Weird issue with my setup. I have a RAX120 broadcasting 5 GHz on channel 153 connected to an EX8000 which is broadcasting 5 GHz on channel 48. Using same SSID for network, Smart Connect is disabled. Speeds when connected to the extender are full speed (~300 Mbps up and down), yet whenever I roam over to the router side of the house, speeds top out at about 40 Mbps up and down. I have gigabit fiber internet through AT&T, RAX120 is set in the DMZ of the provided AT&T gateway doing all the routing via DHCP. WiFi on the AT&T gateway is off. Wired devices to the RAX are getting full speeds. The extender is right in the middle of the house, so about 90% of my wireless devices are connected to it at any given time. It is only when I am in certain areas on the extreme edge of the house that my devices will connect to the RAX 5 GHz signal. Why would the router be limiting speed in this fashion? When the extender is unplugged, speeds of the RAX 5 GHz network jump back to where they should be. Any insight on what could be causing this is appreciated.
Model: EX8000|AC3000 Nighthawk X6S Tri Band WiFi Mesh Extender, RAX120|Nighthawk AX12 12-Stream WiFi Router
I have the same Router and Extender as you. I was upset when I saw the new WiFi 6 extender as I cannot return the EX8000 now. Anyway I set it up with the extender bands with a different name and I manually pick if I connect to it or RAX120. After several issues I finally hard reset both the Router and Extender and all has been working stable for 2-3 weeks now. The speeds are all above 300mbs - either on RAX or Extender. I have Gig Internet with AT&T fiber like you but the most I ever got was 800 to 900 on a good day. I usually average 600mbs.
Yeah, I say 300 Mbps but that is a rough average. If I have totally ideal conditions (i.e. being right next to the router) I usually get about 500 down and 600 up on a Pixel 2 XL. I was wondering if setting up the extender with it's own SSID name would help in my case, but I like the seamless roaming feature of having the same SSID across the network. I will give it a go with the separate SSIDs and see what happens.
I really don't have any coverage issues with the extender in place, and I get a 5 GHz signal covering almost my whole property (2/3 acre). It really is kind of a first world problem, but since the RAX is new I would really like it to be achieving its full speed potential. I never had this issue before with my old R7000 paired with the EX8000, both router and extender would go full speed. I only recently had to get a new router because the R7000 was requiring weekly reboots for WiFi to function.
I had a R8000 and had so many recent problems with WiFi going down that I bought the RAX120 a few months ago. I started out with one SSID network but some of my devices wouldn't connect and drove me crazy. Then I separated the Extender signals and then all my devices all connected to the RAX with no issues. I have a Samsung S10+ and get speeds around 900Mbps when I face the router. I am only using the Extender in my office to connect a gaming desktop and several printers via wired. One of my bedrooms has another gaming desktop and sometimes connect to the Extender network. Most of my non Wifi 6 laptops connects fast 700+ on the RAX120.
I wish I could get the EAX80 now instead of the X8000 so that all would be WiFi 6. However stuck like this configuration until something dies. Good luck
Update on my situation... I tested using my wife's laptop this time. Connected to the extender I am getting about 300 up/down. Now on the far side of the house connected to the router I am getting the 4-500 up and down when directly connected to the router. My Pixel 2 XL only pulls down about 40-50. There is some sort of QOS going on where my phone traffic is being deprioritized when compared to what I am seeing on the laptop. Any ideas what could be causing this? QOS is disabled in the router menu, but it still seems to be adjusting the available bandwidth to my clients. WMM is enabled, could this be causing my speed issues?
It seems like the issue occurs when my phone migrates from the extender to the router's wireless radios. I have found that by turning airplane mode on, then off or doing the same to the WiFi radios on the phone will restore the normal speeds when connected to the router. The only problem is when I cross over to the extender, the issue comes right back if I switch back to the router after that. The good part is that my extender is right in the middle of my house and covers 95% of it in a strong signal. My phone only switches to the router at night when it is in my master bedroom on the far side of the house.
This seems to be only a problem with portable devices, the wife's iPhone 8 Plus, and the kids' tablets exhibit the same issue. But the roaming feature works 100% and that is what is most important to my household. I have had no complaints from anyone else in the house about not being able to stream or download files. I am a bit more demanding on my devices however, and it has affected me when I am downloading large files (several gigabytes) to my Pixel 2 XL. I just have to be more careful that I am connected to the extender to make sure that the files download at 400+ Mbps rather than only at 40 Mbps.
The issue does not affect my wife's laptop. It will get consistently fast speeds no matter where it is in the house. The Nintendo Switch will never connect at the higher speeds, it will cap out at about 50 Mbps. But then again, it is the speed reported from Nintendo which could have a host of other factors influencing it. All of the Nvidia Shield TVs in the house are able to get 200 Mbps which is more than enough for video streaming.
I think that my solution is going to be running an ethernet cable from the office through the attic to where the extender is located and making the extender a hard wired access point. If it is used in this fashion, I think it will solve the speed drop problem for good. Another option is to disable the one SSID feature and run the extender under its own name, but this kills the smart roaming feature. It is frustrating, but ultimately I have a stable network that does what I need it to do at this point. To their credit, Netgear did attempt to contact me to resolve this issue, but nothing came of it. They really need to up their game and get their technical support team to be based in the USA. I don't have time to mess around with tier 1 support in Asia telling me to factory reset everything and rebuild my network from scratch.
