I want to start this thread to know about end users' experience with RAX120. My own experience has been extremely bad. Even with firmware rolled back to 1.0.0.84 and performing hard reset to factory defaults several times, my wireless devices keep dropping network connection. I am a heavy user of WiFi, with 6 WiFi security cameras constantly uploading to FTP server at 1080p resolution, TV streamihg at 4k, several other low usage devices like Alexa, Google home hub and so on. I had upgraded from Netgear Nighthawk R8500 which was able to take all this load without blinking an eye.
So, going by all the propagande surrounding WiFi6, I decided to go with Netgear considering my experience with R8500. However, within 20 days, I was regretting my decision. I tried to return the RAX120 router, but didn't know that Best Buy has only a 15 days return policy and their "management is very strict about this policy" as per their customer service.
As a result, I am stuck with a very expensive piece of equipment which does not work as advertised. I have to power this router through a Z-Wave power outlet so I can remotely restart it if devices drop connection. I have had to restart this router way too frequently than the R8500. I have put this router on four glasses to keep it several inches above ground level and installed a fan to keep it cool. It gets overheated very quickly, particularly when streaming Netflix in 4k. Then everything stops working. TV disconnects, cameras disconnect, phones and laptops disconnect...
In addition, Netgear has a very anemic 3 months warranty for such an expensive router. I am not sure if Netgear will ever be able to resolve disconnection issues, particularly under heavy 24x7 usage.
In another thread, I was told that it is my fault for buying a router based on a cutting edge technology. I would like to see this mentioned as a warning to buyers on Netgear website, asking them to reconsider their decision to buy a router which is based on WiFi6 protocol, the details of which are yet to be finalized.
I understand that it might be working well for casual users, but please feel free to share your experiences, good or bad.
Criticism was correct. I had checked little more than three months after registering the router (which was registered immediately after purchase because I have Netgear account from past purchases) and all warranties had a red x mark against them. So, if Netgear choses to show incorrect information, why blame me? Now I checked again and hardware warranty has green check mark. I trust Netgear to show correct information.
Im in the same boat; This has been the worst router Ive ever owned. I upgrade almost every year so Ive had my fair share. Speeds are terrible..spotty even 5ft away. I cant get this thing to work reliably for the life of me. im 5 ft away and only connected at 1.5Gbps, it should be at 2.4 being this close.
I moved from R8000 to RAX120 because of issues with R8000. I had a rocky start and finally stablized everything after a hard reset to defaults and configuring everything again. The only issue now is that I cannot run my X8000 extender with the same SSID as the devices do not all connect. If I have any wifi disconnects it comes back within seconds. However most of my connections has been working good/stable for the last 3 weeks.
I did buy a separate PCI-E ax card for a desktop but the issue there was that my wife couldn't use remote PC connection to her work computer through the card/connection? Before she yelled at me I changed the connection to a wired one through the extender and all is well. However I never tired troubleshooting why the remote connection wasn't working with the ax wifi connection.
Can I suggest something totally weird? If you are using EX8000 extender with RAX120, please make sure that the name of the ReadySHARE device is changed to something different on one of these devices, even if you are not using them. I have kept the readyshare name on RAX120 and on the EX8000, I have changed the name to shareext. The reason is that in EX8000 and RAX120, the ReadySHARE is never really turned off. So, when you do a nslookup readyshare, it will sometimes resolve to the IP address of EX8000 and sometimes resolve to IP address of RAX120 (I operate the RAX120 in AP mode). For some bizarre reason, this causes havoc with the wireless devices and they drop WiFi connection. Please see if this fixes your issue of not being able to run RAX120 and EX8000 on the same SSID.
Thanks for the suggestion. My extender has readyshare name ExtedHD while my RAX120 has the default name of \\readyshare\USB_Storage.
I am very hestiant to use one SSID since my last experience and will keep waiting for a stable firmware from .84. Right now all my wifi devices are connected to RAX120 unless for some reason getting slow speeds then will get on the extender network. This has been stable for 4 weeks after my hard reset on RAX120.
My experience started out shaky at best. Kept disconnecting from NAS. Finally figured out the something was up between the router and DNS of the isp. Started using SmartDNS servers. I use my isp’s dns as the first option but the second and third dns option is smartdns servers. Now I don’t get any buffering and speeds have been great (around 700 mbps on WiFi 6 phone and 600 mbps on WiFi 5 phone). Happy I stuck with this router.
I am stuck with this router so that is not going to change. I would like to get stable firmware. So far I had to disable my AX which defeats the purpose of this router as my S10+ is WiFi 6 and I have a PCI-express card that is WiFi 6 and would like to get fast speeds on those. I need AX on and see how my devices act with the router again. However with everyone back home either working or studying I cannot make changes with disruption to my Wifi so have to test again but I still feel the router was not worth it.
In evaluating comments about the RAX120 within this community, it’s prudent to keep in mind that you are not hearing from a random sample of consumers using the router. These forums naturally attract individuals who are experiencing difficulties. Thus, the set of comments you read here are likely to be negatively biased, and not representative of all RAX120 owners in general.
So, I am the one who started this thread. After I started this thread, Christian from Netgear contacted on PM. He asked me to contact Netgear support, even though the router was technically out of support. I worked with support extensively and uploaded several diagnostic logs, but they did not look at them because they said that their development group needed my permission to look at the logs. But they never asked for my permission though I told them that I had no issues.
Anyways, support asked me to download the 1.0.1.100_BETA firmware. I had to sign a non-disclosure agreement to download this firmware. After I installed this firmware, I experienced a ton of stability. Then somewhere along the line, I updated to 1.0.1.108 firmware. The router is perfectly stable with 1.0.1.108 firmware. I keep the auto-update disabled. I have around 35 WiFi devices and no issues.
What I do not know is whether this unprecedented stability is because of lower temperatures or problems are actually fixed. I had started this thread during fall and then came winter. Even though it is spring, temperatures are still low. As summer months approach, I will update if the stability still lasts. I just hope that the router stays stable in summer also...
