts of connection problems with RAX80 and EAX80s

Hello Scobleizer,

 

Thank you for taking the time to post. I'm curious to know how you have the extenders set up. Are they connected to each other or are both extenders connected to the router? 

 

Thanks!

Christian 

Message 6 of 23
Clibert
Star

Re: All sorts of connection problems with RAX80 and EAX80s

I’m having nothing but issues as well. Have the RAx80 running fast on its own but no connection to front of house for wired components there so added EAX80. It is super fast connected to the router but now the connection for other devices on WiFi in the front of the house is poor and so bad that threads on Facebook do not load and profile pics are blanks.
Message 7 of 23
Clibert
Star

Re: All sorts of connection problems with RAX80 and EAX80s

Also should note I took a look at the WiFi signals near me and set both to unused channels
Message 8 of 23
billdavies
Star

Re: All sorts of connection problems with RAX80 and EAX80s

I added an EAX80 to my upstairs today and it essentially bricked my WiFi network.   The RAX80 was set up in July 2019 and worked fine, although my son complained that there was poor signal upstairs. (I never experienced that.)

 

Added the EAX80 today, the wizard worked perfectly, everything connected, all indicator lights perfect.  Except data can't move.  Exactly like when I am at Kaiser and join their public network and things slow to a crawl.

 

I am guessing if I go upstairs and unplug it, things will return to normal.   My app for some Smart Home devices can't even load now.  Turned off WiFi on the phone and BOOM the app page loads.

 

Suggestions?

Model: RAX80|Nighthawk AX8 8-Stream WiFi Router
Message 9 of 23
Clibert
Star

Re: All sorts of connection problems with RAX80 and EAX80s

Same. It tests fast but irnos like there is a bottleneck somewhere. Facebook fails to load movies buffer. The 802.11ac extender from att works fine with the arris router and I figured with wifi6 this would be much faster. Nope
Message 10 of 23
Outlaw0fTorn
Aspirant

Re: All sorts of connection problems with RAX80 and EAX80s

Im having the same problems with an RAX80 and EAX80.

 

I recently upgraded and have had nothign but problems with this.  Cant even play World of Warcraft without my laptop dropping connection constantly.

Message 11 of 23
Outlaw0fTorn
Aspirant

Re: All sorts of connection problems with RAX80 and EAX80s


@billdavies wrote:

I added an EAX80 to my upstairs today and it essentially bricked my WiFi network.   The RAX80 was set up in July 2019 and worked fine, although my son complained that there was poor signal upstairs. (I never experienced that.)

 

Added the EAX80 today, the wizard worked perfectly, everything connected, all indicator lights perfect.  Except data can't move.  Exactly like when I am at Kaiser and join their public network and things slow to a crawl.

 

I am guessing if I go upstairs and unplug it, things will return to normal.   My app for some Smart Home devices can't even load now.  Turned off WiFi on the phone and BOOM the app page loads.

 

Suggestions?


 

 

Had the same problem.  Everything seemd to start just fine but once I started playing games on my laptop I would just get constant lag spikes.  Im at a complete loss at what to do so I think I'm just going to return them both and just but the old nighthawk gaming router that I had before with the older range extender that worked like a champ for quite awhile.

Message 12 of 23
billdavies
Star

Re: All sorts of connection problems with RAX80 and EAX80s

I seem to recall that I was to blame for some operator error.  I added the extender via the Netgear app and assumed I was done.  I think it was several days later I figured out that I actually had to login to the EAX80 and tell it to create a bridge to the RAX80, so all the app did was add the EAX80 to my WiFi network but did not configure the two devices to speak to one another.

Message 13 of 23
Outlaw0fTorn
Aspirant

Re: All sorts of connection problems with RAX80 and EAX80s

Thank you for responding.

I did log into the extender and got it set up but it just drop connection randomly causing my games to lag out still. Spent most of the day messing with it. Pretty much lost
Message 14 of 23
Christian_R
NETGEAR Employee Retired

Re: All sorts of connection problems with RAX80 and EAX80s

Hello Outlaw0fTorn,

 

If you recently purchased your device please note that newly purchased devices are provided with 90 days of complimentary support from our support team. You may access your complimentary support using the link below. One thing to check is to see whether the device is connected to the extender or router during the connection drops/lag spikes.

 

https://www.netgear.com/support/default.aspx

 

Christian 

Message 15 of 23
carys4
Star

Re: All sorts of connection problems with RAX80 and EAX80s

Having the same issues as many others who have paired the RAX80 and EAX80. I turned off the EAX80 for now and continuing to use the older tri-band X6S EX8000 as it is more robust and performs much better than the newer, more expensive EAX80.

Message 16 of 23
cmka
Initiate

Re: All sorts of connection problems with RAX80 and EAX80s

I just got an EAX80 last week to extend my RAX80 router and have had nothing but issues as well.  Any device connected to the EAX80 has constant latency/ping issues and connections temporarily stop functioning causing the device to not be able to load a web page or my video stream to constantly freeze.

 

My RAX80 router works perfectly fine and anything connected to it works, the EAX80 extender is the issue.

