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Orbi continually causes Win 10 PC WiFi media disconnect

Severt
Tutor

Orbi continually causes Win 10 PC WiFi media disconnect

I installed an ORBI RBR50 router with two satellites connected with wired backhaul this week.  Updated the firmware on the router and both satellites.  Since changing over to the ORBI, my wireless connection to my Win10 Acer laptop drops routinely (up to 5 times an hour).  Sometimes it will go hours between drops.  The observables after the drop include:

  1. My laptop sees no available WiFi networks.  In normal usage, I see ~7 networks. 
  2. Running ipconfig after a network drop shows that the media state is “media disconnected”
  3. I must reboot or run the Windows network diagnostics tool to recover. I then see the networks again.  Running the network diagnostics tool reports it “reset the adapter”.
  4. There are no events found in event viewer showing up at the time of each drop.
  5. My wired devices have had no drops.
  6. My IOS devices have had no drops.
  7. One other older windows 10 laptop has had the same drop behavior and also requires a wifi adapter reset to recover.

My laptop (Acer Spin 13) is about 8 months old and has never dropped from a WiFi network like this.  Clearly the problem is caused by the interaction of the laptop and my new Orbit access point or router.

 

I would love to keep the Orbi network since its coverage and speed is great, but it will be going back to Costco soon if I cannot resolve this problem.  Any help would be appreciated.

 

I have attached the network diagnostics report courtesy of Microsoft.

Model: RBR50| Orbi AC3000 Tri-band WiFi (Router Only)
Message 1 of 16
ekhalil
Master

Re: Orbi continually causes Win 10 PC WiFi media disconnect

What wired devices do you have connected to Orbi's LAN ports? 

Please test to disconnect all wired devices, restart Orbi and see if things will be different without any wired devices, just to see if there is a "bad" device.. 

Message 2 of 16
Severt
Tutor

Re: Orbi continually causes Win 10 PC WiFi media disconnect

I will give this a shot, though doubt this will have an impact.  Did not have any problems with my previous routers.  I have wired connections to a PS4, Win10 pc, iMac, printer, and two Rokus. 

 

Message 3 of 16
Severt
Tutor

Re: Orbi continually causes Win 10 PC WiFi media disconnect

Oh, I forgot to add,  Thanks for your input!

Message 4 of 16
FURRYe38
Guru

Re: Orbi continually causes Win 10 PC WiFi media disconnect

If you updated to recent FW v.210, try enabling Daisy Chain. Some have mentioned that this seems to be working in reverse order, enabling means disabled actually. DS is not needed for wired back haul...

 

What channels are you using? Auto? Try setting manual channel 1, 6 or 11 on 2.4Ghz and any unused channel on 5Ghz.

 


@Severt wrote:

I installed an ORBI RBR50 router with two satellites connected with wired backhaul this week.  Updated the firmware on the router and both satellites.  Since changing over to the ORBI, my wireless connection to my Win10 Acer laptop drops routinely (up to 5 times an hour).  Sometimes it will go hours between drops.  The observables after the drop include:

  1. My laptop sees no available WiFi networks.  In normal usage, I see ~7 networks. 
  2. Running ipconfig after a network drop shows that the media state is “media disconnected”
  3. I must reboot or run the Windows network diagnostics tool to recover. I then see the networks again.  Running the network diagnostics tool reports it “reset the adapter”.
  4. There are no events found in event viewer showing up at the time of each drop.
  5. My wired devices have had no drops.
  6. My IOS devices have had no drops.
  7. One other older windows 10 laptop has had the same drop behavior and also requires a wifi adapter reset to recover.

My laptop (Acer Spin 13) is about 8 months old and has never dropped from a WiFi network like this.  Clearly the problem is caused by the interaction of the laptop and my new Orbit access point or router.

 

I would love to keep the Orbi network since its coverage and speed is great, but it will be going back to Costco soon if I cannot resolve this problem.  Any help would be appreciated.

 

I have attached the network diagnostics report courtesy of Microsoft.


 

Message 5 of 16
Severt
Tutor

Re: Orbi continually causes Win 10 PC WiFi media disconnect

I have tried the three suggestions received one at a time.  (removing all wired connections to see if there is a bad actor on my wired network, Changing the Daisy Chain setting, and selecting specific wireless channels instead of auto).  In each case, the drops persisted.

 

Next step is to contact Netgear support and see if they have any insight.

