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I was told by Best Buy that for the price this was a good router for gaming on. It also is advertised as that on Netgear's website as well as in reviews on websites. I'm starting to believe I was lied to. Netgear will not help me as I'm out of the 90 day window (payed $200 for this and now I'm being asked to purchase support tickets?! Money grab). I have tried multiple things. I KNOW for a fact it is the router and not my ISP jerking with me. I get good speeds when connected straight to the all in one. However, I can't get over 2mb download on a lucky day. I have all together spent multiple days troubleshooting this and in return have received nothing but anxiety and sadness. What am I doing wrong? I have tried QOS (works marginally better for about an hour), without QOS (even worse speeds), factory resetting everything, and it's the same old sh*tty connection. This is my last hope as I really can't handle being lied to by multiple companies and wasting my money. Streaming is no better. I have to completely back out of Hulu, Netflix, etc on my roku and restart the program to get HD. Netgear says their tests showing the router is working like intended but I beg to differ, unless they labeled something as a gaming router for a cash grab. I will never own anything else from this company and don't understand how people are "plugging and playing with GREAT results".
Edit: Sorry, I forgot to state that my computer is and always has been on a wired connection. I replaced the cable last year and there are no kinks or exposed wiring.
My only concern is now I have outdated firmware and am afraid I'm vulnerable to attacks.
It is reasonable to want to keep up with security improvements, me too, but it might be worth putting this into perspective.
Many "security fixes" are for things that are uncovered in research labs and that rarely appear "in the wild".
If it is a balance between having a router that works and one that protects me from rare security loopholes, I know which I'd opt for.
Unfortunately, Netgear rarely says what a security fix does. There is a good reason for being silent on this, revealing this information would tell hackers the holes that remain open.
I'm not into third party firmware – never had the need to go down that road – but you may find that someone has come up with a better alternative to whatever Netgear has cooked up.
By the way, if you spend any time looking at forums that support other makes of router you will find depressingly similar messages. After all, they all use the same small range of network chips. The main difference is that Netgear has a more active community than most, with many more unpaid volunteers trying to provide genuine help for fellow users.
So a little update. I HAVE been reading the forums and as a last ditch effort (I hate to say this works) but I downgraded firmware all the way to 1.0.3.24 and everything seems to be working on my pc. I can stream Twitch without stuttering and Steam's downloading like it should. My only concern is now I have outdated firmware and am afraid I'm vulnerable to attacks. Help would still be appreciated and advice is always welcome. I will rock this for now until someone replies to my post and hopefully has a better solution. I will state however while downloading streaming buffers every once in a while (not too big of a deal however before this there was no problem when doing both simultaneously). I do stand by my previous statements though. I will never own another product from Netgear and plan on filing against there companies bad policies and blatant lies in their advertising. Hopefully they shape up or close their doors as I'm seeing this trend with a lot of top name companies.
Still within the return window do it and get something from a different vendor.
Unfortunately Netgear engineers are out wandering in a wilderness in Tiawan and coming up with version after version of less then stellar firmware.
Netgear used to be my favorite and recommended routers, no more.
Health warning to @JohnDoe1111 , this advice comes from someone who regularly states that they do not allow Netgear hardware on their network. They hang around here so that they can bang on about this.
You might like to bear that in mind when deciding how much weight to attach to their advice on how to use your own Netgear stuff.
My only concern is now I have outdated firmware and am afraid I'm vulnerable to attacks.
It is reasonable to want to keep up with security improvements, me too, but it might be worth putting this into perspective.
Many "security fixes" are for things that are uncovered in research labs and that rarely appear "in the wild".
If it is a balance between having a router that works and one that protects me from rare security loopholes, I know which I'd opt for.
Unfortunately, Netgear rarely says what a security fix does. There is a good reason for being silent on this, revealing this information would tell hackers the holes that remain open.
I'm not into third party firmware – never had the need to go down that road – but you may find that someone has come up with a better alternative to whatever Netgear has cooked up.
By the way, if you spend any time looking at forums that support other makes of router you will find depressingly similar messages. After all, they all use the same small range of network chips. The main difference is that Netgear has a more active community than most, with many more unpaid volunteers trying to provide genuine help for fellow users.
