I purchased the Nighthawk AC1900 router last spring. I had been using the router provided by my cable company but was not satisfied with the coverage in my house. Since I've had this new router, I've had consistent issues with the connection dropping. I could be on my laptop on a Zoom call and I get booted out, browsing on my phone, etc. The fix is a relatively quick one...just disconnect on the device and then reconnect. I'm back up and running in seconds, but I pretty much deal with this issue at least daily. I didn't have a chance to follow up with with Netgear during the window when they would have provided free customer support (90 days, I think), and paying for support costs about as much or more than the router itself.
I'm a generally tech savvy person, but not in terms of the innerworkings of wifi routers. Hoping someone on here can steer me in the right direction.
Thanks in advance!
Model: R6900P|Nighthawk AC1900 Smart WiFi Dual Band Gigabit Router
I purchased the Nighthawk AC1900 router last spring.
Is that the R6900P in your footer (Netgear has made around a dozen devices with the AC1900 label, which is no more than a wifi speed indicator used by many brands.) If so, what firmware version do you have on the device?
A number is more useful than "the latest". (It may not be by the time people read this.) There can also be newer versions, or "hot fixes", that do not show up if you check for new firmware in the browser interface.
It might also help if you told people what the modem is in front of this router, if there is one. The model number could be useful. Is it, by any chance, also a router, with a set of LAN ports on the back?
The reason for asking is that a lot of people turn up here trying to put a router behind a modem that is also a router. That can complicate troubleshooting.
Thanks so much for the response. As for your questions...
1) Yes, I have the R6900P model.
2) Can you let me know how I can find out what firmware version is on the device? Can I find that in the Nighthawk app or elsewhere?
3) The modem I'm using with this router is the Arris Touchstone TM822G. I don't use a device that is a modem/router combo.
4) When I lose my connection, it is a wireless connection. In fact, when I just opened my laptop to see if there were any responses to my original post, I had to disconnect and reconnect because I had no connection.
4) When I lose my connection, it is a wireless connection. In fact, when I just opened my laptop to see if there were any responses to my original post, I had to disconnect and reconnect because I had no connection.
We don't know if that is the wifi or your laptop. These things try to save energy by turning things off when they are using them. So Windows laptops, and maybe others, will turn off the wifi when they don't see anything going on. But that shouldn't happen in the middle of a session.
What happens when you "disconnect and reconnect"? That could describe many things. What are you doing to wake the device up?
OK, I'll see if I can find the manual. And I'm definitely losing connection when I'm in the middle of accessing the internet (i.e., Zooming, checking sports scores, etc.). On my phone, I just turn off my wifi and then turn it right back on. I then am reconnected in seconds. Same for my laptop. I see the icon on my laptop in the taskbar when it loses a connection. I click on it, it brings up wireless connection, I click to disconnect, and then immediately click again to connect. Again, connection is restored within seconds.
If it's not running the latest version, I'm assuming I should update it? Could you walk me through how that gets done? It doesn't appear that I have any updates available on the app.
Between my last post and this one, I was on a Zoom call, and my laptop dropped the connection probably 15 times within an hour. Each time I had to disconnect and reconnect. For the most part, I was reconnected quickly. I did also, at times, have a message pop up over the middle of my screen saying that I had an unstable internet connection. I've seen that message before, but I don't think I've seen it on my network. While on the Zoom, I was sitting about ten feet from my router.
My modem is probably only a foot away from my router. I wonder if there's a chance that it's causing any interference. I hadn't thought of this possibility previously, because my old router was just as close (actually, a little closer) to my modem than my Netgear router currently is. I'm just trying to think of all options here.
Sorry about that. I followed the manual steps and downloaded the most recent firmware version. Unfortunately, after I downloaded the zip file, I had issues logging in to the routerlogin.net site. It says my default username should be 'admin' and that my password should be one I used the first time I logged in. I honestly don't really remember ever logging in, though I suppose I did when I first bought the router in the spring. But I'm not sure if this is supposed to be a different login anyway. After a few failed login attempts, it brings me to a "change password" screen, where I'm asked to enter my router's serial number (no issue there) and then I'm brought to a security questions page. Again, don't recall ever answering security questions, but I answer both questions, which are very straightforward. Any attempts are met with a "your answers don't match what is saved on the router" message. This is all pretty baffling. I went through the Netgear site to see if there was a way to access/reset my security questions answers, but there's nothing there.
I don't expect you to be able to solve the above, but is there some other way to get the most recent firmware on my device?
After a few failed login attempts, it brings me to a "change password" screen, where I'm asked to enter my router's serial number (no issue there) and then I'm brought to a security questions page. Again, don't recall ever answering security questions, but I answer both questions, which are very straightforward.
There is a bug in Netgear's implementation of password recovery on some devices. You can get locked into a closed loop.
If password recovery is enabled, but you have not set the answers to the questions, it keeps sending you back to the beginning of the process. If you haven't already given the thing your personal answers, they are not in its memory and it has no way of knowing if they are correct.
If the standard factory password (password) does not work, then you will have to factory reset the thing to get back to that. Then either disable password recovery (check the manual for your device) or provide some answers to those questions.
OK, thanks for your response. It's funny, in the link you provided, it just said that the password "is the one you specified the first time you logged in." In the manual, the same set of instructions say that the default password is "password." Strange how that's the only variation in the two sets of instructions. I've never experienced a scenario where I've been asked specific security questions that I had yet to set up. And it wasn't like these were questions that I forgot the answer to (older brother's first name and dad's middle name).
Again, thanks for your response. I guess I'll try a factory reset and go from there.
Understood. My point is that I've never been prompted to answer security questions that I had not already provided answers for previously. So my assumption was that I had answered the questions months ago and just didn't recall doing it.
I have to agree Netgear's "password reminder" scheme is nuts. It should spot when it has nothing in its memory to check against. But this has been the pattern for some years. That it automatically turns on password recovery without insisting on answers just adds to the aggravation.