 

I have tried all the tricks in the book from manually updating the firmware, factory reset, setup as new, try multiple locations, try multiple different setups, fastlane/basic, one name, change channels, etc. and nothing fixed the problems.  The EAX80 is completely unusable and it's latest firmware is already over 8 months old.  

 

If I can't get a Netgear EAX80 to work properly with a Netgear RAX80, Netgear you have serious quality control issues.  I have given up and am going to return this paper weight.

Message 17 of 23
xjn
Apprentice
Apprentice

Re: All sorts of connection problems with RAX80 and EAX80s

Try hardwired connection and set it in AP mode instead of connecting to RAX80 wirelessly 

Message 18 of 23
carys4
Star

Re: All sorts of connection problems with RAX80 and EAX80s

Doesn't that defeat the whole purpose of having it as a wireless extender if you're going to hardwire it anyways?
Message 19 of 23
xjn
Apprentice
Apprentice

Re: All sorts of connection problems with RAX80 and EAX80s


@carys4 wrote:
Doesn't that defeat the whole purpose of having it as a wireless extender if you're going to hardwire it anyways?

I have the EAX80 as an AP so that devices in rear of house have a stronger connection. It is in same room as RAX80 but set to AP mode and hardwired over Ethernet. My house is small but due to layout would get disconnects in rear... EAX80 solves issue by placing it closer to rear of house and higher up than RAX80 which is near middle of house and closer to ground.


Using channel scanner I looked for free channels and set EAX80 to lower channels and RAX80 to higher channels to avoid interference. So far it works pretty well... the speeds are slightly less than RAX80 but I usually connect main devices to RAX80 and other less important stuff to EAX80.

 

I have smart connect turned off and separate names for all four networks ... two 2.4GHz and two 5GHz with each device set to only one network to keep them from roaming. The EAX80 networks are hidden but saved in phone and set not to auto join. If I am in rear of house on primary device and drop from RAX80 then I manually switch to EAX80. 

It would be nice if didn't have to hardwire and could move it farther away but then would have more interference due to it connecting wirelessly to EAX80.... it would be nice to use smart connect and roaming also but more trouble than it's worth and easier to lock devices to router or AP and manually switch networks if needed. 

The Comcast Gateway puts out a signal even if in bridge mode and disable hotspot so must change its channels also before putting it in bridge mode. I moved its channels to 11 and 165 so not overlapping with Netgear equipment. Doing that solved most interference issues for me. My Sonos setup is also set to 11 but can not manually set the 5Ghz for surrounds on Sonos.

 

Sonos has web interface can see what channel it auto selects for surrounds... it usually will move to avoid the other three 5Ghz channels. Occasionally I will see drops in speed and usually will notice Sonos has moved to channel already occupied. Turning it on and off will get it to move back to better channel.

 

Frustrating have to micromanage everything constantly but I would rather be able to than not. That is reason have toughed out Netgear issues since many other alternative routers such as Eero, Google WiFi, or Amplifi Alien don't even have channel selection which ends up causing more issues if they all jump around each other constantly.

Message 20 of 23
mikey2122
Aspirant

Re: All sorts of connection problems with RAX80 and EAX80s

I had nothing but problems streaming Netflix to some devices on the wired connection (even when I switched to wireless), also couldn't play PS Now (it would just spin in circles forever).  All network and speed tests would show successful.  I found someone suggest (to get PS now working again) change the MTU setting on the PS4 from 1500 to 1473.  I did this and it started working again.  I wondered if all this time, all the streaming issues I have had (even though I have 1Gbps download internet) was caused by the MTU setting in the router?  So I went into the "Advanced", "Setup", "WAN Setup" and changed the MTU setting from 1500 to 1473 and saved the setting.  Everything is working as intended now......no more network drops/lagging on any services.

Model: RAX80|Nighthawk AX8 8-Stream WiFi Router
Message 21 of 23
carys4
Star

Re: All sorts of connection problems with RAX80 and EAX80s

"It would be nice if didn't have to hardwire and could move it farther away but then would have more interference due to it connecting wirelessly to EAX80."

That's exactly my point. For the price we pay for the EAX80 - this is exactly the problem this device was supposed to be able to solve. If you look at how it's advertised and the diagrams of how it's supposed to work, it's supposed to eliminate those interferences wirelessly using its new technology.
Message 22 of 23
xjn
Apprentice
Apprentice

Re: All sorts of connection problems with RAX80 and EAX80s


@carys4 wrote:
"It would be nice if didn't have to hardwire and could move it farther away but then would have more interference due to it connecting wirelessly to EAX80."

That's exactly my point. For the price we pay for the EAX80 - this is exactly the problem this device was supposed to be able to solve. If you look at how it's advertised and the diagrams of how it's supposed to work, it's supposed to eliminate those interferences wirelessly using its new technology.

Unfortunately almost everything related to routers these days seems to be false advertising... "speeds up to" claims and features missing... read the Duckware article about AX routers... almost seems like whole wifi industry is a scam. 

Message 23 of 23
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