Router just pauses (stops working) intermittently

[Ozymandias_EBON]

For the past month I've been having issues with my R8000.

At the beginning, I could usually determine when the router needed to be rebooted.

Everything would be working great and then the router would stop providing DNS, then stop DHCP, then crash.

I would reboot the router and everything would be back to good.

This is bad but would happen about once per day.

Starting last night things have gone from bad to untenable.

About ever 20 - 30 seconds the router will just stop responding to anything... some sort of pause.

No ping, no DNS, no DHCP.

This will last for anywhere between 1 - 5 seconds and then everything is good for another 30 seconds.

To confirm that the router has stopped, I can ping other devices on my network during the pause.

I have turned off all the auxillary services that I can think of (armor, circle, PnP, access control, QoS, etc) and the router still pauses.

To confirm this isn't my ISP, I have a server on the same ISP gateway but not behind the R8000.

Pings are consistent and solid.

Firmware is V1.0.4.68_10.1.75

Thoughts?

[plemans]

It could be a couple things. 

What I'd start with though? 

1. reinstall the current firmware version over a hardwired connection. Then do a factory reset and clean install (by clean I mean not from backup). If the firmware or a setting is corrupt, this would cover both bases. 

2. if that doesn't help, you can try downgrading to an earlier version. I'm a fan of the 1.0.4.28 version. It was the version prior to armor being added. 

[antinode]

> [...] I have a server on the same ISP gateway but not behind the
> R8000. [...]

   Does that mean that the R8000 (WAN/Internet port) is connected to
some other router (LAN port on unspecified "ISP gateway")?  Cascading
multiple NAT routers can cause multiple problems.

   Visit http://netgear.com/support , put in your model number, and look
for Documentation.  Get the User Manual.  Read.  Look for "Use the
Router as a Wireless Access Point".

> I have turned off all the auxillary services that I can think of [...]

   Configuration as a WAP will certainly disable some:

      https://kb.netgear.com/26765

> Pings are consistent and solid.

   "Pings" from what to what?  As usual, showing actual actions
(commands) with their actual results (error messages, LED indicators,
...) can be more helpful than vague descriptions or interpretations.
Copy+paste is your friend.

[Ozymandias_EBON]

Through some painstaking trial and error, the problem has to be internal to the router.

I have about 50 different devices on my network mixed between wired and wireless.

I blocked all wireless devices... still had the problem.

I kicked everything off wired except for my laptop... still had the problem.

Disabled the wireless... fixed the problem.

So it's a wireless issue.

I have an old Cisco AP that I spun up, connected to the R8000, and started connecting all my wireless devices to the AP.

Currently I have all wireless devices connected to the AP (which is connected to the R8000), all wired devices are back online, and no problems.

If I enable wireless on the R8000, it pauses every 30 seconds.

Even if I rename the SSID so nothing connects to it, I get the pauses.

Next steps:

I'll do the downgrade and see if that helps.

At one point I was running the pre-Armor firmware and wasn't budging but the security fixes were too enticing.

To answer some questions:

No... I do not have cascaded NAT.

I have to use my ISP's gateway/router.

I have a static IP set up in the ISP's DMZ for the R8000.

I test by pinging the internal IP of the router.