Nighthawk X8- R8500 Tri Band Quad Stream WiFi Router

[Mikkel Winther]

Make sure you're not on a DFS channel. Safest way to test is to use channel 36, and see if it stays more stable.

One of the 5Ghz options in the WiFi settings is set to Channel 36, and the other is set to 106 (DFS) or something like that. No option to not choose a (DFS) for the second 5Ghz network. Only option is a "Smart Connect" checkbox which says it will gather both into a single SSID.


In general it seems like most devices are struggeling heavily on WiFi. Like loosing connection or not capable of maintaining a stable connection at all. Most of the Android devices will either totally drop WiFi, say "Obtaining IP" or just give "Error Changed Network" error when browsing, both phones, tablets and Chromebooks.

Currently my phone gives me a pop-up saying that the "Netgear 5Ghz" network isn't connected to the inte

It's incredibly frustrating and baffling that such a expensive router is not capable of providing steady WiFi to a handful of device sin a 900 feet house. I wish things where a bit more plug and play friendly.

It's never been an issue before, and it's leading to a massive amount of frustration within the household that devices constantly loose connection to the internet or when picked up ater a few minutes aren't anylonger connected to the Chromecast.

 

[pete y testing]

hi guys

did some comparison testing and posted it over at whirlpool
see

https://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies.cfm?t=2599718

the r8500 did not perform anywhere near as well as the asus 2156m routers or the tp link c3150 , any idea why this would be as they where pretty much all setup the same ch and band wise etc

 

[pege63]

As we know that wide 80MHz and 160MHz channels improve throughput but only when full channel bandwidth is free from interfering transmissions.
So the CHs cannot be selected arbitrarily but primary CHs must always be selected so that APs within radio range can fall back to use lower non-overlapping channel for simultaneous transmissions.

So did you have only one client at the time or did you have sevral clients then maybe you hade some interfering transmissions, did you tried other CHs?

80MHz: CH 36=42
80MHz: CH52=58
80MHz: CH100=106
80MHz: CH116=122*
80MHz: CH132=138
80MHz: CH149=155

Try to use this CHs to see if there is any difference between them.

 

[NUTW0RX]

I had three R8500s and all were returned. One of them had a 2GHz radio die after a couple of weeks and another had a 5GHz radio die overnight. The dated interface and lack of features were also reasons why I dropped the brand. I wound up with an ASUS RT-AC5300 although the R8500 was faster overall in my environment. I'm waiting on a Synology RT2600AC to see if overall throughput is better since I liked their features better but the RT1900AC performance was really lacking.

 

[JPK]

I did a port scan from a host connected to my R8500 and it is showing some ports open from the inside (not internet) that I am trying to figure out how to turn off:

TCP 548 (AFP over TCP) - I see no where in the UI to disable this
TCP 631 - I see no where in the UI to disable this
TCP 1900 - I see no where in the UI to disable this
TCP 5000 - upnp - I see in the UI the ability to enable/disable UPNP (Advanced Setup section) and I have it disabled/turned off. Why is it showing opened?

Any insight how to get these closed?

 

[ulaganath]

NETGEAR recently announced the Nighthawk X8 - Industry first shipping Tri-Band Quad stream WiFi Router

Features:

Fastest Tri-Band WiFi Router

Dynamic Quality of Service (QoS)

Industry’s First Active Antennas

Quad Stream WiFi with Multi-User MIMO (MU-MIMO)

It is based on Broadcom Dual core 1.4GHz + 4x4 802.11ac chipset

Tech specs, product data sheet and v1.0.0.42 firmware update at: http://www.netgear.com/home/products/networking/wifi-routers/R8500.aspx

Does this support HT160 and is this Wave 2 series or not. As D series i heard is wave 2 . Usually the box specifies that wave 2 or not. I believe D series with VDSL/ADSL is wave 2.

This is new one.

This is old one

 

[NETGEAR Guy]

2x2 MU-MIMO and 1024 QAM...but HT160 not supported (only 20/40/80 MHz)

 

[ulaganath]

Even the D8500 is also non HT or HT160 version

May this needs another refresh . Like others R8800 something like x4s or x8s

 

[ulaganath]

2x2 MU-MIMO and 1024 QAM...but HT160 not supported (only 20/40/80 MHz)

So MU-MIMO only supported for 2x2 on the whole or just for this router.