Message 6 of 16
ekhalil
Master

Re: Orbi continually causes Win 10 PC WiFi media disconnect

When the laptop is connected to Orbi, can you please check in the web GUI if it’s connected on the 2.4 GHz ir the 5 GHz? Also monitor if it will be hopping and changing between the two bands. Also see if you see events relatability to the laptop’s IP address in the Logs >> ADVANCED >> Administration >> Logs).
Also please reserve an IP address in Orbi for the laptop’s MAC address. (under >> ADVANCED >> Settings >> LAN).
Message 7 of 16
Severt
Tutor

Re: Orbi continually causes Win 10 PC WiFi media disconnect

Based on the last suggestion, I checked the log but found nothing that appeared to be relevant.  However it is peculiar in that it only has events starting today.  I expected that it would have events from the entire week that I have owned it .  What is also strange is that the first event in the log is:

 

Initialized, firmware version: V2.2.1.210] Saturday, December 15, 2018 08:17:44

 

I don’t know what “initialized” means.  Perhaps the router had an unplanned reboot and at that time cleared its logs?

 

Next, I did check and have seen that my laptop has switched once in the past hour from the 5ghz to 2.4ghz.   I also noted that after a drop and subsequent restart of the laptop wifi adapter, the laptop connected to a different satellite.  (The satellites are roughly equidistant.)  I also noted in the attached devices tab that two devices, an xbox and an amazon echo, were shown as connected via wire, whereas they are both wireless.   

 

I did reserve an address in the router for my laptop, but this does not fix my problem.

 

Finally, I can now recreate the problem.  When I run a download speed test from speedtest.net, my wifi drops and I need to restart the adapter.  Sometimes it takes a couple of tests, but I will get it to fail. 

 

Thanks to all that have suggested things to try.

Message 8 of 16
FURRYe38
Guru

Re: Orbi continually causes Win 10 PC WiFi media disconnect

Try a Manual FW load:
https://community.netgear.com/t5/Orbi/Firmware-2-2-1-210-released-as-of-10-3-18/m-p/1647303/highligh...


@Severt wrote:

Based on the last suggestion, I checked the log but found nothing that appeared to be relevant.  However it is peculiar in that it only has events starting today.  I expected that it would have events from the entire week that I have owned it .  What is also strange is that the first event in the log is:

 

Initialized, firmware version: V2.2.1.210] Saturday, December 15, 2018 08:17:44

 

I don’t know what “initialized” means.  Perhaps the router had an unplanned reboot and at that time cleared its logs?

 

Next, I did check and have seen that my laptop has switched once in the past hour from the 5ghz to 2.4ghz.   I also noted that after a drop and subsequent restart of the laptop wifi adapter, the laptop connected to a different satellite.  (The satellites are roughly equidistant.)  I also noted in the attached devices tab that two devices, an xbox and an amazon echo, were shown as connected via wire, whereas they are both wireless.   

 

I did reserve an address in the router for my laptop, but this does not fix my problem.

 

Finally, I can now recreate the problem.  When I run a download speed test from speedtest.net, my wifi drops and I need to restart the adapter.  Sometimes it takes a couple of tests, but I will get it to fail. 

 

Thanks to all that have suggested things to try.


 

Message 9 of 16
Severt
Tutor

Re: Orbi continually causes Win 10 PC WiFi media disconnect

My last post.   This problem was never resolved. I did the firmware update as suggested and then did the MTU and channel change again with no luck.  Netgear recommended I return the Orbi, which I will be doing shortly.

 

Now a word about Netgear support.  No rancor here, just facts.   I submitted an email trouble ticket four days ago.  I got back an email within hours requesting additional detail.  It was a template for this category of problem. I had already provided almost everything asked for, so it was easy to cut and paste it back in and did so quickly.   I waited a day and no response, so I pinged them by posting a request for status against the trouble ticket.  No response.  Waited another day, and did this again and no response.  So after four days I started a chat session and referred to the email trouble ticket.  I got routed to the concerns desk.  From there I got routed to an expert.  I don’t know if she read the email TT or not, because she made no mention of it.  What she did do was walk me through basically all of the steps I had gotten from the community post about this problem.  So I repeated them.  Problem still exists.  Her recommendation at that point was to return the Orbi.

 

My takeaways:  Netgear support has minimal technical depth.  They should have a process for escalating problems that are beyond the first line of support.  Don’t bother with submitting an email trouble ticket. I am not going to bash the Orbi product, because I do believe it functioned well on all of my devices except for the two Windows 10 laptops that were having problems..  I really wanted to make it work, but the Netgear support staff just was not capable. 

