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My cable provider just upgraded my inbound connection to fiber, so I signed up for 300M download, but I'm not seeing it. I have a Cable Modem CM1000 Purchased 2017-07-14 connected with a CAT-6 cable to a Nighthawk R7000P (V1.3.1.64_10.1.36) Purchased 2019-02-28. The R7000P WAN Status shows 100M/Full no matter what I do. I powered down the entire network for one hour by removing the power cables, then powered up the CM1000, waited for it to complete its power-up cycle, powered up the R7000P and waited for it to complete its power-up cycle. The CM1000 Ethernet LED is showing amber and the R7000P Internet LED is showing white. I have read comments about many people struggling with this issue. Since my warranty on the R7000P has just run out, before I invest in an annual support contract with Netgear I need to know - is there a known solution to this or is this inherent in the router design?
Yesterday I received the GS305 1Gbps switch and placed it between the CM1000 and the R7000P. Unfortunately it did not fix this issue. This evening as suggested I downgraded the R7000P firmware to 1.3.0.20, did a hard factory reset, manually configured and examined the WAN port. It was still at 100Mbps speed. I then upgraded to firmware 1.3.1.64 and retested. Same results. To date I have swapped out all of the CAT6 cables, inserted a 1Gbps switch, performed hard factory resets and still there is nothing I can do to get the R7000P WAN port to auto-detect a 1000Mbps speed. I have taken pictures that document the results of each test. I've attached a PNG file that shows the Show Statistics screen along with the final negotiation state with and without the GS305 switch. My final conclusion is that I have a defective R7000P. Contacting Netgear support didn't do anything to resolve this issue because my hardware warranty expired 9 weeks ago. The event that led me to this discovery was my cable provider installing fiber-optic cable, which encouraged me to pay for upgrading my throughput speed. Sadly if that had happened three months earlier, I would have discovered this problem while the R7000P was still under waranty. I am left with a defective product and my only recourse is to replace this router to be able to attain throughput greater than 100Mbps.
I appreciate the suggestion of trying a 1G switch between the modem and the router. However, that doesn't answer my question. The CM1000 has a 1G Ethernet LAN port and the R7000P has a 1G Ethernet internet port. When I connect these two ports with a CAT-6 cable, my expectation as a 30-year IT professional is that 1G throughput will be the result. If not, then one or the other is not performing to its specifications. In fact, on page 12 of the R7000P manual it states that its internet port is "One Gigabit Ethernet RJ-45 WAN port to connect the router to a cable modem." It doesn't say anything about needing a switch between the cable modem and the router, and since both are Netgear products, they should work together as advertised. So, my question remains. Is there a known solution to this issue or is it a design issue on either the CM1000 or the R7000P?
Yes, all of the troubleshooting has been done multiple times. I've done a factory reset on both CM1000 and R7000P. I've powered them up in the correct sequence. I've swapped out CAT6 cables to prove all cables are working. When I directly connect my PC to the CM1000 with CAT6 cable and do a speed test (fast.com per Netgear Support), I get 330Mbps. When I then connect the CM1000 to the R7000P and the R7000P to my PC with CAT6 cables and do the same speed test, I get 94Mbps. I am convinced that there is a product defect in the R7000P that prevents its WAN port from performing to specification. If anyone has any information to the contrary, please speak up.
It actually fails Auto-negotiation between router and modem. I used to have an old Arris modem that did this. No matter what I did, it got stuck at 100 Mbps. Placed a small Gigabit switch between router & modem and got my full 1 Gbps negotiation. I'm not sure whether in your case the R7000 or the modem is to blame, that's why I suggested a switch between (also from past experience). If it works/solves the problem, then the R7000 and the modem fail correct Auto-negotiation
Yes, all of the troubleshooting has been done multiple times. I've done a factory reset on both CM1000 and R7000P. I've powered them up in the correct sequence. I've swapped out CAT6 cables to prove all cables are working. When I directly connect my PC to the CM1000 with CAT6 cable and do a speed test (fast.com per Netgear Support), I get 330Mbps. When I then connect the CM1000 to the R7000P and the R7000P to my PC with CAT6 cables and do the same speed test, I get 94Mbps. I am convinced that there is a product defect in the R7000P that prevents its WAN port from performing to specification. If anyone has any information to the contrary, please speak up.
