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RAX80 regularly disconnects devices, then they reconnect
I recently “upgraded” from an R8000 thinking I would have better connectivity and faster speeds. Since purchasing the RAX80 I continually have devices drop their connection at random, then they reco...
My experience with this problem is slightly different. In my case, the RAX80 simply slows a specific (random) system's connection down to a crawl. Rebooting the system dows nothing to fix this. The only fix I've found so far is to reboot the router and problem is gone.
Tech support has suggested changing the MTU setting to 1468. (Advanced>setup>Wan Setup) So far, I haven't noticed any improvement from this.
So they made another suggestion I haven't had the opportunity to check out yet. Here it is:
">>click on advanced on the top of the page
>>Then Select Advanced Setup
>>under Advanced Setup click on Advanced Wireless setting
under Wireless Advanced Settings (2.4GHz b/g/n) under Fragmentation Length (256-2346): changed the number 2346 to 2300
for CTS/RTS Threshold (1-2347): change the number from 2347 to 2301
do the same for Wireless Advanced Settings (5GHz a/n/ac)
Hit apply.
After this please observe the connection at least six hours."Perhaps this is worth a try. I have some other problems with this box. If they can't resolve them, I'g going to ask NetGear to buy the RAX80 back or replace it with something that is stable enough to actually work correctly. - My own optinion is that they shouldn't be messing with public domain code to run this box, generally, this has too many glitches and security issues. - You'd think they could afford to have professionals writing the firmware for these systems.
I see Walmart is now selling these off for $299. Netgear must be dumping these bricks since they know they don’t work.
With the latest firmware (RAX80-Firmware-Version-1-0-1-70) I still have to power cycle the router due to it locking up. It's happening more like once every day or two rather than the 2-3 times a day it was doing before. Based on the lack of support/feedback I won't be a future customer.
I upgraded to the latest firmware and still have the same disconnection problems. I gave tech support a call and have arranged to exchange it for a new one. Not sure that will make a difference, but it's better than the situation I'm in now. I'll post a follow-up.
I have had some success playing with some things.
I have downgraded to Firmware Version V1.0.1.58_1.0.24. Rebooting 2 to 3 times a day wasn't working for me and since I downgraded, it has been much more stable.
I noticed that the 5ghz channel was disappearing alot. I put most everything on the 2.4 ghz channel and things have been working well. I have a lot of Amazon devices and they seem to be the most sensitive.
I changed NTP Settings to use nist.gov https://tf.nist.gov/tf-cgi/servers.cgi
I changed the 5 Ghz channel to a static 64 - Because everything got downgraded to the 2.4 ghz channel, I am just now starting to test how this will work.
Once I verify that the 5 GHz channel is working fine with these settings, I will upgrade the BIOS to the latest and see how that works. Thanks to the other members who made several of these suggestions.
RAX80 experiences fewer daily lockups/freezes than in the past with the most recent 1.0.1.70 firmware, but still I am having to power cycle the router several times a week or more; last night during a Skype call being the most recent example where the router simply freezes!!
After several months of opening a support ticket, Netgear has agreed to let me return the product to them for a refund! It's good news, and honestly I had hoped for a fix to the firmware to eliminate these issues, but since one is not forthcoming and they say they cannot reproduce any of the issues multiple people are complaing about, I am going to go ahead and return it, go back to using the N600 I still own, and shop for another router. The stability (i.e. quality) of this router has always been unacceptable and I regret not having returned it in the initial 15 day window at the big blue electronics store, because support has been extremely slow going and not resolved anything.
Congrats! I wish I could do the same thing but never opened a ticket because my 90 days was up and I refused to pay a crazy amount of money for the privilege of Netgear earning even more money on a crap product. Without ever opening a ticket I know I'm out of luck. I'm glad you had the perserverance to stick with it and had a good outcome!
Thanks! Somehow I was able to open the ticket very near or only just past the 90 day cutoff date. By that time I was absolutely fed up with needing to manually power-cycle the router several times daily. Like you, I'm not willing to pay for "tech" support as this is not a "user needs support configuring their router " type of issue. The first time calling in I got tech support from a foreign entity of Netgear - NOT GOOD!!! They basically did nothing, promised a bunch of stuff on the phone, and closed the case immediately!!! I was pretty disappointed with that experience to say the least, so I complained on twitter netgear and their tech support, and they tweeted back and it went from there. It really does take perseverance sometimes and a willingness to spend the time and remain calm and very firm. Most bureaucracies will eventually bend if you are in the right and can take the time to deal with them. Also, I never bother anyone unless I have a legitimate gripe or grievance. Just stick to the facts, leave emotions out of the conversation even if they are woefully slow and inept, and remain respectful. More often than not it has worked for me.
- I find it rather comical that Netgear can’t seem to reproduce the issues explained all over the community pages. Are you kidding me? I swear these idiots must sit at the bar when they test these paperweights. One look over the community page threads and you could spend hours reading all the similar complaints about this router. They should have a buyback program for all of us who got screwed on this piece of garbage. Netgear really dropped the ball on this one!
It has been a couple of weeks. Everything worked good for about a week and then it started up again. I had to reboot almost every hour and the 5Mhz channel would just disappear all together. I thought I saw in a message that someone said the OFDMA isn't really working properly anyway, so I turned that off and problems went away (expensive AX router that won't do AX). During messing around with this stuff I changed the channel a couple of times on the 5Mhz band and got errors that there was Radar Detected and it was deactivated. This would explain why the 5Mhz channel is disappearing now and again. Why there isn't logging for this in the error log is beyond me. Maybe it is and I am looking in the wrong place. I remember with some of my old routers it would find the best channel now and again automatically. It would be nice if this $400 router had that feature. Why should I have to test them out manually? I also don't know if their is a limit to the channels for my clients (1-150 or something). I am going to try updating to BIOS 1.70 next week and see how that goes.
My gut is telling me this is local to my environment and that is why Netgear is having a hard time with finding the problem. In addition, as a programmer, I know that most young programmers don't put nearly enough logging into their code to track issues. They assume way to often that a problem could never occur with something and don't bother. Like channel issues. It is also interesting how I didn't have any problems until I updated my BIOS about the same time I connected a Samsung Everything hub (about 9 months of great connectivity with a reboot about once every 3 weeks). It is currently turned off while I figure this thing out, but the problems persisted even with the Samsung hub discounted and turned off. When I installed the Samsung hub, I saw it was doing a major BIOS upgrade and thought I should check the router to see if it was up to date too. It wasn't so I update the Netgear router too. Within about a week, the router went into itis downward spiral. Why didn't it happen right away if it was the BIOS or the Samsung Everything hub?
These devices should be polling the channels on the hour every hour and keeping a weeks worth of data and either suggesting or out right setting the channel for us. Maybe under setup have a page that will do that. Let me turn it on and off as an advanced setting. I shouldn't have to guess or experiment with my channels. This advanced of a router should be able to suggest the best channel for me.