I purchased a NightHawk X8 about a month ago, after a two week long nightmare experience with a D-Link AC3200.. My overall impression has been very positive, it was easy to setup and incredibly fast.. Always a good combination.. About two weeks ago something weird started happening, every 4 or 5 days the 2.4 GHz radio stops broadcasting.. The first two times it happened I logged on to the router and upgraded the firmware to the latest version, and after the restart the radio started broadcasting.. Today I just restarted the router.. I am a little concerned, I have never had a router behave this way before.. Has anyone else experienced anything this? Any input would be deeply appreciated..
Yes my NightHawk X8 have the same promblem with 2.4 GHz radio can show ssid but can not connect, and now the 5 GHz-2 radio can not show ssid all my devices
Only had the router operating for three days. My 2.4Ghz radio has dropped off two days in a row. Setting show it is on. SSID not showing up on devices. I have the latest firmware. Router reboot solves the problem.....at least temporarily so far.
I have tried down leveling the firmware and doing a factory reset, putting the latest firmware on and performing a factory reset. I have also tried choosing a specific channel for the 2.4 GHz and lowering the maximum speed for the 2.4 GHz. Nothing seems to work. I used to be able to reboot the router and the 2.4 GHz channel would come back. Now it will not come back at all.
This issue with the 2.4 GHz channel seems to be a common problem. What is Netgear going to do about it or should I get a different brand router?
I believe I am having the same problem. I have had the R8500 for two weeks. Twice now, it stops accepting WiFi connections from devices. I can see the SSID, and have an excellent signal, but devices (and I tried many) simply won't connect. If I reboot the router, everything is ok again - for a while. I am registered and submitted a support ticket. If it weren't for this, I'd find the R8500 fantastic.
One difference from others is that the 5GHz connection also fails. I have the current firmware V1.0.0.56_1.0.28.
Ok, I am now using the beta firmware provided by Netgear support (V1.0.1.12_1.0.31).
When I was using the current firmware I had issues with the 2.4Ghz network - either the SSID not showing on some devices (usually the iPhone 6S), difficulty connecting to the network, 2.4Ghz devices dropping off the wireless connection. I have several devices on the network both wired and wireless. Almost all of them have a reservation for the IP address. There are two Honeywell WiFi thermostats that trigger emails when they lose the connection. That is when I started noticing the strange behavior of the wifi networks with this router...getting emails that the thermostats had not connection. Sometimes the thermostats would not be connected even though the 2.4Ghz signal was showing available. Other times they were connected ok but on some devices the SSID was not showing available.
I noticed that if I turned the Smart Connect option OFF the problems were less frequent, but still I was rebooting the router every other day to restore wifi performance. This is kind of strange because I thought the SmartConnect feature is managing the 5Ghz network only.
After installing the beta firmware I reset the router erasing all settings and then tried the connections without setting up IP reservations. Everything went just fine. Next, I restored the settings from the original backup when I was having problems. That was three days ago and no problems have been observed, even with the SmartConnect feature turned on. So, maybe it is fixed in the new firmware. I have been fiddling with settings trying to get the problem to recur but so far it has not happened.
Some other things I notice with the web interface on this router that really bug me....many were present on the R7000 I replaced.
- Basic Connected Devices View - Shows a negative number (like -15 right now) and the number is never correct. If it is not correct then what good is it? I have 64 devices (I counted them) connected not -15.
- Basic Connected Devices List - Show several different devices with the same LAN address (right now I have four different devices with different MAC Addresses showing connected to 192.168.1.30). But then if I view devices in Advanced Lan Setup 192.168.1.130 is not listed in IP devices available for assigning a reservation and does not have a reserved IP address. Actually, I think the DHCP vs. IP Reserved addresses may have been the culprit in the problems with connecting new devices to the network. The router may be stuck trying to resolve different devices attempting to use the same address....just a guess.
- Basic Connected Devices List - Name an item and it rarely sticks for very long. Same thing with the Genie app...that network map is a joke.
- Advanced LAN Setup Devices List ....why can't this list be sorted by column....or at least by the devices network address?
Anyway, I hope the problem is solved for me and this helps others get a resolution.
I am having the same issue where the 2.54 network keeps dissappearing. This is a big problem in our office because all of our nbetwork printers can only access a 2.54 network and they are unable to connect to our netowrk to print. We are using the most up to date firmware. Where can I find the beta version?
I am having the same problems and the latest Beta firmware posted on these Nighthawk forums seems to be closer to resolving the problem, or at least extend the time between reboots
RickyLeeC, i believe the router put your wifi connection to the Honeywell wifi product in temporary sleep mode. i have looked at my network connection using the genie program that the router came with, to see who and what devices are connected to my network. in the beginning it was strange to me that my phone wifi connection to my router was dotted on the network screne while my laptop was a solid line. then i realize that while my phone was asleep, the router also put my connection to my device in sleep mode. when i turned my phone on, the dotted line became solid again.
in your Honeywell case, if the wifi device are not sending a signal constantly to the router, i believe the router put your connection on sleep mode and therefore your wifi signal to the Honeywell get disconnected and sends you an email notifying you that it has lost connection. but of coarse its all speculation on my end.
My problems with the R8500 were eventually solved with new firmware. Annoyingly, if you ask the router to check for updates it doesn't see them, whereas the web site has had three new versions since then. I think the current is 1.2.
I am also seeing the same issue. Have upgraded to the latest firmware, and the issue is getting more frequent now. I wish I had called support within the 90 day support window, found out about the issue and returned it then. For such a premium product with high price, this is terrible performance and service. My $80 router has no problem with the 2.4GHz disappearing. Did anyone have other suggestions? What is causing the 2.4GHz to disappear? When I log into the router via the still functioning 5GHz band, I see on the advanced page a red X beside the SSID window pane. Clicking through to wireless settings and everything seems to be fine - the settings are the same as before. What does the red X mean vs the green tick?