Michael I really appreciate the help on this. However, at the time I'm done with Netgear. The main purpose I bought this router was for large bandwidth downloads (games, some work and I also do small audio projects and often times have to download plugins here and there for my DAWs) and gaming. I have been overly frustrated for the past month due to this issue as well as some personal stuff going on that just peaked my anxiety and anger yesterday. I talked with Best Buy and they told me to bring it in. I switched it out for an ASUS R3100 and from the beginning of setting it up it was way simpler, and looks to have more security features built into it. My problem with both parties involved in this (Netgear AND Best Buy) is that this is branded as a gaming router. It simply isn't. Even looking on the forums you begin to see that it is simply a better solution to wifi extension. That I don't need. I have a small-ish house so wifi isn't an issue. I have a couple streaming boxes and smart tv's and have never had problems with signal degradation or picture quality until the router itself starting doing this. Then everything started buffering and I knew something was wrong. I chalk it up to the firmware plain and simple. For me the updates seemed to fix the issue from last year until this month when I updated to the newest firmware again and instantly started having issues. My problem with Best Buy is that even after I told the sales associate what happened and what I actually NEEDED he tried selling me another Netgear product (the x6s) which has even worse reviews. At that point I kinda figured since the majority of their stock was netgear, I told him (who happened to be the guy that sold me the first one, he didn't realize but I'm good at remembering faces and voices) the issue at hand and instead of reccomending me the ASUS router like his partner tried doing, that they must get a kickback from Netgear. I don't know if this is true or not but all the signs lead to this. Did my research and could not be happier. Set up was simple, everything in the gui is explained for the beginners and it's clearly labeled. It took me 5 months on the netgear just to figure out how to set up a QOS which didn't even work to begin with. I appreciate your help and the forums but I can't support bad business practice on Netgear's side. The fact I have to shuffle around the forums for weeks to try and find a solution is ridiculous and the fact that I have to pay a fee to get actual help when all I needed was a simple question answered is not acceptable. Updating the firmware with broken code and not listening to it's customer base is a no go for me. I have stopped using companies I did business with for years before, and I will do it till I die. I won't feed the gready but I will clothe the needy. I will chalk this up as possibly being a router for advanced users (as I don't know EVERYTHING about networking) but I am not an embecile when it comes to setting up a home network.
Thanks for your quick reply and I really appreciate your time.
Still within the return window do it and get something from a different vendor.
Unfortunately Netgear engineers are out wandering in a wilderness in Tiawan and coming up with version after version of less then stellar firmware.
Netgear used to be my favorite and recommended routers, no more.
Health warning to @JohnDoe1111 , this advice comes from someone who regularly states that they do not allow Netgear hardware on their network. They hang around here so that they can bang on about this.
You might like to bear that in mind when deciding how much weight to attach to their advice on how to use your own Netgear stuff.
He also is helpful to Netgear users based on his kudos and problems solved numbers.
He does assist folks not just blindly suggest going elsewhere, as you well know. .
I was told by Best Buy that for the price this was a good router for gaming on. It also is advertised as that on Netgear's website as well as in reviews on websites. I'm starting to believe I was lied to. Netgear will not help me as I'm out of the 90 day window (payed $200 for this and now I'm being asked to purchase support tickets?! Money grab).
Makes sense. But Netgear does not pitch the R7000 as a gaming router. It is a mid-range router with little in the way of special features.I am surprised that Best Buy advocated it for gaming. Maybe they have some they want to shift. Or it could be the "for the price" restriction.
For gaming, think XR450 or XR500. These routers are based on existing hardware – the R7800, a more powerful device than the R7000, is the core for some of them – but it has firmware written for gamers by DumaOS. Dead flashy and a tweaker's delight. The snag is the cost, probably twice what you paid for your R7000.
I chip in only to add one word of warning. The bit about being asked to pay for support may be a scam.
If you called a number that you found with a web search, that almost certainly had nothing to do with Netgear.
Netgear itself does not provide paid for support. It farms that out to GearHead Technical Support.
Web searches deliver that screen "Netgear support" at the top but that turn out to be anything but. Using them can be dangerous, for your network and your bank balance.
