Re: Rax80 smart connect issue wifi dropping

Binstead5 · ‎2019-11-05

Thank you for your message regarding the AX80 router drop out problems. I intend to stick with the product as I have great respect for Netgear. I admit to being disappointed but now realise this is a new technology for routers. I have been advised to contact Netgear support but in fairness Netgear should acknowledge the problems on the community forum and embrace our support. I await a response from Netgear Support.

mspa · ‎2019-11-05

I certainly wish you the best binstead5! I too have believed in Netgear in the recent past. I still use an R7900 and R6900 without any issues. I heavily use the built-in openvpn and firewalls to control network access. It works great with those two devices, but the RAX80 is a useless paper weight. Netgear sent me a second RAX80 under warranty and it had all of the same problems. I guess the old adage of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" applies to my RAX80 purchase. If you actually get a solution I would love to hear about it. Best Regards

kingjahrome · ‎2019-11-08

Well, I posted a long note in another thread but basically I'm having the same lockup issues as everyone else. I saw the moderator suggested to open a ticket, so I did that.

They're offering an RMA, but I don't want to do that unless they come out and say for a fact there is a defect in the hardware and the unit they're delivering has a known hardware fix. That's highly unlikely, this is almost certtainly a firmware issue. Based on others posted they've gone the RMA route and it didn't resolve anything that is all I need to hear. Besides, these RMA's may be sending "factory refurbished units" for all I know, and I won't be trading the problems with this unit for worse ones.It is functional other than the several reboots I'm having to do. Quite annoying that it won't stay up for even one day. I still have my "600N" router sitting next to the RAX80 and I wish I could just get a refund, and purchase something else. I regret not getting a refund under the return period at the electronics store.

It's disgusting to me that companies like this are totally inept at dealing with such a large number of user complaints and informing us of what is happening.

Clibert · ‎2019-11-09

Well. Went back to the drawing board. Removed my RAX80 and EAX80 went back to my ATT Arris BGW210-700 added their Airties 4920 extender. Not as blazing fast but at least it is stable. Now I have useable internet in my front room and the devices connected to the extender can stream without buffering. Not sure what to do with my $600 in Netgear garbage. If I sell it I am sure I will get a request for a return. Stuck with an expensive paperweight. Months and no solution

SirLansalot · ‎2019-11-10

Hey all. I've bit the bullet and returned mine to amazon for a full refund. I was outside of the 90 day full warranty but as it's a 2 year hardware warranty they honoured the refund due to the fact it was not fit for purpose. Being told to disable the AX function to make the router work is just unacceptable. The funds are now back in my account. I will be waiting for black Friday to get another AX router. I wouldn't say no to another netgear but will be making sure I fully check reviews before Re purchasing. I noticed the price of this model has dropped £50 since the recent issues. Hope you all get resolutions.

kingjahrome · ‎2019-11-11

Excellent, it's good you were able to return it for a refund!

After offering me an RMA, Netgear closed the issue as resolved! Ridiculous.

Retired_Member · ‎2019-11-11

I posted in the other RAX80 thread (there's already 2 long threads about it on this forum) but I've been having the same problems as you all. RMA’d the first router. Second one still having issues with disconnects and just poor WiFi all around. Setting channels manually has not helped. My 5ghz band just disappears sometimes even though it’s on a non-radar channel. I’m assuming this can all be fixed with firmware. I'm not really sure what to do now. I can't re-sell a broken router and if an RMA didn't fix the problems the first time I doubt they'll fix it with another. I really wish I could just pay a small amount to Netgear to upgrade to one of the routers that doesn't have any issues.

@Christian_R& @Netgear please get these issues sorted out or give me some way to switch this router out for another. I've been a Netgear customer for quite a while now and it's a bit disappointing this has gone on so long without resolution.

thinksinc · ‎2019-11-11

I don't think upgrading to another RAX router will help. I had the top-of-the-line Tri-Band RAX200, and one was of the first people to post about this issue here. Thankfully I was within my return window on Amazon and got my $600+ back, but I'd advise everyone to avoid the entire RAX line. I'll look into AX routers in the future when the technology matures a bit, but Netgear clearly rushed this series to market without proper QA, and are leaving plenty of loyal customers in a lurch with very expensive paperweights.

