One thing I am very curious about is if anyone got a replacement router of the same model and if this replacement manifests the issue. I suspect that all units are defective and because the router is expensive a few people got it and of those who got it some are using wireless only, others thought the drops are related to the internet and so on.
I've grabbed 4 replacements from (B&H, Amazon [sent the CANADA vz.] and Walmart) same exact issue constant lan drops, supprisingly I've gotten the Wi-Fi to stay super-fast, solid and stable but the LAN JESUS!!! my PS5 constantly drops connections mid games. The only difference I see in the replacements is the new ones have the fan removed and are a bit lighter in color. The LAN drops are less frequent but they are there nonetheless. I've tried a switch but its the same difference since, the switch must go MODEM > ROUTER > SWITCH. At this point since most of my devices are WIFI conncected I only run the PS5 via LAN, I was considering keeping the RAX80 if there was a way to make it so the SWITCH feeds the ROUTER.
Ultimately if I keep getting drops ill just have to revert back to my WRT3200ACM, God why did I leave Linksys (loyal for decades) for this Star Wars Imperial Shuttle.
@Str8UpSucio thanks for the info. So I guess we have to assume that each and every RAX80 manifests the issue. The lack of mass complaints might be related to most people using wifi, not noticing the rare lan drops in their usage or simply attributing it to bad internet connection instead of the router.
Unfortunately, there's no fix. You'll need to use another router in front of the RAX80 if you want a reliable wired LAN connection for your console. That being said, you probably won't get disconnected if you connect to the RAX80 wirelessly rather than by wired ethernet. Personally, I went with the first option: I bought a dedicated ethernet router and now connect my consoles, gaming PCs and the RAX80 directly to that one instead. Haven't had a disconnect since. In this setup, the RAX80 serves only as a wifi6 access point (an expensive one, unfortunately).
Good point about the switch. I used a router mostly because I wanted to have all of my devices on the same network. Also, I'm not sure my ISP provider would support having a switch in front of the router. Bottom line, the RAX80's wired ethernet is broken and Netgear doesn't seem to care
So they sent me a replacement router and surprise - it has exactly the same problem. Now I am convinced each and every RAX80 has it and if someone doesn't see it they are using the router in a way that the issue is not that easy to notice (for example they are only doing web browsing) or simply are using it only for wifi. The support guys are very careful not to aknowledge that directly 🙂
It is not clear if the issue can be repaired via firmware or that this is a hardware defect that is never going away unless they start using different parts. It is not clear if the engineering team is aware that this happens with every router or they think just some units are defective. It is not clear what they would do if they know.
So I provided them with debug logs for the new router and I am waiting for them to suggest what to do next. The guy assigned to my case is sometimes missing (vacation, ilness, I don't know) and then I get assigned another person who asks me questions that are already in the support thread. Admittedly our saga has been going for many months so the support thread is increadibly long but it is annoying. It is also annoying that I know the questions are totally unrelated to the issue. For example they asked me what my network topology is. It is not the simplest one but not that strange (ISP -> another router in Router mode -> RAX80 in AP mode -> several computers on LAN) but it is not that strange and also I point out that people here are having problems with literally the simplest topology ISP -> RAX80 -> device. I can't tell how much of this is they bull**bleep**ting me and how much is them generally not being able to follow the issue.
On the other hand the replacement procedure was very civilized, they paid the shipping and assisted me shipping the unit across Europe. They sent the replacement first. I did not have to return the original unit to the store I bought it from (which is great because I would have needed to return it via mail in another country)
I'm sure Netgear know 100% it is a flaw with every router but most people don't recognise it or don't associate it with the RAX and instead think it but be the ISP model or other devices.
It's exactly the same for the Wi-Fi connection issues.
If they admitted a fault, in the US at least they would need to replace all of the hardware.
That's why the support is careful not to mention anyone else has reported the same problem & also why they have never written something in the firmware release notes mentioning either problem.
I hardwired all my tv's and consoles to get round the Wi-Fi drop out only to have the LAN issue. Xbox is unplayable online and the tv constantly says ethernet cable disconnected.
So I was trying to take clean log of the issue plugged my old router, totally disconnected the RAX80 and disabled its interface. Plugged one computer and ran a ping to the router itself with some scripts to be able to easily notice when it drops. To my surprise for 2.5 days I saw no issue (possibly "bad" luck, maybe the issue will happen eventually). What I noticed however is that I couldn't get the RAX80 to work without the ethernet cable, it wouldn't give my PC an address despite the fact that it was in router mode. I had to connect the Internet cable to "wake it up" and then I was able to disconnect it and do the tests normally. That's stupid behavior but not a big deal. However in the process I noticed that if I disconnect the Internet cable all other LAN ports get disconnected and the PCs show "network cable unplugged".
