NETGEAR R7500 Nighthawk X4 AC2350 Router

[hggomes]

It looks like Belkin's Linksys unit will have it's own 4x4 router soon to go up again the R7500 and Asus's unit. The Linksys E8350 has the same chips as the R7500 (QCA's IPQ8064, QCA9880 and Quantenna's QSR1000 solution). It looks like the E8350 will have 512MB of RAM VS the R7500's 256MB.

How you have concluded this statement?

 

[sfx2000]

I like that Quantenna is getting a lot of wins. We all benefit in the form of broader support that should hopefully lead to even better drivers.

Wonder what Quantenna's exit strategy is...

They've got investor money, and some design wins - gut tells me that this is a potential QCOM acquisition... First it was Airgo, then Ubicomm, Atheros, Bigfoot (KillerNIC), and most recently Wilocity.

Qualcomm is building a heck of a WiFi War Chest - both in technology, and the IP behind it. They've got the rest of the package, e.g. integration expertise, and the standards team to take the IP forward.

 

[mediatrek]

How you have concluded this statement?

See: https://wikidevi.com/wiki/Linksys_E8350

 

[frankyboy707]

It is said that the new (beta) firmware version addresses the range problems and some speedproblems on 5ghz

Anyone here tested it yet?

 

[TonyH]

HI,
I notice 2.4GHz band got better, my wireless IP cameras image fps rate increased noticeably. 5GHz I have only one device, HTPC can't tell much difference. Since
installed little more than a month ago, it never acted funny.

 

[Luke9999]

Hello Guys,
I am using this router for about 3 months.
In case of speed it looks quite good but in case of stability it is crap.
Any time my WAN is disconnected I suffer very strange of hanging of my device. powercycle doesn't help. you have to login and disable, re-enable wifi using web page of the software otherwise it stays faulty forever.
This is very annoying since all around has to know your password to peform this task while you are not at home.
Additionally ftp design is very bad design since you have to use admin password only since no additional user available so it is huge bridge of security since ftp is not encrypted.
I am sorry to say but to save your frustration I would advice not to buy this toy until vendor will stabilise and improve internal software.
Cheers
Luk

 

[Dareksa]

Hi,

It looks like that WAN and 5GHz problems have been addressed in latest beta firmware (V1.0.0.83-beta). I've had the same problems as you with WAN disconnecting and unstable 5GHz, but now is much better.
Unfortunately I found problem with mediaserver. It doesn't appear on other devices as DLNA server. Additionally there is problem with time zone in schedule, when I've set "Automatically adjust for daylight savings time", time is set hour ahead than it should be.

Sorry for my English, it's not my native language.

 

[Luke9999]

That is great to hear since we can expect better vendor service.
I will escalate all the issues with some frequency to ensure Netgear is working on it.
At this moment they said I should use 1.0.0.82 which still has this issue.
By the way I have two additional problems as mentioned:
1. ftp only admin user allowed what means ftp is useless at all since I cannot accept lack of basic security and flexibility (I cannot give my pass to anyone in fact)
2. NTFS/CIFS shares works randomly with some PCs and with some other doesn't work at all (authentication fails) especially with windows7 hosts what makes that funcionality unreliable and very limited.

As I said I will track the improvements and I will chaise Netgear to do that improvement.

I think when the internal software is improved it should be good device.
It has esata and usb which should be a perfect solution for small family home usage.

Cheers
Luke
(PL as well )

 

[Dareksa]

Luke9999 could you check if you have the same issue with tome zone in Security>Schedule ?

 

[HawkFire]

It's been a while since I posted in this forum. About a month ago I was ready to mothball my R7500 due to a soft bricking of which was my own dumb fault. In short when I flashed it with OpenWRT I had all sorts of problems. Anyway, I sat down and did a multitude of 30/30/30 resets and then loaded firmware V 1.0.094 and my router has been fully operational for over a month now with not one recurring problem. I am thrilled to have this router working as it should.
It has been stable, no drop outs, or resets. The range and speeds are incredible. I can listen to my iPod while mowing my grass from over 300 feet from the router. So if anyone is having problems with dropouts or losing the 5G band I would suggested doing about six 30/30/30 consecutive resets to clear out the bugs and load firmware V 1.0.0.94 . Good luck.