The next AX router I get will certainly not have a Netgear logo on it, and I'd suggest that everyone else look into other brands like ASUS as well.

This is inexcusable on Netgear's part, and their unwillingness to admit a widespread problem with the RAX series is shocking.

GabboCH · ‎2019-11-11

This is the most disappointing & frustrating part for me, the lack of acknowledgment that there is anything wrong or anyone who has any idea how to fix it.

I've been in contact with the support guys for about 2 weeks and only today was my case forwarded onto the engineering team still without a suggestion that there may be a real problem.

I was really hoping for a beta firmware or something to try to fix the issue rather that trying to identify what the issue is.

There was an authentication issue with on another RAX (120 I think) which was acknowledged & fixed very fast.

The lack of response here makes me think they know the issues but have no solution yet.
Knowing this would at least make me feel better.
However from Netgears side if they do hold their hands up & are unable to resolve the problem then they have to replace a lot of routers. Keep quiet & they have no obligation as "there is no problem".

GabboCH · ‎2019-11-11

Interesting.
I might try this as well, going down the hardware refund route as my 90 day no question return time is over.
I have a hardware warranty for 24 months.

GabboCH · ‎2019-11-11

@SirLansalot I would be interested to know what you choose next!

SirLansalot · ‎2019-11-11

Amazon were pretty understanding and even though I was well outside of 90 days they offered me a refund the first time I called them. Worth a shot. Make sure you have a case number from netgear as they will ask you to contact netgear support first.

SirLansalot · ‎2019-11-11

I'm eying up the asus ax11000. It's £380 at moment with nothing but great reviews. I was going to wait till black Friday in case they discount it. Looks much better than the nighthawk 8. Especially with tri band and their in built vpn and UI is supposed to be superior.

SirLansalot · ‎2019-11-11

@GabboCH also their range seems to have full WiFi 6 mesh functionality. (although it is astronomically expensive) 😂

GabboCH · ‎2019-11-11

I'm kicking myself I didn't get the Asus mesh bundle I saw & try to find somewhere to hide it that the wife didn't complain too much.

Amazon support is always awesome.
I've returned a guitar from Switzerland before where the new postage & return postage cost more than the guitar itself.
I hope the company I used to buy it here are as good...

SirLansalot · ‎2019-11-11

Yea I've found no issue with them. That's said I never return stuff unless it's damaged or faulty. I think they must put notes on your account if you return stuff within the 14 day period regularly. I do hope netgear sort this mess out because right now I wouldn't get anything from them through fear of being stuck with a faulty product. Their warranty and customer care is not up to scratch in my opinion. They will lose a lot of customers if they get the same experience as I have had.

Binstead5 · ‎2019-11-11

Date: Mon, 11 Nov 2019 21:53:33 +0000
Subject: Re: Rax80 smart connect issue wifi dropping (NETGEAR Communities Subscription Update)

I have written to Netgear support twice today waiting for acknowledgement but I don’t foresee a problem. My complimentary phone support expires at the end of January 2020 I have also taken out a 3 month 24/7 Unlimited support that overlaps into February. This may seem strange given i am not a happy customer but I’m actually excited about its future as WiFi 6 is the way forward and being involved in future proofing the new technology. I have got to be positive.

kingjahrome · ‎2019-11-12

I think initially I felt the same way, Netgear products have been reliable for many years so surely they will recognize a problem and come out with a fix. Unfortunately having a positive attitude won't just will a fix into existence 🙂

Now after months and months of resetting the router several times a day I have zero confidence in Netgear's support for this issue as they don't even acknowledge a problem or provide an open ended statement, "We're aware of and looking into lock-up issues on the RAX80."

