Nighthawk X8- R8500 Tri Band Quad Stream WiFi Router

[scoopnog]

1) Injection Noise - been there, done that - four antennas on the radiated package across 3 radios - they're basically desensing each other, and the "active" amps on the one 5G radio aren't helping things there...

So, as an experiment, if two of the three radios were turned off, there should be an improvement?

 

[RMerlin]

I just checked their GPL release, and Netgear is still using OpenSSL 0.9.7f, which dates back to 2005. OpenVPN ain't gonna break any speed (or security) records with such an antique build.

 

[scoopnog]

I just checked their GPL release, and Netgear is still using OpenSSL 0.9.7f, which dates back to 2005. OpenVPN ain't gonna break any speed (or security) records with such an antique build.

Really hope this isn't what made it into the official firmware releases.

 

[RMerlin]

Really hope this isn't what made it into the official firmware releases.

This is what is used in their latest firmware (V1.0.0.56_1.0.28), yes. The GPL archive is bound to provide the same software versions as used by the released firmware, so if it didn't match for some reason, then their GPL archive is invalid, and would need to be updated.

Someone with an actual router could confirm by either running "openssl version", or checking the libcrypto library.

 

[RMerlin]

This is what is used in their latest firmware (V1.0.0.56_1.0.28), yes. The GPL archive is bound to provide the same software versions as used by the released firmware, so if it didn't match for some reason, then their GPL archive is invalid, and would need to be updated.

Someone with an actual router could confirm by either running "openssl version", or checking the libcrypto library.

I actually downloaded and upnacked the firmware. It's not THAT bad, but it ain't much better either: the shipped firmware includes 0.9.8e, which goes back to February 2007.

This means that their GPL archive does not properly reflect what is being used by the released firmware BTW.

 

[L&LD]

I actually downloaded and upnacked the firmware. It's not THAT bad, but it ain't much better either: the shipped firmware includes 0.9.8e, which goes back to February 2007.

This means that their GPL archive does not properly reflect what is being used by the released firmware BTW.

And I guess this is the reason I stopped using NG routers without even knowing it. Hope that they clean up this mess for the others that still use their hardware.

 

[sfx2000]

Remember, for 95 percent of the folks out there, OpenVPN performance isn't really a big deal...

(we're in that 5 percent perhaps that do care...)

The Samba performance, that's something that's probably tunable as well...

 

[L&LD]

sfx2000, if you were replying to me, what I meant was that NG's firmware is years and decades old for many devices that are still actively being used today.

And, they think that that is okay.

 

[RMerlin]

Remember, for 95 percent of the folks out there, OpenVPN performance isn't really a big deal...

If performance was the only thing at stake, it could be forgivable. But we're talking about security too. Just count the number of security issues that have appeared in OpenSSL build since 2007...

(BTW, had some spare time at work today, so I unpacked the flagship firmware of all the main home router manufacturers, and built a chart with the version numbers of various security-critical components. Spoiler alert: one of them had an even older version of OpenSSL than Netgear...)

 

[NightOwl326]

I actually downloaded and upnacked the firmware. It's not THAT bad, but it ain't much better either: the shipped firmware includes 0.9.8e, which goes back to February 2007.

This means that their GPL archive does not properly reflect what is being used by the released firmware BTW.

What happened to "Netgear Guy" who started this thread to introduce this product and could now speak to firmware issues and have input now that this router has been reviewed? Or was this thread just meant as an advertisement for Netgear?

 

[NETGEAR Guy]

Regarding recent firmware questions/concerns, these have been flagged with the engineering team and we're waiting for the team to respond.

Will provide an update asap...

 

[RMerlin]

Regarding recent firmware questions/concerns, these have been flagged with the engineering team and we're waiting for the team to respond.

Will provide an update asap...

Thanks. As an added detail, let them know that openssl 0.9.8 to 1.0.0 will all be end of life on December 31st of this year. The minimal supported version starting next year will be 1.0.2 (well 1.0.1, but since it's 100% compatible to 1.0.2, there's no reason to use it).

 

[NETGEAR Guy]

Thank you for the update...will pass this on.

 

[NightOwl326]

Thank you for the update...will pass this on.

In addition please read this sites review and testing of this "flagship" router and forward the information to engineering and ask how they can improve performance in areas it performed low in as its performance should match its $400 asking price. It will be a shame if the Asus 5300 greatly outperforms it using the same chipset ( albeit the Asus version is ugly and looks like it should be in a dorm room ). There is no doubt that Netgear can do some tweaking and improve performance. Heck Merlin does it all the time and he is just one guy and not a whole department.

 

[hackintoshsr]

It would be interesting what in the world the network dev team does day to day. Do they have resources soley dedicated to routers when released, or a giant pool of people that just randomly get assigned bugs and issues to look into on several different routers.

I dunno, I've been talking with support for the past two weeks with no answers on why my ping drops out completely when pinging the router from my laptop. I have a giant paperweight that costs $400

 

[thiggins]

Consumer routers have very small margins (profit) and no service revenue stream. So it's highly doubtful ANY manufacturer has dedicated engineering resources for bugfixing.

 

[Mordred]

We will see what dd-wrt devs will do to this baby. My friend has an R8000 running dd-wrt and his is very happy with it. I'm currently thinking about upgrading my R7000 which runs nicely but could use a bit more horsepower.

 

[NETGEAR Guy]

Nothing available as yet on http://myopenrouter.com/

 

[doubleroll]

The router has been very stable for me so far. I do see some high latency and slowdown when downloading large files from the internet and currently working with Netgear support to resolve. Their support has been fantastic so far. I had given up on Netgear and switched to Asus until this router was released to be honest. I posted in their community forum and they (Netgear) took on themselves to open a case for me. Some fixes are on the horizon which is to be expected...

I get better wireless performance, range and signal than my RT-AC66R, but for $400 I better!

 

[irev210]

Consumer routers have very small margins (profit) and no service revenue stream. So it's highly doubtful ANY manufacturer has dedicated engineering resources for bugfixing.

In aggregate, I believe that. But on flagships, it's gotta be fairly healthy.

On a flagship $400 router, I suspect there is significant margin built in. Granted, volumes are lower so you need a bigger margin to recoup R&D/tooling/marketing/all the other fixed costs but still.