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Just recently my 2.4ghz is unable to connect to the Internet. It has issues with obtaining an ip address. The weird part is that the 5ghz has no issues at all. I reset the router 2 days ago and the 2.4ghz worked fine until tonight.
It probably wouldn't hurt to reset the router to factory settings. It's been known to work for other people. It's especially recommended to do this after a firmware upgrade.
Beyond that, assuming that the 2.4 GHz radio hasn't physically burned out, the most likely cause is environmental. Use a Wi-Fi analyzer, like inSSIDer, ViStumbler or Acrylic WiFi, and survey the active Wi-Fi networks around you. Set your router to use the least crowded channel.
Unless you happen to live in an area with no other Wi-Fi networks nearby, I recommend that you stick to 20 MHz wide channels for the 2.4 GHz band. 40 MHz channels consume 2/3 of the available spectrum, so it's not good neighborly netizenship to hog so much spectrum. I've seen some reports that claim that 40 MHz performance can actually be worse than 20 MHz if conditions are bad enough. On the Nighthawk routers, like the R7000, you can disable 40 MHz channels by decreasing the Wireless speed to Up to 289 Mbps.
USB 3.0 is known to generate radio interference in the 2.4 GHz range. While the USB 3.0 port on the R7000 is one of the better shielded ports compared to other brands, using it may still impact Wi-Fi. Temporarily disconnect any device connected to the USB 3.0 port and see if Wi-Fi performance improves. If you are using a USB 3.0 device on a laptop or PC, temporarily disable it, too.
Other sources of noise include microwave ovens (bigtime!), 2.4 GHz cordless phones, and Bluetooth. Try to isolate and eliminate these sources, if possible.
Finally, while Nighthawk routers have some of the strongest radios in the industry, router positioning is important. Ideally, it should be placed within direct line of sight to clients or with as few intervening walls as possible. Make sure the antennas are positioned as recommended by Netgear. On the R7000, this would be the center antenna vertical and the outer antennas at 45 degrees. In a two-story dwelling, place the router on the lower level (unless all of your clients are upstairs!), because the antennas are arrayed to generate radio emissions upward more so than downward. You may also want to experiment with orienting the router so that all antennas are facing the clients as much as possible for maximum signal reception.
Hopefully, these tips will give your clients the best chance to connect and stay connected to your router.
The 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands are simply the two carrier frequencies used for WiFi connectivity between clients and the router, beyond that the connection to the Internet / LAN is the same regardless of the band. So your real issue is that a client device is unable to obtain an IP address when attempting to associate with the router.
So, you say that 5GHz works, is that with the same client device or a different one? Do you use a Wireless Access List in the router settings, and if so have you tried disabling it? Do you have several client devices which are unable to obtain IP addresses?
I have the same issue: (same) Client connects fine on 5ghz (AC) but not on 2.4ghz. 2.4ghz guest network works for all clients in router admin it shows connected clients on 2.4ghz, but the SSID is not showing. Clients on 2.4ghz show connection to wireless network, but do net get IP address assigned. Router has no client filtering. Tried broadcasting and non broadcasting 2.4ghz SSID. After reboot of router connections work for a few hours, interruption of service seems to be random.
Problem above are consistent across multiple devices.
I would factory default and re-enter configs. I've had similar problem using 5g it drops one client and won't let it reconnect on 5g but will on 2.4. A router reboot fixes until next time. I had same problem with r7000 too. It happens once month so it's not a big deal to me.
I have the same problem. Any device logged in on the 2.4ghz will lose it's internet connection over time, or will connect to the network and fail to be issued an IP address. Meanwhile, the same device can connect , and maintain an connection, to the 5ghz bands. In fact, they'll work on 5ghz, even when the 2.4ghz will fail to issue an IP address. This happens with Ipads, Iphones, Microsoft Surface tablets, and a PC using a netgear wireless adapter.
My 5G network is blazing fast, my 2.4G is non-existent. All devices can connect fine but absolutely no traffic. Ping speeds are 200-300ms compared to 8ms on my 5G network; Download tests often fail and will not even complete on the 2.4G channel but on the 5G I get 26mbs whihc is exactly the plan I pay for.
I have done numerous factory resets;
I have chnaged the channels and tried every one of them. The channel is not the issue for sure as I have a high end wifi scanning product that shows exactly where and by how much interference there is. I am only 2 feet from the router and the 2.4 will not work.
I have chnaged the mode to 0-54 0-299, etc and nothing,
I have chnaged the fragmentation and CTS/RTS Threshold to 2304 as some troubleshoot articles suggest - nothing;
I have played with QOS,
I have stopped broadcasting the 2.4 and removed security - still nothing;
I have chnaged the 20/40 co-existence - nothing;
I have enabled and disabled ipv6 - nothing;
Updated and downgraded firmwares; even tried a beta - nothing.