Customer support needs to allow for issues that aren't on their canned menu of support questions. It's a firmware bug on their end, not a "user didn't configure XYZ correctly", or "hardware is bad therefore user needs an RMA replacement unit." I don't require email support, phone support, or anything of the like. I require the ability to submit to them a defect and get a reasonable response about when their defect might be fixed. Or offer to refund the me for it.

digitsnbits · ‎2019-11-12

Hi All,

I have a RAX80 that doesn't have most of the problems all of you are experiencing but it does have quite a few problems including smart connect not working.

Just want to say after some experiments and a couple of purchases there are AX routers out there that have all the features like smart connect, solid AX WiFi, good range working flawlessly.

Funny thing is so far the best I've run across is actually one of the cheapest AX routers available.

AX3000 similar to AX4, not quite as fast as the RAX80 but very close and a whopping $129 at Walmart. If these guys can do it it's hard to justify Netgear charging top tier prices for hardware that just doesn't work as it should.

Whixson · ‎2019-11-15

Rax120 with frequent dropouts on my iPhones. Running SmartWifi with latest firmware.

kingjahrome · ‎2019-11-16

I tweeted @netgearhelp about the issues I was experiencing with having to power-cycle the router several times a day and the absolutely atrocious support I initially received. In sing-song voice: "Sir, we will surely update your support case with all of the information you have provided us, and will refund you the money if the RMA doesn't work out." And then they offered the RMA and closed the case. Brilliant.

So, now after their twitter help account intervened, it's at a level 2 support center and has gained some traction, at least it has stayed open and they are gathering information like the log files and config settings on the router to (hopefully) forward to their engineering team. Someone had said there is a debug page I was unaware of. So, if you go to your router 192.168.1.1/debug.htm you can actually download a debug logfile from the router. Even if you haven't enabled "Start Debug Log Capture when boot up" it still will save off a zipfile "Debug_log.zip" when you press the button "Save Debug Log". I started going through and there was quite a treasure trove (for someone familiar with debugging embedded systems) of kernel panicks, stack traces, watchdog timers being hit, locked up processes, some issues around the Broadcom chip, etc etc. I think there is enough information available that if the right person on their team looks at it then they could resolve the issue.

They just need to get past the first phase of debugging:

Phase 1: DENIAL

😄 cheers

GabboCH · ‎2019-11-17

I've been providing debug logs of all of my issues for a week & so far the only response is we need more logs & details about the problems...

There's is no way Netgear don't know there is an issue given the number of problems with the RAX family reported on these forums.

I'm guessing the complete radio silence is not a good sign....

Clibert · ‎2019-11-17

Yep. Delay delay delay until you can’t return it. I think our only remedy is a class action against this **bleep** company who doesn’t give a **bleep** about their customers. I am going to drop all of my Netgear stuff including older switches that work fine. Can’t support a garbage company who has no answers in 6 months. Bet they release new products and the. Will stop supporting this junk.

Retired_Member · ‎2019-11-18

For what it's worth, disabling Smart Connect, MU-MIMO, AX Wifi, and Implicit Beamforming, while also manually selecting channels seems to have solved a lot of the Wifi problems for me... for now. Fingers crossed it keeps up but my hopes aren't super high.

It's pretty disappointing that I have to disable basically everything that I paid so much extra for on this router just to get it to function somewhat properly.

kingjahrome · ‎2019-11-18

A pattern that I think I've noticed is that the router in general works and doesn't lock up while it's in continuous use. I think maybe it has gone out several times in the four months I've owned it while I was actively using it. The time it seems locked up is when I'm not actively using internet (although I assume any device I have powered on in the house is using it in the background). The times I notice it locked up are when I go to browse via my phone; watch Playstation Vue; or go to play a game. Based on the logfiles I now think the router has an issue with sleep, power savings, or like a deep-sleep mode. It takes a nap and can't wake up essentially. I think that accounts for 95% of the lockups.

So, what I've found is that turning on debug logging seemed to make the router more stable. Having worked in embedded systems programming this isn't an unusual effect as it changes the timing characteristics of the processes.

I'll say that while it is working I don't have an issue with it, I'm not sure it is any faster or has more capacity than my old router but I have not tried any type of multi-device throughput test with it.