Message 10 of 16
FURRYe38
Guru

Re: Orbi continually causes Win 10 PC WiFi media disconnect

Message 11 of 16
schumaku
Guru

Re: Orbi continually causes Win 10 PC WiFi media disconnect

This does read much more like the unspecified Windows WiFi client on the Acer (can't find anything useful as Acer Spin 13 does lead to a Chromebook, not a WIndows system) does badly fail. Very unlikely this is normal and caused by an wireless AP STA. Reminds me to issues seen when testing the 160 MHz capable WiFi clients from several chip vendors btw. What kind of WiFi interfaces are in use on that Acer Spin, and the older WIndows system, what driver are in place?

Message 12 of 16
Severt
Tutor

Re: Orbi continually causes Win 10 PC WiFi media disconnect

The Acer has a  Qualcomm Atheros QCA61x4A Wireless Network Adapter.  I have attached the network diagnostics report generated by Windows.  I checked with Acer and the driver is current.  The older Lenovo thinkpad edge as a Realtek RTL8188EE wifi adapter.  I have the Acer on a lot of networks this year (30+) and have never had this problem with any other network. 

 

I am guessing that it is a layer two standards implementation incompatibility between the adapter and the WAP.  I can force the problem to happen by doing a speedtest.net download on the Acer.  So high volume makes it happen quickly, but it will happen even at low traffic rates, just takes longer to see the failure.  The other interesting thing was that it happened more readily when the laptop is located midway between WAPs.  Perhaps if I had reduced roaming sensitivity, I might have mitigated the problem. 

 

 

Message 13 of 16
misterTTT
Aspirant

Betreff: Orbi continually causes Win 10 PC WiFi media disconnect

Hello,

 

I am experiencing the same issues with a new Microsoft Surface 2 laptop (Marvell AVASTAR Wireless-AC Network Controller) with latest drivers with RBR40 Orbi router (Latest: Router Firmware Version V2.3.1.48) and RBW30 satellite (latest).

 

The laptop and router are placed in the living room, the satellite in the hallway. Even though there is a kitchen and walls in between living room and hallway, I see that the laptop sometimes connects to the satellite and loses connection a few minutes afterwards. When it is connected to the router, it also switches between 2.4 and 5 Ghz band.

 

It looks like moving closer to the router or satellite would lower the effect of the issue.

 

Fast roaming is deactivated.

 

A thing I found strange was that the laptop was not recognized as a Windows PC, device model shows "---" and device type first showed "Network device".

 

Does anybody have an idea?

 

Kind regards,

T

Model: RBW30|Orbi AC2200 Tri-band WiFi Add-on Satellite
Message 14 of 16
misterTTT
Aspirant

Betreff: Orbi continually causes Win 10 PC WiFi media disconnect

Edit: the correct name of the laptop is Microsoft Surface Laptop 2 (Marvell AVASTAR Wireless-AC Network Controller)

Message 15 of 16
FURRYe38
Guru

Betreff: Orbi continually causes Win 10 PC WiFi media disconnect

What is the Mfr and model# of the ISP modem the NG router is connected too?
Is the Orbi system operating in Router or AP mode?

What is the size of your home? Sq Ft?
What is the distance between the router and satellite(s)? 30 feet is recommended in between them to begin with depending upon building materials when wirelessly connected.

 

What channels are you using? Auto? Try setting manual channel 1, 6 or 11 on 2.4Ghz and any unused channel on 5Ghz.
Any Wifi Neighbors near by? If so, how many?
What WPA security modes are you using?

 

Try enabling Beamforming and MIMO and WMM. Under Advanced Tab/Advanced Settings/Wireless Settings

Try disabling the following and see:
Daisy Chain, IPv6 and Set 20/40Mhz Coexistence to 40Mhz only. Save settings and reboot the router and satellite(s).

 

Ensure the drivers for your wireless AC adapter are up to date as well...


@misterTTT wrote:

Hello,

 

I am experiencing the same issues with a new Microsoft Surface 2 laptop (Marvell AVASTAR Wireless-AC Network Controller) with latest drivers with RBR40 Orbi router (Latest: Router Firmware Version V2.3.1.48) and RBW30 satellite (latest).

 

The laptop and router are placed in the living room, the satellite in the hallway. Even though there is a kitchen and walls in between living room and hallway, I see that the laptop sometimes connects to the satellite and loses connection a few minutes afterwards. When it is connected to the router, it also switches between 2.4 and 5 Ghz band.

 

It looks like moving closer to the router or satellite would lower the effect of the issue.

 

Fast roaming is deactivated.

 

A thing I found strange was that the laptop was not recognized as a Windows PC, device model shows "---" and device type first showed "Network device".

 

Does anybody have an idea?

 

Kind regards,

T


 

Message 16 of 16
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