Hoping I haven't overlooked advice or a solution in the forums, but searches haven't turned up anything useful so far, so I appreciate your help.
I have a router and two satellites (AX6000). Has been setup with both satellites hardwired via ethernet for about 8 months and worked fine, then the satellite stopped working. I've done everything I can think of to try to fix it to no avail. Multiple resets, attempts to sync via app, web admin, etc. Wired, wireless, close by, far away, etc.
Final step was to reset the entire system from scratch. Went through full initial setup again. When it asked how many satellites I said two, but when it searched for them it said it could only find 1 of the 2. Finished setup with the one satellite, then tried again to get the second one to sync, to no avail.
Finally tried calling Netgear, thinking it's a hardware problem and it's under warranty, but the guy wouldn't help me without paying for a support package since the status lights operate as expected, which to him means it isn't a hardware problem. I asked what the shortest, cheapest support package was and he told me something like $189 for a year. When I declined due to high cost, he offered me a 6 month package for like $89, at which point I told him I didn't appreciate him lying when I specifically asked what the shortest package available was, then finished the call.
Anything you can think of I can do to debug this? Any way to "prove" it's a hardware problem, if it is, so they'll replace it without buying a support package?
A few more details:
- After a reset, satellite status light flashes white for a few minutes on bootup, then solid white for a bit, then light turns off. As expected. When I try to sync, light flashes white for a few minutes, then goes to solid magenta.
- Hardwiring it to the router does not cause it to show up in the connected devices page on the web admin tool.
- At some point during all the efforts to reset/fix everything, a new firmware was downloaded to the router and presumably the other working satellite. So now I'd assume it's also not on the same firmware since it hasn't been sync'd since that firmware update. Not sure if that matters.
What else can I try? Any ideas? Thanks!
EDIT TO ADD: As far as I can tell, my product is actually the RBS850, but that product isn't an option I can find when creating the post, so I chose RBK854 as the closest one I could find. Not sure if there's a difference that matters for my issue.
Factory reset the non functioning RBS by pressing the reset button for 15 seconds then release. Connect one ethernet connected PC to the back of the RBS. Wait 5 minutes. Do not sync the RBS to the RBR. Just leave it. After 5 minutes, open a web browser and navigate to 192.168.10.250 and see if you get the log in pop up. If you do, use admin and password to log into the RBS web page. (You may need to set a manual static IP address on the ethernet connected PC to 192.168.10.49.)
If you get in, confirm the FW version thats loaded on the RBS. If it's not the same as the RBR, then you'll need to download the version of FW for the RBS to the RBS web page here.
For any FW updates, RBS need to be updated first before the RBR gets updated.
How are the RBS ethernet connected to the RBR?
Directly in back of the RBR or is there a LAN switch in between the RBR and RBS? Brand and model of this switch if there is one.
What CAT# lan cable are you using between the RBR and RBS? CAT6 is recommended.
Tried the reset connected via ethernet to both a PC and a Mac. Both with DHCP still enabled as well as manually configuring IP as 192.168.10.49. (I added subnet 255.255.255.0 on the PC since it required one when I tried to do the manual IP.)
Neither computer would connect to 192.168.10.250. Both network settings show messages similar to "Cable Unplugged" or "No cable found". For the Mac, the specific note under that is "Ether the cable for USB 10/100/1000 LAN is not plugged in or the device at the other end is not responding." Both computers basically act like the cable isn't plugged into anything. (FWIW, I also tried moving the network cable to the second port on the RBS rather than the first to see if it's a hardware port problem. I'm not sure whether the RBS is capable of incoming traffic on all ports or just the far left one.) It's not impossible I've done something wrong, I'm not a sysadmin, but networking concepts aren't totally foreign to me either.
To your other questions:
How are the RBS ethernet connected to the RBR?
Directly in back of the RBR or is there a LAN switch in between the RBR and RBS? Brand and model of this switch if there is one.
- No switch, both satellites are connected directly, with the caveat that they're running through existing house ethernet wiring, but that wiring is confirmed to work. And even in the case of the non-functioning RBS, it was working on the wiring run for about 8 months successfully and that run still works at ~1G speed when directly connected to a computer rather than the RBS. And for all current testing, I'm connecting directly with ~6' long cables confirmed functioning on other equipment.
What CAT# lan cable are you using between the RBR and RBS? CAT6 is recommended.
So if the PCs resported the cable disconnected in any of those configurations, seems like this one RBS is bad and needs replacing. I'd contact NG support to see what your options are.
Thanks. That’s good to know. So nothing else obvious you can think of I would be doing wrong in setting the network settings when it’s showing the cables as disconnected? There may not be, just trying to make sure before agreeing with NG to pay for a support plan if it ends up not being a hardware issue.
Actually, now that I think about it, I can test the functioning RBS to make sure the networking works properly on that one. That would confirm I’m not making any config errors…
IF the RBR was working the cable would show connected, just not having an IP address or would time out and the connected PC would set a self assigned IP address of 169. If the status shows cable disconnected when connected to the back of the RBS, would be that the port or something handling the port connection has failed or the FW/HWsystem on the RBS has failed.
To bring closure to this, I actually got a voicemail today from the csr apologizing for lying to me about the paid support options. When I called back, I spoke to someone willing to actually troubleshoot with me and they concurred that it’s a hardware problem. They’re sending a replacement. Thanks for the help!
