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Forum Discussion
Rax80 smart connect issue wifi dropping
Ive been having issues with my RAX80 since purchasing it , if i leave the router with the seperate bands (2.4ghz &5ghz) it runs fine but once i activate smartconnect all i get is intermittent connecti...
I'm having this exact same issue with my brand new RAX200 - enabling Smart Connect makes the devices drop and reconnect every couple seconds/minute. I've tried permutations of almost every setting and nothing seems to help. Now I turn off Smart Connect and it seems to have fixed things to a degree but not entirely.
I'm AMAZED that you can buy a TOP OF THE LINE router from an established company and have this many pervasive errors! I would LOVE netgear to contact me because I have a LIST of bugs from their Android app, router setup, router web interface, etc, but I know I would talk to some wage slave who is simply reading a script to me. I'd need to talk to a developer or a business analyst that takes ownership and CARES about the success of the product and not just the units sold per quarter.
It's like they haven't QAed this thing AT ALL.
Very frustrated - this will be the LAST Netgear product I ever own! Shame!
So I'm not alone with my RAX120 (firmware version 1.0.0.84). You buy top-of-the-line, so you think, and get this. How this made it out of testing is a mystery? I can't keep a consistent connection (Wifi), on any of my devices, and the router is literally on the same floor, just one plaster wall away, maybe 20ft, maximum bars for signal strength. Also the speed, which should have been around 240Mbps down, was more like 40 on most devices.
I disabled Smart Connect, AX and 20/40 MHz channel co-existence, in a desparate attempt to stabilize the Wifi. I don't which of the 3 does it, but it's better. What's the point of buying a router with all these features if you have to disable them all just to get a stable connection?
Netgear is about to lose a long-time faithful customer. I wonder if they care.
Yes... the router says I'm on the latest firmware as of right now and has been rebooted AND power-cycled more times than I care to think about. I've yet to do the factory reset.
For what it's worth, someone saw my rant about my RAX200 and Netgear actually called me on the phone last night. It was only a level 2 tech, so they couldn't do anything other than take a ton of notes. I detailed several bugs and still have several more to give them when they call back tomorrow.
They said "this is a young product, so there are probably still issues". Reassuring? For $600, this router should be a Rolls Royce. It's feeling more like a proof of concept product to me.
They were able to offer no assistance other than the canned responses predicted "did you try changing channels, did you do a factory reset". Well the answers are YES and YES.
To be continued...
- Yeah. I’m ready to move on. Will be returning my recently purchased EAX80 extender and selling the RAX80. Let it be someone else’s issue. This stuff is complete junk and useless. Mad I got duped out of nearly $1k in equipment. Will be switching to unifi. At least they stand by their products. I will also be selling my old reliable gigabit switch to get rid of all of my Netgear equipment. This is ridiculous.
Hi Clibert,
We'd like to work with you on the issue(s) you're experiencing. Please send me a message as I'd like to know more.
Christian
Sent you two notes and no response at all. Guess you really don't want to solve your customer issues with beta products we pay $400 fo (RAX80) and $250 for (EAX80). Maybe it si time for us to band together and file a class action lawsuit since you delivered products with many shortcomings.
Christian_R wrote:Hi Clibert,
We'd like to work with you on the issue(s) you're experiencing. Please send me a message as I'd like to know more.
Christian
SLPigletRider wrote:So I'm not alone with my RAX120 (firmware version 1.0.0.84). You buy top-of-the-line, so you think, and get this. How this made it out of testing is a mystery? I can't keep a consistent connection (Wifi), on any of my devices, and the router is literally on the same floor, just one plaster wall away, maybe 20ft, maximum bars for signal strength. Also the speed, which should have been around 240Mbps down, was more like 40 on most devices.
I disabled Smart Connect, AX and 20/40 MHz channel co-existence, in a desparate attempt to stabilize the Wifi. I don't which of the 3 does it, but it's better. What's the point of buying a router with all these features if you have to disable them all just to get a stable connection?
Netgear is about to lose a long-time faithful customer. I wonder if they care.
Yes... the router says I'm on the latest firmware as of right now and has been rebooted AND power-cycled more times than I care to think about. I've yet to do the factory reset.
So I was a cat whisker away from returning this AX120 when I tried the last roll of the dice. I downloaded a Beta version of the firmware, the very latest, from Netgear's website. This was V1.0.1.100. (It's NOT officially deployed since the router firmware update mechanism tells me that my old version is the latest and doesn't see this one.)
After uprading the firmware, the situation was even worse. Instead of getting the ISP rated 200Mbps, I was literally down to 24Mbps with me in the same room just 3 feet from the router. That was it. That was the final straw. I was done. The box was sitting there on the floor and I started heading for it. But then I remembered the factory reset. Using this latest BETA version of the firmware, I did the factory reset. Afterwards I did not tweak any of the settings, just left everything as is, and, for now, I'm fine. I'm consistently getting 239Mbs down.
I don't know how long this will last. I don't know what will happen if the router reboots. I don't know what would have happened if I had tried the factory reset on the old firmware. And I'm CERTAINLY NOT going to factory reset this router every few days.
I will update this thread in a few days to see if this holds.
So in short, I believe the factory reset definitely improved my situation. We'll see if it fixes it.
PigletRider,
Thanks for taking the time to post an update as it may help others who may experience the same issue. I am certainly interested in your next update!
Christian
Unfortunately I was not as lucky attempting to factory reset my RAX200. SmartConnect still continues to drop out.
I had my 2nd call with LVL 2 support (Bernard) last night. I gave him all the details he wanted with the exception of the wireshark packet capture and the router debug logs, because I had not been instructed on how to retreive them from the router (turns out, it's routerlogin.net/debug.htm).
Now I will enable debug logging and turn SmartCapture back on to give Netgear the information they hopefully need to figure out the issue.
I provided information on at least a half dozen separate bugs throughout their Netgear Nighthawk Android app and the web interface for the RAX200 setup and configuration. Errors such as javascript exceptions (sortable.js) and even 404s from the internally hosted web app (product_types.json).
I believe I've been escalated to a LVL 3 tech next - I'm eager to talk to someone on the phone who has the knowledge and experience to cut to the heart of this matter and fix the issue with their engineering team for the benefit of us all.
That aside, it does hurt to buy a top of the line product only to discover you are doing free beta testing for Netgear.
So it's been 2 days now. And I'm still solid (220+Mbps down) on my Wi-Fi. So two things were fixed for me...
- The 5GHz radio disappearing constantly
- Wi-Fi speeds sub-50Mbps down when it should be 200+
What did I do?
- Went to Netgear's website and downloaded a Beta version (V1.0.1.100), the very latest, of the AX120 firmware. (I didn't check for other models.)
- I installed the new firmware.
- Without backing anything up, I just did the factory reset, inserting the end of a paper clip in the reset hole and holding it for 5 seconds.
- I did not restore any backed up config, since I didn't have any. I just went with the factory settings.
- I used the Nighthawk app to configure the router.
- I left it like this, not changing any settings.
I'll update this thread again after about a week or so, assuming the router doesn't reboot for some unknown reason on its own.
