Re: RAX120v2 keeps randomly restarting

nestorsamelo · ‎2022-06-16

I will try to put the fan under it, blowing air up, but to be frank I don't expect that to work.

You can see its own fan blowing air down, and if you see pictures of its internals, you can see the CPU is not under the PCB, but on top.

(You can see the pictures here:
https://openwrt.org/inbox/toh/netgear/netgear_rax120_nighthawk_ax12
By the way, potential OpenWRT support is the only reason why I haven't returned this yet.)

Anyway, this is either a bug in firmware that should have been fixed by now, as suggested by the temperature sensor reporting "NaNC", or even worse, it is a hardware design flaw.

I am shopping for an ASUS router myself. Better UI, allows me to disable WPS, and doesn't reboot spontaneously like this.

tr4sh80 · ‎2022-06-16

The built in fan does not blow air down. It is an exhaust fan. If you put your face up to it you can feel the warm air coming up. That's why I put my 140mm fan at the bottom to force cool air up throught the vent on the bottom. Make sure you you have your bottom intake fan on the side that pushes air up. Since doing this I havent had a single reboot in over 2 weeks. Obviously a firmware fix is in line regardless but this solution goes a long way. Heat is always an enemy to electronics whether it's a router or a stereo receiver, or a computer. They need to breath.

Oldtome · ‎2022-06-16

Please send me the firmware fix.

RAX 120

Thanks,

Oletome

LockwoodLakeman · ‎2022-06-16

I have asked over and over again for beta firmware for this device with none being sent and no response from the team. How do I get my grubby little mitts on beta Firmware Version 1.2.3.33!

FURRYe38 · ‎2022-06-16

User can contact @DarrenM via PM for that beta version.

tr4sh80 · ‎2022-06-16

I've had no reboots now for over 2 weeks just placing a 140mm usb fan under it and setting exhaust fan in debug to always on. No beta firmware.

stolnsol · ‎2022-06-23

Is this still the case? Can you send a screenshot of your uptime?

dude8370 · ‎2022-06-24

I am leaning towards this being a heat issue as well, but mainly a bad batch. I see I get reboots when I am using the NAS drive heavily. The CPU usage skyrockets and this thing gets HOT to the touch on top. Once I disconnect the drive, and you can feel the router cool down, it becomes stable. I have fans on the way to see if that will help.

Couple of notes, moving the power supply to a different wall socket (even circuit on the house), using many different UPS units including my HT power conditioner, disabling this WMM setting all did not help at all. The fact is, this thing reboots when a heavy load is put on it, and it is hot to the touch (not to burn you, but for electronics, it's most certainly in overheating territory.)

The beta firmware didn't do anything for me, and enabling fan always on didn't help while using my NAS.

After the fans come to test, I'm almost tempted to open this thing up, maybe thermal paste bad from the factory somewhere. Something along those lines

FURRYe38 · ‎2022-06-24

I'd get a laptop cooler under ASAP. The longer heat exposure the more damage there will be to the electronics.

@dude8370 wrote:

I am leaning towards this being a heat issue as well, but mainly a bad batch. I see I get reboots when I am using the NAS drive heavily. The CPU usage skyrockets and this thing gets HOT to the touch on top. Once I disconnect the drive, and you can feel the router cool down, it becomes stable. I have fans on the way to see if that will help.

Couple of notes, moving the power supply to a different wall socket (even circuit on the house), using many different UPS units including my HT power conditioner, disabling this WMM setting all did not help at all. The fact is, this thing reboots when a heavy load is put on it, and it is hot to the touch (not to burn you, but for electronics, it's most certainly in overheating territory.)

The beta firmware didn't do anything for me, and enabling fan always on didn't help while using my NAS.

After the fans come to test, I'm almost tempted to open this thing up, maybe thermal paste bad from the factory somewhere. Something along those lines

Kidhack · ‎2022-06-24

I like how the title of this thread says "solved". Absolutely not solved.

