Netgear support (lack of) on $950 Orbi 853 during hardware warranty
I purchased the top of the line Orbi RBK853 in October of 2020 to replace my RBK53 system. It has been realtively reliable except for one issue that popped up around February, if I move it around... the lan port connected items (my two backhauled satellites and my desktop computer) will disconnect and not restore until i wiggle them in some fashion and they come back online. Rebooting the unit will not restore functionality. I have changed out all of the Cat 6 cables with fresh new ones (I am a network engineer by trade and have access to lots of kit for troubleshooting cable/port issues).
It is obvious, I have short of in the LAN port PCB.
I was able to get it working back in February, and I continued using it till today, April 24th when I made the mistake of moving the Orbi a few inches on my desk and I lost all LAN connectivity again.
Mind you, wifi continues to work, but now my backhaul connected satellites are running at sub par performance due to wifi vs wired. I also pay for fiber, and used wired connections for reduced latency. Wireless only is not a solution.
So I called Netgear support... Meg was very nice, and collected my information. Then, to begin the "trouble shooting" I was asked to pay for technical support (which expired 3 months in) in order to access my hardware warranty. I told Meg I was reasonably sure this is a physical issue, and not a software trouble shooting issue, again, I am a network engineer and see similar problems to this on a fairly regular basis. Touching a network cable should not disconnect all items attached to that panel.
Is this how Netgear works now? Nickle and dime you so you can access the warranty that is still in effect?
I have been able to restore my LAN connection again by carefully wiggling the cables till it started back up... but when will it go out again? This is crazy. I have 5 months left on my warranty and I cant access it without paying a minimum of $80...
Re: Netgear support (lack of) on $950 Orbi 853 during hardware warranty
I only started noticing it in February, when I direct connected my desktop to the router.
The direct connected Windows desktop would show immediatly when a connection failed, and I realized it was when I physically moved cables or the router itself around on the desk.
Before that, for months, I had sub gig speeds on my backhauled satellites (I have gig fiber, and even my old RBK53 system would give me gig wired speeds at the satellite). Of course, in retrospect, I should have checked then to see if the wired connect had failed and it was using wireless (later confirmed this was my issue) and that sourced from the Orbi routers lan port short that occurs.
I have not contacted a moderator here, but with your suggestion I will.
