Tired of problems with RAX80; options for its second life?
I needed a new router during March due to a move (and still owning the old house for a while, requiring WiFi for the home security system) and a lot of products were sold out, so I bought an RAX80. The problems with this router seem beyond belief. I hope this is my last Netgear product, ever. After selling my old home, I downgraded to the old router and now this RAX80 is collecting dust.
What should I do with it? Are Netgear likely to care about any of my problems (noted below) enough to buy it back from me? Should I try to resell it (seems dishonest given the problems?) At this point, I think my best option might be to Office Space the thing so I can at least get some enjoyment out of the $249.99 I spent on what turned out to be a temporary and bad solution.
Entertaining your suggestions.
Problems experienced:
Connectivity problems between devices on 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands, e.g. printer/scanner issues, Roku mobile app non-functional, etc. when two devices are connected to different wireless bands -- this seems like a well-known problem as I've seen threads about it on this forum, and Netgear isn't doing anything to address it. It's the deal-breaker for me.
A Roku Ultra, Roku 3, and Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 occassionally have trouble remaining connected. Sometimes, I'll just have to put a device down and walk away for a while. Unbelieveable. I live in a ~1000sqft home in a low-density WiFi environment.
Occassional packet loss between the Netgear and my cable modem -- also shocking and difficult to explain. I've been a networking professional for over 20 years, but with virtually no diagnostic functions exposed by either consumer cable modems or this RAX80, it's a guessing game.
Downgraded to my old ASUS RT-AC3200 (purchased in 2015 but still sold today) and all problems totally solved.
Re: Tired of problems with RAX80; options for its second life?
I also went through the nightmare that is the RAX80 for almost six months and finally threw in the towel and went back to an Asus router. I sold the RAX80 on Craigslist for decent money and never heard back from the buyer so I'm assuming he's blissfully unaware of its issues.
That being said the Asus routers have almost as many problems as Netgear with funky firmware updates they send out. All of their newer AX routers have some sort of issue and the Zen WiFi system is a joke. At least you have WRT Merlin you can use to fix a lot of the problems.
A few weeks ago I had a friend who wanted an RAX45 from Costco when I was there so I bought it and we set it up and it worked great, not a single issue with setup, firmware updates, etc. It runs better than the Asus RT-AX58U I had set up so I bit the bullet, downed two shots of Jack and ordered a RAX50 on sale at Amazon for $229.00.
So far a night and day experience different than the RAX80. Easy setup, covers 2000 sq. ft. at full speeds, AX devices connect fine, wired devices no issues, the GUI is still a painfully slow process but I haven't even opened it for about three weeks now. Handles 30-35 clients easily with do drops or slowdowns. One of better routers I've owned so far so I know Netgear can make a good router, finding which one is the issue.