 

[bobsilver]

It's been a while since I posted in this forum. About a month ago I was ready to mothball my R7500 due to a soft bricking of which was my own dumb fault. In short when I flashed it with OpenWRT I had all sorts of problems. Anyway, I sat down and did a multitude of 30/30/30 resets and then loaded firmware V 1.0.094 and my router has been fully operational for over a month now with not one recurring problem. I am thrilled to have this router working as it should.
It has been stable, no drop outs, or resets. The range and speeds are incredible. I can listen to my iPod while mowing my grass from over 300 feet from the router. So if anyone is having problems with dropouts or losing the 5G band I would suggested doing about six 30/30/30 consecutive resets to clear out the bugs and load firmware V 1.0.0.94 . Good luck.

Hello Hawkfire,

Can you explain what you mean by your comment doing about " six 30/30/30 consecutive resets". Not sure what you did and Id like to report it back to Netgear.

Thanks,

Bob Silver
Netgear Networking Advisor

 

[HawkFire]

Hello Hawkfire,

Can you explain what you mean by your comment doing about " six 30/30/30 consecutive resets". Not sure what you did and Id like to report it back to Netgear.

Thanks,

Bob Silver
Netgear Networking Advisor

Hi Bob, Certainly. When I do a 30/30/30 reset, with the router plugged in and operating normally I hold the reset button in for 30 seconds, then unplug it for the 30 seconds while still holding the reset button in. Then I plug the router back in (while still depressing the reset button) for another 30 seconds. Finally I release the reset button and let the router go through it's paces until it is fully operational and is in synch with the modem.

This last time around I believe I did at minimum 6 of these resets consecutively. Then I loaded FW v94 and the router worked perfectly. I am not sure if this process would work for other issues that people may have with the router, but I did it to clear out any remnants of OpenWRT. I am now a firm believer of just working with the stock firmware.

It's an excellent router and I absolutely love it. My wife and two children can stream simultaneously on their iPads without out one hiccup or blip! I hope that helps and if you have any other questions I'll be happy to help out.

 

[remixedcat]

seems as the newer QCA isn't performing as good. I have a couple newer QCA AC access points and they do not perform as well as the equivalant BCM based ones.

 

[thiggins]

seems as the newer QCA isn't performing as good. I have a couple newer QCA AC access points and they do not perform as well as the equivalant BCM based ones.

What does that have to do with Quantenna and this thread?

 

[SunrisePro]

Is this still a 'don't buy'?

 

[thiggins]

The R7500v2 designs out Quantenna and replaces it with Qualcomm Atheros.
That said, there are no practical performance advantages to be had over AC1900
class products.

MU-MIMO should work in the v2, as it does in other AC2600 routers tested so far. But you start getting benefits of better total 5GHz bandwidth utilization only with two MU-MIMO devices.

 

[SunrisePro]

In layman's terms, do you recommend a different router and why?

 

[thiggins]

In layman's terms, do you recommend a different router and why?

I have no specific recommendation other than AC1900 class. These provide the best price / performance for the majority of devices that will connect to it.

I know you're not happy with the Linksys WRT1900AC. So give another AC1900 class a shot.

 

[SunrisePro]

Thanks.

 

[tsteele93]

Sunrise,

I have been using this router since it became widely available and it is probably the best router I have ever owned. It just works WELL straight OOB.

I have recommended it to family and friends without reservation. My dad finally has a router that he doesn't constantly complain about and I don't dread visiting him in fear of being put to work installing a new router.

The only real problem we have is temporary connectivity while popping popcorn. But it returns auto magically when we are finished with the microwave oven!

I hope that helps you.

Sincerely
Tom Steele