Try installing 1.3.0.20 to the router, factory reset it, and manually re-install it. disable the auto-update.
You might indeed have a problem. I'd say hardware failure and not "factory defect" because if it was a factory defect, all R7000P's would have it. You've also said your warranty is expired so you've had it for >1 year and it worked so its more likely to be either a firmware issue, hardware failure, or port dirty/failure.
Let me share my latest findings with all of you. First, at the suggestion of Microchip8, I put a Netgear S8000 switch between the CM1000 and the R7000P. Microchip8 was correct in that inserting the switch caused both the CM1000 and the R7000P to communicate at 1000Mbps with a throughput measured by Fast.com at 240Mbps. That means the insertion of the S8000 switch caused a 90Mbps loss of throughput. However, the most interesting part of this experiment is what it revealed about the R7000P. While adding and then removing the switch between the CM1000 and the R7000P, I saw that the R7000P "Internet" LED would start at amber and then transition to white, indicating that the negotiation from 100Mbps to 1000Mbps was successful in both scenarios. And yet, when I logged into the R7000P admin UI, the WAN port statistics on the Router Status showed the WAN port at 1000Mbps when the switch was between the CM1000 and the R7000P, and 100Mbps when the switch was removed. I therefore conclude that the R7000P "Internet" LED was providing a false indication with respect to the WAN port speed, which is what initially caused me to believe that the R7000P was performing to specification. In regard to plemansSensei's comment that this is a hardware failure, I'm not sure I agree. The CM1000 "Ethernet LED" was showing green when I was previously using another router (AC1900), but when I upgraded to the R7000P (AC2300) it was always amber from day one. As I said previously, I didn't think much of that because the R7000P "Internt" LED has always been white and I didn't have a need for greater throughput until my cable provider upgraded my incoming line to fiber. So, to summarize, I now believe that there is a proven hardware imcompatibility between the CM1000 and the R7000P that causes the auto-negotiation of the WAN port to fail, and there is a probable defect in either the hardware or firmware of the R7000P that causes the "Ethernet LED" indicator to show that the WAN port auto-negotiated to 1000Mbps when in fact it had not. I want to thank Microchip8 and plemansSensei for your contributions, as they have given me the ability to reach what I believe are accurate conclusions regarding the performance of the R7000P. Now I will be giving Netgear a call to discuss my findings.
My work week has started, so I will do the firmware downgrade this coming weekend to see what impact that has. I have also ordered an inexpensive Netgear GS305 Gigabit switch as a potential solution to this problem, assuming this unmanaged switch will not cause the significant throughput loss that I saw with the S8000. (I suspect the S8000 port configuration to be the likely reason I saw the throughput loss, but I haven't confirmed that yet.) I will provide an update after I do the firmware test.
Yesterday I received the GS305 1Gbps switch and placed it between the CM1000 and the R7000P. Unfortunately it did not fix this issue. This evening as suggested I downgraded the R7000P firmware to 1.3.0.20, did a hard factory reset, manually configured and examined the WAN port. It was still at 100Mbps speed. I then upgraded to firmware 1.3.1.64 and retested. Same results. To date I have swapped out all of the CAT6 cables, inserted a 1Gbps switch, performed hard factory resets and still there is nothing I can do to get the R7000P WAN port to auto-detect a 1000Mbps speed. I have taken pictures that document the results of each test. I've attached a PNG file that shows the Show Statistics screen along with the final negotiation state with and without the GS305 switch. My final conclusion is that I have a defective R7000P. Contacting Netgear support didn't do anything to resolve this issue because my hardware warranty expired 9 weeks ago. The event that led me to this discovery was my cable provider installing fiber-optic cable, which encouraged me to pay for upgrading my throughput speed. Sadly if that had happened three months earlier, I would have discovered this problem while the R7000P was still under waranty. I am left with a defective product and my only recourse is to replace this router to be able to attain throughput greater than 100Mbps.
