I just purchased a new EX7000 extender, replacing what I thought was a defective EX6200 extender. I was getting periodic network disconnects on the EX6200, and I had noticed that the WPS lights (the 2.4, 5.0, and extender LEDs) would periodically go into their blinking state, then completely drop off. I assumed the two were related.
Today, I've set up the EX7000 without any issues, but every couple minutes those three lights on the new device go into a steady blinking state for about 60 seconds. The never drop off, and I've done multiple network bandwidth tests while they were blinking, while they were solid, etc. No drop offs, packet loss, anything showing actual network instability. In fact, I'm getting better overall down speeds than my old device (yay!) with 0% packet loss.
Anyway, I'm wondering why the lights keep blinking like this? I'm pretty certain the old EX6200 never did this regularly (as I only first noticed it last week). I called Netgear support and they said that blinking lights would indicate traffic on the network, but this doesn't feel right:
- all three always blink in sync, on what feels like a regular cycle
- when I complete some of my network tests, they don't blink, just staying a solid green
I thought it could be a router issue, but I'm not experiencing any sort of wi-fi drops on any devices in the house that rely on the main router.
Is this just how the extender works? Maybe a new firmware update on the EX6200 and now the EX7000 introduced this behavior?
Quick update on some additional observations I've made today:
- I don't know how I missed this before, but the blinking pattern to the LEDs I mentioned actually changes at the end of each cycle. The steady green blinking lasts for maybe 30-40 seconds, then the lights turn yellow and blink very quickly for maybe 5 seconds. The lights disappear, then return to a solid green until the blinking starts again.
- I get the impression now that the blinking does not always happen at a regular interval. Unfortunately I spent much of today in and out of the house to just sit in front of the device and time everything, but it does seem like there are times when the device can go 10 or 20 minutes before the blinking starts.
- Using WiFi Analyzer around the device (while on the 5.0 extended network), I see no significant performance issues before, during, or after the blinking activity. If anything, you could say that the peaks and valleys of signal strength change more frequently during the blinking activity, but they are never dipping below the average overall strength of the signal (I'd say ~ -45dB or so). Certainly there are no disconnects.
So, again, I'm just baffled as to what the device is actually doing during this time. I see no obvious explanation in any of the device documentation or on support articles that would indicate this is normal behavior (or even that it can happen outside of the WPS setup mode).
One more update before I call myself done with tinkering; if anyone has any opinion/input on any of this, I'm all ears 🙂
Today I decided to do factory resets on my router and extender, just to rule out any possible weirdness on the router side of things. If I didn't mention it before, I'm using a Netgear R7000 router.
Factory reset first on the router, then on the extender, followed by fresh setup/config of extender. I even went so far as to change the 2.4 and 5.0 SSIDs durning setup of the router, just to say it's completely different than before. No change in behavior, still getting the blinking lights regularly. What's really interesting this time around though is that I left the extender plugged in NEAR the router after the WPS setup for about 20 minutes as I was doing more internet digging on what could be going on. The same blinking behavior would happen regularly, which I think implies this isn't an interference issue. I get the same blinking lights whether I'm 3 feet from the router or separated between floors, where the extender normally lives.
I'm officially tapped out of possible ideas on what this could be. Hopefully someone on these boards will have some info that could explain this 🙂
I noticed this also because my EX7000. This has happened about 3 times since purchasing the unit. All the 3 of the green LED's start flashing. Below is Netgears answer to the issue. I don't understand how this happens because while the EX7000 is doing this noone is moving large amount of data through the device.
Normally, the LED's are solid green. The most current firmware is installed.
Ideas? Comments?
There is data passing through the extender going to your device that is why the LEDs are blinking. The 5GHz is using the connection for the extender and router, the 2.4GHz is for the extender and device, the Device to Extender LED is also blinking because there is a device connected to the extender which is using the Internet.
