Like many other users of the RAX35/40 v1 routers, I gave up on it after a slew of bad software, lack of support and communication. I recently re-read another forum post, RAX40 Firmware 1.0.3.80 Crash/Bug Log, out of curisoity and it seems like the router is now usable with all promised features. Many of the other post have been marked as resolved or closed due to inactivity. So I started this one to get some feedback from other users who stuck with the router; Would you now reccomend using the router with the latest update?
Any feedback would be great for those of us who have been burned by NETGEAR with this product and are curious to see if this router made a triumph comeback!
I stuck with the router through all its pain and hell that it brought me. The router is finally in a usesable state with the latest firmware. This is how it should have been from day 1!!! I do have issues with it every so often where after a reboot all of the router settings are lost and I need to reset the whole thing. This has happened once or twice over the last year.
I didn't change routers simply because WIFI6e isn't too far off so didn't see the point when I'll most likely be upgrading sometime in the near future once WIFI6e routers are more readily available.
One piece of advice is to keep regular backups of your router settings.
Hope your experience with the router is better than mine (and everyone else's who had issues).
I actively posted in the "RAX40 Firmware 1.0.3.80 Crash/Bug Log" thread during those difficult times of getting a non-working router (RAX35v1) working with some level of reliability and with the all the features advertised for the router actually active and available.
Firmware version .94 did work reliably with all features enabled and available (I can only speak for the features that I am using though). But QOS is not functional (or at least doesn't appear to be since it gives no status information) and Remote Access has been removed. I ran .94 for many months with no issues.
I recently installed firmware version 1.0.4.102 which apparently was a security fix release. I have not noticed any problems with it so far. I installed on top of .94 and lost no settings and the router restarted with no problems. I have noticed one smart device having some issues lately connecting to the Internet and responding, but other smart devices have no issues so at this point I think it is not a router problem but am monitoring the situation.
Definitely make a backup of your setings before doing any update to firmware. Also download the current version of your firmware so that if the update fails and you do not have access to the Internet you will have the previous version locally available to reinstall on your router.
