EX3700 extender 5ghz won't both connect and repeat simultaneously

[Kapurnicus]

For some odd reason, I believed I should be able to connect the extender to the 2.4ghz and 5ghz bands in my home, and then repeat them both. It seems this is a challenge. If I connect the 2.4ghz and 5ghz and ask it to repeat both, the 2.4 works fine, but no one can connect to the 5ghz. They either get stuck on obtaining an IP address, or whatever that devices default error message is. However, if I connect to the router only on the 2.4ghz and then repeat that on the 2.4 and 5ghz bands everything works, but the extender is only connected to the router on the 2.4ghz side.

This is not an ideal solution, as the 5ghz band is more reliable in my situation, so I'd prefer to connect to the router (from the extender) on that. That is also why fastlane is not enabled, my preference is the 5ghz.

I called tech support and they told me the device was faulty, I exchanged it and am having the same problem. Any ideas? Firmware is latest (I tried to update from the extenders local hosted website). Oddly enough, when I have the 5ghz and the 2.4ghz connected to the router, the firmware update page says we have no internet, when I'm just connected on 2.4 the update worked fine (it didn't need one, but didn't throw an error). This leads me to believe there is something wrong on the 5ghz side of the connection from the extender to the router, but I've factory reset multiple times, put in the correct password, it says its connected and no other device in my home has trouble connecting to the 5ghz band from the router (when they are in range of course, hence the need for the extender).

[DarrenM]

Hello Kapurnicus

Have you tried to lower the wireless channel of the 5ghz?

DarrenM

[Kapurnicus]

I have not. It is somewhere in the middle right now. I will give that a try. Can you explain why that should matter?

[hackajar1]

• Hardware Version: EX3700
• Firmware Version: V1.0.0.58_1.0.38

Having the same issue (I guess 6mo later?!).  Though, the channels are shadded out, so I cannot override to try your troubleshoot technique.  What is going on here?

To summarize:

• 2.4 Repeated SSID: OK
• 2.4 Connected to main SSID: OK
• 5 Repeated SSID: No connect (and noted as such in the status menu)
• 5 Connect to main SSID: OK

[Kapurnicus]

I never did fix it. I've installed 3 of these and always have this problem. I'm convinced netgesr didn't test it and doesn't care.

[DHUK]

Although my extender is a different model (3800 rather than 3700), I had exactly the same problem with 5GHz. I could never connect to the extended 5GHz signal, because it would fail to get an IP address.

I solved the problem as follows: My router had the same SSID for both bands (2.4Ghz and 5GHz.) I didn't realise that this could be an issue, but as soon as I changed the SSID of the 5GHz signal from the router (in my router's setup), the problem went away. I can now connect with no problems to either the 2.4 or 5Ghz extended signal.

[DHUK]

Re my previous post: I realised after posting that of course by renaming the SSID of the 5GHz from the router, the extender would no longer be able to see it and would only be connected via 2.4GHz. This was confirmed when I looked at the connections using the 'mywifiext.net' status page. When I gave the extender the new 5GHz SSID for the router, I could no longer connect to the extended 5GHz signal - again it failed to get an IP address.

So all I actually succeeded in doing, was to confirm the problem as posted by the original post: it seems that if you connect extender and router via 2.4GHz only, then you can connect to both 2.4 and 5GHz extended signals, but if you connect the router and extender using both 2.4GHz and 5GHz, then it is only possible to connect to the 2.4GHz extended signal.

I'd be interested if anyone else can shed any light on this issue.

[Kapurnicus]

Hi, OP here. I did the same thing, tried to rename the 5ghz. All 4 of my network signals have different names. I never did fix this, and have set up one of these since with the same problem. It is a design flaw that netgear is not recognizing. Their only answer was "return it".

While the extender is not useless, it is less useful in this fashion. I wanted to extend the 5ghz, it is uneffected by cordless phones and especially microwaves. Microwave ovens operate at 2.4ghz and will kill your wifi while cooking popcorn haha. I wanted the netflix devices to work while the microwave was running, hence the 5ghz. Since I am apparently required a 2.4ghz connection either to or from the extender, because of netgear engineers being useless, this did not work for my original intention.

It does function as an extender, but only to extend your 2.4ghz network to a larger 2.4 and 5ghz band. It will not extend both from the router side apparently.

Let me know also if someone finds a fix, but I've decided to live with it. Hard to recommend products they didn't bother to test though.

[DHUK]

I did try one my thing this afternoon, which didn't really help me but may be of general interest: I connected the extender via 5GHz only to the router. This worked in the sense that I could then connect to both the 5 and 2.4GHz extended signals. So if you want to connect to the router via either 2.4GHz or 5GHz, then it seems to work, but if you connect the router via both 2.4 and 5GHz, then only the 2.4GHz extended signal works.

Since at the location I want the extender, the 2.4GHz router signal is the strongest, in the end I've just connected to the router via 2.4GHz, which gives me usable 2.4 and 5GHz extended signals. However, I agree that this seems like a bug that Netgear should fix.

[ThunderLizard]

...I'm no expert, (and I've been having the same problem) but when I look at the Client List on my router, I see only 1 instance of this device listed, with only 1 IP address at the 2.4 ghz level. Shouldn't each band have it's own IP on my router, if there is indeed 2 seperate connections? (a 2.4 ghz and a 5 ghz ?)

[ThunderLizard]

Ok, I did a test and it confirmed my hypothesis -

When going through the Smart Setup, I only checked the 5GHZ  box for the network to extend.  I then checked both the 2.4 and 5GHZ boxes for the EX3700 to broadcast. It came back with a 2.4 GHz version of my 5GHz original network, and a 5GHz version of the original 5GHz network.  Both bands (2.4 and 5GHZ) broadcast by the EX3700 connect to the router through the 5GHZ band. And there is no issue.  Mind you, I do not have Fastlane activated (not that it would do any good anyway).  

So it apprears my suspicion was correct - the EX3700 only connects through a single IP to my router, and a single band at one time.  The idea that the 2.4 ghz band passes through to the router, and the 5ghz band passes through to the router, is inaccurate. The EX3700 gathers what's connected to it from either band and tunnels it back to the router through only 1 band.(at least in my case).  Kind of misleading, but it will do the job for me, so, for the money, I'll accept that. 

[ThunderLizard]

...looks like I just repeated what DHUK said. Sorry I didn't understand this before posting!

[d1v9d]

After lowering the wireless channel on my router for the 5ghz, the exterder connected to the 5G band just fine. 

Thanks.