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Forum Discussion
Nighthawk A7000 frequently disconnecting less than 5 months after purchase, no way to contact you
I purchased my Nighthawk wifi adapter on January 10. It was working fine until May. Now, it's disconnecting extremely frequently. Troubleshooting doesn't help. Your website's "support" section doesn'...
In the Screenshot the A7000 shows in the table with a check for h/w. I recall, but could be wrong that if you click on that you can then open a case#. Is that what you did for the 2nd capture? If so, call that number and give the case#. If they want to charge don't give any info and say you have defective hw. See what happens.
I called Netgear support yesterday. It was around 2:45pm and I was on hold for over 45 minutes, despite having a case number (that's supposed to make it "priority and faster"). When I got through to someone, it was a very frustrating conversation.
First, she asked me whether I was using 2.4 or 5 GHz multiple times. She insinuated that my adapter wasn't working because I wasn't using a Nighthawk router, to which I replied, I had one that gave us nothing but trouble and for which we still need to contact support, because it consistently screwed up our internet. Then she said I had to contact my ISP to make them open up channel 161. I said that's probably not going to help because the blue light was flashing and the unit was turning off and on when the connection issues occurred, and that's not the fault of my ISP, and I didn't want to have to wait another 45+ minutes to be rerouted to someone else who would just do the same thing again. I then told her what I had already included elsewhere, that the other morning I turned my computer on and the adapter wouldn't turn on, I unplugged it and plugged it back in and eventually it turned on something like 3 minutes later. Then, she insisted I go get "my laptop" so she could have me manually reinstall the driver. I informed her that I don't have a laptop. She said I needed one for this step of support. I reiterated that I do not have one (I think I had to tell her this in total five times and she didn't move onto the next step until I confirmed with her that the software was up to date, and verified the version number twice).
Something like 45 minutes after getting through to a support person, I finally got an RMA number.
I mailed the adapter (just the A7000, not the unit with a cord that it plugs into) today. It fit in a Priority Flat Rate small box and that cost $7.90. I was tempted to pay the $16+ to get the replacement sent to me before sending in my RMA, because that includes the return shipping, but my husband talked me out of it and I found an internet cable long enough to plug into the router and reach my PC.
So victory, I guess? I don't think anyone should have to fight as hard as I did to get a very well-known company to support their product that's less than six months old. I didn't drop it or abuse it, it's just faulty, and I found this whole process unnecessarily difficult and frustrating.