So here is the hypothesis - something causes the RAX80 to think the WAN Ethernet interface is unplugged. Might be a bug in the RAX80 or something in the other devices, doesn't really matter. Maybe other models are just tolerant to this behavior. So the RAX80 disconnects ALL LAN interfaces which causes PCs to renegotiate connection, get addresses through DHCP all that jazz. Now if Netgear engineers can fix this through firmware and NOT let the LAN interfaces be restarted due to Internet cable being unplugged then maybe the issue will be mitigated. This is reasonable expectation because we know WiFi is not affected by the drops. Maybe the routers are able to reestablish the internet connection very fast in say 50ms so in practice it would be unnoticable if it didn't cause all other LAN interfaces to be restarted.
Can people who have the issue confirm that their units restart all LAN interfaces if they unplug the Internet cable?
I have hardwried my house and my network backbone (3 switches) are connected to ports 1 - 3, the remaining ports are used for direct connectivity with my TV, voip phone etc.
Has anyone tested RAX80 Firmware Version 1.0.5.126 to see if it helps with LAN disconnects?
Also, I attached an unmanaged switch to the RAX80 and ran all my wired connections throught the switch for the last two months with no known disconnects. Last night I finally got my first disconnection notice. It seems to help but does not solve the problem.
So I have been in constant contact with support for 9+ months now. After being sent replacement routers, sending debug logs and so on they sent me a special debug firmware designed to catch the issue. I sent some more logs from the debug firmware version and they said the logs indicated that my main router DHCP was misbehaving and advised using static IP addresses. I've been running in a router mode and static IP address for the RAX80 and static IP addresses for my LAN computers for a week (they use the RAX80 DHCP because of the router mode but still...) and I have seen no issue. I switched the computers to DHCP yesterday and so far I have seen no issue. This is the longest I've gone without seeing the issue and I actually run scripts to try to catch it so it should be harder to miss. I will try to switch to AP mode tomorrow and see if using the DHCP of my main router for the computers will cause the RAX80 to disconnect even if it is not using the DHCP itself.
If other people in this thread can experiment with setting a static IP address on the RAX80 Internet connection (not on the computers but on the RAX80!) and report the results that will be great. You can do that in Advanced > Setup > Internet Setup > Internet IP Address
Here are my Powershell scripts that you can use to track the issue
The first line makes the console log everything to a file The second filters invalid replies (usually a disconnect manifests as a General failure) and adds a timestamp.
I run both scripts and look at the filtered one so I can know if something happened and then confirm in the unfiltered log. Note that you should make your computer not go to sleep or you will have some drops right before the computer goes to sleep and after it wakes up. if you see an issue you can confirm that the RAX80 log also has the issue on the corresponding time.
I believe the real issue with RAX80 is that if it encounters any problem on the Internet interface it disconnects all interfaces. It is possible that for my setup the issue is DHCP (which support says is my other router misbehaving but it might be the RAX80 mishandling it, I have no way to confirm and I do not trust them that much). In your case it might not be the DHCP so this might not solve the problem.
For those who may still have trouble with the RAX80, I exchanged it for a nighthawk rax70 and am happy to report I have gone about 3 or 4 months WITHOUT a single drop!!!! (I was getting maybe 3 to 10 a week of random disconnects)
I was hesitant to try another nighthawk but i really like the interface so I went for it and so far so good!!
Hi there, seems like some people are lucky and others not. I recently purchased a brand new RAX70 and have had the same strange issue ever since i got it and have had to keep contacting netgear support every week and currently still doing so. My rax70 seems to suddenly drop ethernet connection every couple of days. It seems to do it around 10pm and also my wife said it has also occurred overnight early hours in the morning. Wireless still seems to work with internet connection but its always lan that gets kickes out for couple of minutes or so then comes back. Netgear questioned my internet connection but it doesnt seem to be that, led light on modem is constantly lit the correct colour to indicate connection so no issue there. All leds on router still seem to be lit so no indication there is an issue when it happens. Keep checking router logs, nothing to indicate any disconnection from what i can see. So far with support, have changed mtu abd dns settings, then done a manual firmware reflash and complete reset of router and set up again, still having issue. Now they want me to take my netgear 8 port ethernet switch out as thats in between my wired devices and router but has always worked flawlessly with my old router so cant see it being an issue but will have to give it a try i suppise to take that out as a cause for the problem. This is starting to annoy me and driving me mad. No matter what i have tried it still keeps cutting out ethernet connection every couple of days. If yourself or anyone else has any ideas please get back to me. Will appreciate any info anyone can give to help.
If it helps in any way my setup is Virgin media 1gb fibre broadband Virgin media superhub 4 in modem mode RAX70 wifi router in router mode Netgear 8 port ethernet switch with various devices wired including xbox series x, sky q, pc, synology nas, denon x3700h, cyrus music streamer, LG C1 OLED TV. Ethernet disconnection issue is mainly noticed on xbox and sky q as they are the most used devices and both get kicked out at the same time so pretty sure its not just related to 1 device.
