R7000 Support, Info & Firmware #EPIC Article

Like many others I have come to hate my Netgear equipment. I have been using Netgear equipment coming on 20 yrs now, and the issue with the routers droping connection, failing to transfer internet traffic and various other issues I have been forced to tell friends to buy TP-Link routers and when they ask why I recomment the TP-Link over Netgear especially when I have used Netgear equipment I just tell them they do not want to deal with the problems I have been encountering. I know Netgear is definitely loose customer. I would not recommed ASUS, since some of their routers are phoning home and sharing your data with third parties especially the ones that have the VPN feature.

Whatever the problem Netgear is having it is not isolated to the Nighthawk/R7000 models. I first started experiencing all the issues people been saying about the Nighthawk on my WNR3500. It was solid router, used it for many years, had over 30 devices on my network both hardwired and wireless. At some point after one of those suggested securtiy updates my WNR3500 started experience issue where no traffic to or from the internet. Only solution was a reboot, I tried factory resets, turning things off like QoS. Nothing seem to fix the problem. The problem was intermitten and some time it would be weeks until it happen again and other times it would be days or hours. I started to think it could be a specific website i was accessing causing the lock up, or too much traffic at one time. At one point I thought the router was being hacked, I notice that the router was being ping and someone was attempting a FTP connection.

Even though no device whether wireless or hardwired could reach the a website, my IP phones in the house, I had two difference services, personal and work those both kept working. I thought this was strange, no HTTP traffic but VoIP work fine. Then I also notice if I had streaming service going like Music or Netflix on Apple TV, those too would continue working. Even though I could not even connect and log into the router using its IP address from my computer. Since the WNR3500 was old there was very little help and Netgear was not help unless you want to pay them. I thought about going to an open source but I like using the Netgear Genie to manage the router.

Well the problem got so bad earlier this year I decide it must be a hardware issue and replaced the WNR3500 with a Nighthawk R7000. 

Well everything was good for a month or so and the same problems showed up, devices dropped internect connects or could not connect to the WiFi. But I also notice the same thing was happening with the R7000 as was happening on WNR3500, certain connections kept working while HTTP type connections were locked up.

I know some people think it is a hardware issue, however, since I had two different models using two different chips, with similar if not the same issues, I beleive this is purely a firmware issue. Also reading the fact that one version of the R7000 firmware seems to work and it was release after this that started most of the issues and looking at the dates of those releases, they seem to be around the same time the firmware update on the WNR3500 starting having the issues. This leads me to believe whatever updates they were doing to fix security issue, broke the software. The only updates on the WNR3500 were for sercuity holes they were not adding any features at that time. I believe whatever they are doing to fix the security issue in the firmware release in the last couple of years is causing these issues.

Just my two cents, and my personal observation.