 

[pete y testing]

So MU-MIMO only supported for 2x2 on the whole or just for this router.

well you only have 4 x 4 on the router side , so you cant have 2 4 x 4 clients doing mu-mimo nor 2 3 x 3 clients , its generally only useful for 1 x 1 and 2 x 2 clients

 

[ulaganath]

well you only have 4 x 4 on the router side , so you cant have 2 4 x 4 clients doing mu-mimo nor 2 3 x 3 clients , its generally only useful for 1 x 1 and 2 x 2 clients

No it says 3 client it can handle

Even if you say 1x1 and 2x2 its just 3 stream consumed.

Even if 2x2 2 clients it doesnt mean it use 2 stream for each set. So all 4 are occupied.

the purpose here is concurrent transfer of data for all 3 clients. I agree for it to provide bandwidth it has to allocate each stream for each client . But i dont know if this was designed this way.

As mostly this is internet traffic many believes and want that all devices stream at the same time. In reallity the internet traffic for each client @ 20+ mbps is sufficient for even 4k steaming.

Assume the below scenario

A house have 3 devices for each user's for a family of 4 members

So total of 12 devices. Even with non MU mimo but just MIMO works for them even all 12 works at the same time

But it depends which traffic local or internet or mixed and what type of transfer like streaming or backup or file transfer

So assume out of 12 devices each have 1 devices MU-MIMO capable

1st device is 2x2 mu -mimo
2nd device is 1x1 mu-mimo
3rd and 4th is 2x2 mu-mimo


1st & 2nd is doing internet transfer file download and streaming 4k an average bandwidth is 350Mbps for 2x2 client and 150mbps for 1x1

the 3rd and 4th devices are doing active traffic of backup and download from a NAS connected at 2gbps link aggregated port.

so in reality 2x2 can achieve upto 600+mbps if closed enough which translates to 1+gbps for last 2 clients and 500mbps for 1& 2 clients which is close to 1.7gbps

its is more theory and practically is only feasible if all were mu-mimo and do mix traffic.

even though each stream have limited bandwidth combined traffic is less than 1733 mbps max capacity so it will have to tweak to give max bandwidth.

Still people say 1.7gbps is not possible

I have seen for router's achieve less because its WAN is 1gbps but its not when 2 lan port aggregated

 

[thiggins]

ulaganath, please read this for the basics of how MU-MIMO works.
https://www.smallnetbuilder.com/wir...32898-is-mu-mimo-ready-for-prime-time?start=1

More details are in Matt Gast's excellent reference 802.11ac: A Survival Guide.
802.11ac implementations for 4x4 routers support up to four users in a single frame. But implementations vary and the general rule of thumb is number of sumultaneous MU-MIMO users =streams -1. This would be 3 for single stream MU-MIMO clients.

All my MU-MIMO testing date used single-stream (1x1) STAs and found wide variation in total throughput gain from MU-MIMO. I also tried 2x2 STAs and things got very wonky.

I'm told that QCA chipsets can handle two 1x1 and one 2x2 MU-MIMO STA in a single frame. They are not designed to handle two 2x2 STAs. I am currently testing two, 2x2 STAs and finding they are right.

 

[avtella]

The QCA9984 chipset (ie Netgear R7800 / Synology RT-AC2600) can handle 2 2x2 STAs at once. That was one of the differences between the QCA9980 and 9984.

 

[thiggins]

I am finding there is a difference in what they say it can do and what it actually does...

 

[BUFFBOY]

Hi all,

I came across this useful forum and would like to ask if any of you guys have experienced any issues relating to this router as Im planning whether to buy this or the Netgear R7800.

regards,
Michael

 

[avtella]

Hi all,

I came across this useful forum and would like to ask if any of you guys have experienced any issues relating to this router as Im planning whether to buy this or the Netgear R7800.

regards,
Michael

R7800 has a better WiFi chipset (QCA9984 is probably best in the consumer space) with better range and a better CPU that will give better VPN performance. The R8500 isn’t bad, it’s pros do include link aggregation, an extra 5Ghz band and two extra Ethernet ports but its novelty feature MU-MIMO is not really functional so disable it if you buy it. Broadcom’s new Dynamic QoS update make it really good for bufferbloat and it’s more effective now than QCA’s Streamboost.