RAX-35 causing frequent disconnects with Surface Pro 5th-gen
I picked up a Nighthawk AX4 4-Sream AX3000 (model RAX35) a few weeks ago as a replacement/upgrace from a TP-Link Archer. For the most part, it's worked well, with one glaring issue - it essentially has torpedoed the wifi on my 5th-generation Surface Pro. I get decent speed, and depending on the use case (streaming the signal from the Xbox One has been particularly terrible), it will simply drop the connection and force a reconnect. A couple times it's actually appeared to kill the Marvell wireless driver (I had to reboot), and I've started hitting blue-screens as well - the errors in the BSODs were not explicitly linked to the wireless driver as best I can tell, but I will say that I only started noticing them when I got the router.
I do realize this could be coincidence, but I'm reasonably sure that the router is the issue - I swapped back to the TP-Link yesterday and couldn't recreate the connectivity drops or the blue-screens, although it's unpredictable enough that I don't have a specific way to trigger it.
Anyone have any great ideas? I'm considering a "refresh" (appears to be a reinstall of Windows) on the Surface in case there's something corrupted with the drivers or something (although sfc /scannow didn't find anything), as it's thankfully not something I keep a lot of important data/apps installed on, but I'd rather not go through that if there's something I can fix in configuration - I've done explicit firmware and Windows Update checks pretty much daily since this happens, so I don't really think it's firmware or drivers (unless it's a system-level corruption).
Re: RAX-35 causing frequent disconnects with Surface Pro 5th-gen
Fortunately, it didn't come to that - I realized that I had not tried out the 5GHz wifi band, so I switched to that network ID, and I haven't had the problem since. It's still a BIT of a pain - my internet service doesn't have that much bandwidth, so I get no benefit from the speed, and the decreased range gives me a mediocre signal in a couple spots in my house - but I was not looking forward to reinstalling the Surface and honestly didn't expect that to work, so I'm okay with that as the solution.
Re: RAX-35 causing frequent disconnects with Surface Pro 5th-gen
Confirmation...
Nighthawk AX4: RAX35 Firmware Version V1.0.3.62_1.0.1
I experienced the same thing on two different Surface Pro 4 laptops with the RAX-35 (why isn't this router in the model list with the half million other options to choose from?).
My daughter has a Surface Pro 4 that has been experiencing random and frequent BSODs, usually after a few minutes of running her laptop. This started just recently after she moved back home to take classes virtually. After the next discovery below, we went back into her event log and it showed the system had crashed two times before, and both were when she was at my house for the weekend. No other device seemed to be affected except hers. I think it was occasionally connecting to 5G and running stable, but 5G doesn't reach every corner of the house...
In a panic to find a solution to her inabilty to take a test virtually we borrowed my girlfirends surface pro 4 (also model #1724), which has never previously had a BSOD (ever), but had never been connected to this router before. My daughter logged on and it ran fine until we connected it to the wifi (2.4GHz). I put in the wifi password and it tried to connect but didn't show internet available. I did a web login from a hardwired pc to the router and although it claimed internet connection was good on the router home page, the internet "test" never reached the NETGEAR web page that it was supposed to show "if a successful internet connectoin is detected". (PC hardwired through same router having no access problems). I rebooted the modem, and when it came back I tried logging onto the wifi on the surface pro. As soon as I refreshed the "no internet" firefox page, the system crashed (BSOD). After the reboot it crashed again simply by connecting to the wifi at the sign on screen. We disabled the wifi and it started and ran fine. One last confirmation and it crashed again immediately upon connecting to the 2.4G. Clearly something wrong.
I tried disabling AX on the router and we thought this had solved it, but it only added some time to the stability window. After a few minutes it crashed again. We figured out how to enable the wireless card to accept 5G, and it seems to be stable running on 5G like OP stated. Only about an hour so far of testing though..
Previously we had tried all sorts of things related to rolling back drivers and windows knowledge base updates. I had nearly given up and bought a new surface pro from Amazon to replace my daughers "broken" surface pro, but it turns out maybe I just needed to replace my broken Netgear router. I thought I was buying quality given how much I spent, but clearly its doing something non-standard. .
Re: RAX-35 causing frequent disconnects with Surface Pro 5th-gen
Thanks so much for confirming that I'm not crazy!
Since my original "resolution", it's continued to be flaky-but-mostly-tolerable. I've had some issues, ironically, connecting to the 5GHz when I'm TOO close to the router (it often fails to connect when I'm at my office desk next to the closet where the router lives; thankfully it's a personal, not work, device, although I like to occasionally have it around the desk for non-work stuff or to do updates during the day); in those cases, it keeps automatically falling back to the 2.4GHz band, which I don't realize until my network mysteriously goes away or the system crashes. Also, like you said, there's a part of the house where 5GHz doesn't reach, which I keep forgetting about and occasionally dragging the Surface to parts where it can't operate. A tablet without wifi is not a very useful device.