I'm actually not sure it's heat related. It doesn't get that much hotter than 75° where my router is, but regardless, it will drop at night when it's cool or during low use periods. I think it's just a defective product that Netgear doesn't want to admit to.

tr4sh80 · ‎2022-06-24

I believe it's both heat related and software related. This issue wreaks of memory leaks in it's behavior.

stolnsol · ‎2022-06-24

I will say at least they are still working on the issue and I feel like they feel it’s solvable. Otherwise there would have been a V3 or they’d stop selling it.

Eric35 · ‎2022-06-25

I did like this, look at the pictures > .

Eric35 · ‎2022-06-25

The second photo

FURRYe38 · ‎2022-06-25

This works as well:

Laptop cooler under the router. Been using these since 2012 under ANY router I use.

FURRYe38 · ‎2022-06-25

Did you get the beta from the moderator?

@milasido wrote:

@DarrenM please send me the firmware, I want to try it too, thank you

tr4sh80 · ‎2022-06-25

I tried the beta firmware. If anything the issue was worse. Proper cooling is the only way to somewhat alleviate the issue at this point.

stolnsol · ‎2022-06-25

I have a laptop cooler under mine as well. I’d like to see someone post a screenshot of the uptime from the advanced menu. I’d love to see anything over 72 hrs.

If someone does have that l, can you also post what your ISP speed is and the physical ports in use.

For me:
ISP 2GB Google Fiber
Multi gig wan port
LAN 1

Currently capturing the debug log in the event of a reboot. Only been up about 13hrs since it reinstalled to capture logs.

Retired_Member · ‎2022-06-26

How does one get the beta firmware.... been trying to contact anyone and I'm not getting a response... tired of randomly dropping internet I work from home and it's getting worse... if it is due to overheating why doesn't the normal menu allow you to see this stuff?

dude8370 · ‎2022-06-27

Well, I am happy to report (so far) that adding the fan/cooler below the laptop has indeed prevented this router from the random reboots (so far.) Of course I will continue to monitor long term and report weekly here if I can.

Please reference my original post for more information on the history, however I'd like to add a few things.

- I have since rebooted many times and the "Always fan option" is NOT on. So the router is doing whatever it wants.

- The fan I am using is the AC Infinity S4 on high, underneath the router directing air flow up. (AKA flowing air from the bottom, and exhausting from the top....think of it like beefing up the stock fan....if that even does anything)

- Previously, it was impossible to copy files to the router NAS drive when a heavy load was put (copying 100gb at once.) The router would get hot. Not burning "OWWW MY HAND HOT", but it makes a person go "Whoa, that is a little toasty, does this thing cool itself?" Now it is cool to the touch, and I can't feel much heat on it at all.

Again - this is seriously to salvage whatever few years I can from this thing. I will report back long term, even though things may "seem" fixed, we need to be sure.

Maybe down the road, I will open this up and see the heatsinks and any thermal paste issues? Not sure? Thoughts on that?

FURRYe38 · ‎2022-06-27

Anything is possible at this point. Could be that there maybe some missing paste, however if the heat sink IS getting hot as well, I would presume there is paste there and just not enough internal cooling with the fan. Also seems that there is some CPU handling and usage that needs to be tune up in FW to help lower what's going on there as well. Also seems like the safety trigger temp is not activating the fan as well that needs to be fixed.

Glad the fan is helping.

dude8370 · ‎2022-06-27

For what it's worth too, my father has the same router, but the V1 version, while i have the V2. He has 0 issues with the reboot, and I can confirm as I put it through the some rigger that would reboot mine easily. Also his V1 is just as hot running as my V2 without the help from an external fan.

It could be hardware, could be firmware. I'm not sure, but the firmware numbers are the EXACT same on the V1 and V2.

tr4sh80 · ‎2022-06-27

Well then that would indicate some kind of hardware change in the v2. They probably cheaped out somewhere in the v2 version to squeeze out some more $.

stolnsol · ‎2022-06-27

Geez the heatsink is HUGE! I'd be shocked if it's a heat issue unless it's bad thermal paste/pad application.

tr4sh80 · ‎2022-06-27

Could be as simple as a bad solder joint somewhere on the board. That being said. I've got almost 4 days uptime right now with good cooling.

Re: RAX120v2 keeps randomly restarting