Orbi WiFi 7 RBE973
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Are ALL RBR750s defective?

astonerii
Star

Are ALL RBR750s defective?

RBR750

ORBI

RBR750

V3.2.16.6_1.4.4

 

The symptoms of the defective units in my case are. My phone will show it trying to connect, then nothing, then trying to connect and this will go on for several cycles taking up to 30 seconds before it just simply stops trying or gives the "authentication error occured" with the very rare connected followed by a long checking connection quality sequence. When I check my connection quality on my phone, it will say 173Mbps or less. 173 Mbps is the absolute limit that the base unit will communicate with my phone. Maybe it is my phone? Well, my wife's phone, my daughter's phone, MY PC, the Wife's laptop, pretty much everything that connects to the ORBI base unit has a terrible time of it. While I typed this paragraph my phone has lost connection to the Orbi RBR750 base unit 9 times.

 

I am on my 4th RBK753 system, the latest one is an RMA base unit direct from Netgear.

The satellites in general seem to work very well. But the base units are always coming in as if they are defective, except the very first one I bought. It worked splendidly for 10 days!

 

The first unit I bought installed quickly and gave gigabit WiFi all through the house and well into the yard. I never noticed a large number of disconnects nor "authentication error occured" messages on my phone. I do not recall any at first. Until day 10 of ownership when the only communication I got was "authentication error occured"  I burned 3 work hours trying to get it back to working and finally returned it.

 

Waited a week for a replacement. Got the replacement, and it started out either failing to connect or "authentication error occured". It took me hours and many factory resets to get it through initial set up. I spent 2 hours on the phone with their tech support and got no where with it.

 

After failing to get anywhere with technical support, I spent the next day evaluating things. I discovered that if I left the base unit room and connected to the satellites that I would get great connections in the near gigabit range and many fewer "authentication error occured" messages. I wrote up a very detailed message for Netgear only for their system to eat it and refuse to give it back. So I sent that unit back and bought another one. Third time's the charm sort of thing.

 

Waited another week. Costco 2 day delivery is the worst 2 day delivery in America! That was even with paying the extra money to get it expedited. Anyways, to my surprise, the 3rd unit came in worse than the second one. It was so bad that I actually did the initial setup using a satellite. Called up tech support who immediately asked me to do a factory reset! Blew 3 hours on this trying to find a solution. No good. I finally had enough, figured I would have Netgear send an RMA unit, maybe Costco got a bad batch.

 

Got the new unit today. Another week, always get them on Monday... Set it up and the first thing it spits out is no connection, then "authentication error occured" and finally connected, 173Mbps. Seriously? What is the meaning of 173Mbps? I have never once gotten a better connection on the base unit. Satellites my wife gets over 1Gbps sometimes.

 

So, what is the deal with these RBR750 units? Are they all like this? If not, how on earth can I get 3 of them in a row like this?

 

I have done everything possible to make it work. Here is the list of actions.

 

Obviously I did the set up. No love.

I called tech support and spent hours doing all kinds of stupid worthless things.

Multiple factory resets.

Reinstalling the firmware.

Rolling the firmware back.

Reinstalling the latest firmware.

Did I say multiple factory resets?

Turning off the AX on one, then the other then both bands. Why did I buy an AX router again? Why is this an option on a $700 WiFi 6 router?

Restarting my ISP modem? What on earth do they expect that to do?

Oh, the one I loved and am still loving, wiping out my internet history in my web browser on my PC which is not even connected to the WiFi! But what the hell, I gave them every opportunity to get this thing working.

Turning off my ISP WiFi, I can see the point of that a bit, but seriously? People have dozens of wifi signals to hundreds of wifi signals around, this stuff should not be required, and of course, it did nothing. What do you expect, theoretically I should be able to connect 254 devices to this thing.

Well, maybe it is my computer room that is causing the interference, so I take a long ethernet cable and move to the other end of the house. Nope, nothing new. No connection, dropped connection, "authentication error occured" and 173Mbps!

I even tried doing it without it connected to anything in the middle of the living room, and still no benefits.

 

Any solutions out there? Is anyone else having these problems? Am I really this unlucky with the silicone lottery?

 

Message 1 of 3
Mstrbig
Master

Re: Are ALL RBR750s defective?

Let's start with:

Who is your ISP and what equipment did they provide?
What is the current firmware on your Orbi device?
What device is your Orbi router connected to?

Did you reboot your ISP modem/router, before starting the Orbi router install?
Have you changed the network cable connected from the ISP device to your Orbi router?
Are your satellites wired or wireless?
Disable Circle, Armor, Daisy Chaining, Fast Roaming, IPv6 and uncheck 20/40Mhz Coexistence.
Enable WMM, Implicit BeamForming, Mu-MIMO
Set Short preamble mode. Save settings, reboot Orbi.
If wired, what cable size was used, as wrong size can cause slow speed.

Message 2 of 3
FURRYe38
Guru

Re: Are ALL RBR750s defective?

Be sure to post in the correct forum for Orbi AX systems:

https://community.netgear.com/t5/Orbi-AX/bd-p/en-home-orbi-ax

 

Thank you. 

@astonerii 

Message 3 of 3
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