At this point, I think we need a reply from Netgear support on this. It's pretty clear that there's some bad interaction between the Surface and the RAX35.
Re: RAX-35 causing frequent disconnects with Surface Pro 5th-gen
Hello az9baller and Beefmaster,
You may get in contact with our support team using the link below. Have you also gotten a chance to revert to a previous firmware version along with checking to see if the Surface is due for a WiFi driver update.
Re: RAX-35 causing frequent disconnects with Surface Pro 5th-gen
I have exactly the same problem. I currenty have 3 other computers on my desk....two running Windows 10 and one running Windows 7 and have no problems with any of them. But the story on the Surface is completely different. After installing the new router I started to have disconnects on the Surface but not the other computers. Common sense told me that I had a computer problem. I contacted Microsoft, we made sure all the updates were done which didn't help, then we did a complete wipe and install of the operating system which didn't help. They determined I had bad hardware and did an exchange with me. I still had the problem. After a strongly worded email they offered another exchange which we did. I still had the problem with the Surface and still no problems with the other computers in the house. Now I'm rethinking all this and decided to pull the Netgear and put the TP Link back in service. Problem solved. My question is what could the Netgear router possibly be doing to cause my Surface wifi to intermittently disconnect and not cause any problems with my other computers. What is the solution? Did I just purchase a boat anchor? How about some help.
Re: RAX-35 causing frequent disconnects with Surface Pro 5th-gen
Still have no solution for me, but I am having a ticker open with Netgear support. I have been having continous problem on my surface pro 4 with Marvell network card running on the router. Disconnetion on both 2.4G and 5G wifi, wifi card temporarily completely gone and back only on 2.4G. I read the router log a bit, it appears my connections are mostly rejected by the router due to incorrect security and it also logged a lot of DoS Attack while connected to the router on the 5G wifi. I have no idea what caused this. But I shared my log with the support.
Also I have two TP-Link Smart Plugs. I think something is wrong with the WPA/WPA2 security on the router. Because if I only enable WPA2, when I tried to connect the smart plug with the router (failing connection all the time), the router will stop its beacon and everything connected to it will lost connection. But if I change it to WPA/WPA2, it won't bump others offline, but still failed to connect with the router.
Together with the incorrect security log of my surface pro, I suspect something is not right with the WPA/WPA2 security.
Re: RAX-35 causing frequent disconnects with Surface Pro 5th-gen
I also opened a support ticket, although so far they haven't really done anything useful (had me change the channels on my wifi signals and disable AX, neither of which made any difference).
They haven't asked for the logs yet, but I did try looking at them myself back when I first started having issues, and I noticed some of the same things you did.
I've noticed one other very weird situation. The 5GHz signal has mostly been stable in the places it reaches, with one glaring exception - my office, where the router lives. It drops CONSTANTLY in that room, four feet from the router in the utility closet. I have zero explanation for why that is happening but I essentially can't use the Surface in that room (the 2.4 drops constantly, and the 5 simply won't connect).
Re: RAX-35 causing frequent disconnects with Surface Pro 5th-gen
My support didn't ask for the log either, but I just sent it to them anyway... I feel if I keep waiting, maybe the next wifi (wifi 7) standard will be out and running when they figure out something.
I am in a small apt and my 5G has been solid for my other devices. Maybe some other equipment in your office is interferring with it. As for surface pro, I was able to connect to 5G wifi by just keeping trying and it will connect after god knows how many attempts. Initially it says no internet, but after a bit, it will connect. Once it connects, I will be able to use it until my surface goes to sleep... And then I will try again. 2.4G is a no go to me, I feel once some internet traffic is needed, my surface will just disconnect from the router... (or the network card just crashed).
Re: RAX-35 causing frequent disconnects with Surface Pro 5th-gen
Although not a good solution. I found that if I enabled a guest account, did not put any security on it, and disabled SSID broadcast to make it somewhat secure I was able to stay connected. Apparently the problem is with the security. I had another solution provided that I didn't expect. I had a lightening strike which fried the Netgear. I put the old TP Link back into use 2 weeks ago without any issues. I'll be purchasing a new TP Link.
Re: RAX-35 causing frequent disconnects with Surface Pro 5th-gen
I experienced this as well, Netgear had no real solution and switched back to my TP-Link that works flawlessly. It's unfortunate that a much cheaper router can provide better stability than the RAX35.