Last I spend 20 minutes on the phone with Tech support. The guy had no clue. He kept telling me that because my lights were on and that the 5G network worked fine that there is nothing wrong with the router. I pointed out to him that most older devices cannot run on 5G and so how is a none functioning 2.4G network equate to nothing wrong. in the end, I told him I wanted to talk to his supervsior. the supervisor is supposed to be calling me back. The whole time he was trying to sell me the premium software support.
To me this is a hardware issue and netgear should be replacing the routers.
I spent hours on the phone with tech support and they eventually replaced the router under warranty (after trying and trying to sell me some home network support service for 150.00). I set up the new router with my prior configuration backup file and exactly the same problem was evident with the new router. The 2.4 ghz band on Inssider would show a signal for a few seconds, then go out, and on/off every few seconds (mostly off) and nothing could connect to it. The 5 ghz was fine. I had followed all the suggestions that tech support made alas to no avail. I wasted too much time already so I just gave up and turned off the 2.4 ghz. I have a couple of older routers that I hooked up in AP mode at different parts of the house to serve the older wifi devices, and they have worked without a hitch. I think this is a fundamentally flawed product, but I plan on keeping it since everything else seems to work ok and since the 1 year warranty is expired now. I am having some issues with the USB 3.0 hard drive connection speed and reliability though...
Thanks. Sounds exactly like my issue. Inssider shows the same cycling that you describe. Will likely do as you and turn on my DSL modem wifi for the 2.4G channel and use the netgear for the 5Ghz....but for the money that we have paid that is a brutal solution.
It probably wouldn't hurt to reset the router to factory settings. It's been known to work for other people. It's especially recommended to do this after a firmware upgrade.
Beyond that, assuming that the 2.4 GHz radio hasn't physically burned out, the most likely cause is environmental. Use a Wi-Fi analyzer, like inSSIDer, ViStumbler or Acrylic WiFi, and survey the active Wi-Fi networks around you. Set your router to use the least crowded channel.
Unless you happen to live in an area with no other Wi-Fi networks nearby, I recommend that you stick to 20 MHz wide channels for the 2.4 GHz band. 40 MHz channels consume 2/3 of the available spectrum, so it's not good neighborly netizenship to hog so much spectrum. I've seen some reports that claim that 40 MHz performance can actually be worse than 20 MHz if conditions are bad enough. On the Nighthawk routers, like the R7000, you can disable 40 MHz channels by decreasing the Wireless speed to Up to 289 Mbps.
USB 3.0 is known to generate radio interference in the 2.4 GHz range. While the USB 3.0 port on the R7000 is one of the better shielded ports compared to other brands, using it may still impact Wi-Fi. Temporarily disconnect any device connected to the USB 3.0 port and see if Wi-Fi performance improves. If you are using a USB 3.0 device on a laptop or PC, temporarily disable it, too.
Other sources of noise include microwave ovens (bigtime!), 2.4 GHz cordless phones, and Bluetooth. Try to isolate and eliminate these sources, if possible.
Finally, while Nighthawk routers have some of the strongest radios in the industry, router positioning is important. Ideally, it should be placed within direct line of sight to clients or with as few intervening walls as possible. Make sure the antennas are positioned as recommended by Netgear. On the R7000, this would be the center antenna vertical and the outer antennas at 45 degrees. In a two-story dwelling, place the router on the lower level (unless all of your clients are upstairs!), because the antennas are arrayed to generate radio emissions upward more so than downward. You may also want to experiment with orienting the router so that all antennas are facing the clients as much as possible for maximum signal reception.
Hopefully, these tips will give your clients the best chance to connect and stay connected to your router.
Having the same issue here, but with C3700 NAS cable modem/router. It's been working fine for the last year and 1/2. A couple of weeks ago we started noticing that devices connected to the 2.4 Ghz network couldn't connect to the Internet. Did all of the common troubleshooting steps and it nothing helped. Like the original poster said, we can connect to the 2.4 network SSID ok. It just won't send/receive data once connected. The 5 Ghz network works just fine, but it's not accessible upstairs in our house.
Called Netgear support this evening and they said it's no longer covered under warranty because it's over a year old and I would need to pay for support. So what, they build devices that last for about a year then ask people to pay for support once it spazzes out?
This is B.S. These are seriously flawed devices and really frustrated...
When connected to the LAN via 2.4GHz can you see other devices on the LAN? Are you able to ping Internet based IP addresses, for example at a PC that can access the Internet ping ‘google.com’ this should result in responses that provide the IP address, then at one of the 2.4GHz computers try pinging that IP address. If pining works then it’s possible you have a DNS issue, and in that case as a test you could try manually setting the DNS at one of the 2.4GHz computers, e.g. try 8.8.8.8 as a DNS server.
