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Linksys EA9500 and EA8500 as Wireless Bridge Issues

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Joe Michaels

New Around Here
Hello everyone,

I recently purchased a Linksys EA9500 and EA8500 to replace my Apple Airport Extreme AC. I wanted the Tribands because I felt the Apple Router was not able to handle all of my devices. Anyways, I had the apple routers setup as such: One was my router and WAP and the other one sat about 20ft away as a wireless bridge. I never had issues with these in terms of having to powercycle or dropping connections. I have since setup the linksys (EA9500 as router and EA8500 as wireless Bridge with Xbox One and PS4 attached) and when I am streaming something or playing a game, the linksys will crash after a few hours and I have to powercycle. To specify, it is not the EA8500 I have to powercycle but the EA9500. After the powercycle everything clears up for a while. My only thought is possible overheating or a software bug. Any ideas as to why I need to do this?
 
You hit the nail: software bug.

Most all leading edge routers are released too early with buggy code.
 
When the WRT1900AC(V1) was first released, it's software had the same problems. The following firmware release fixed that.
 
To specify, it is not the EA8500 I have to powercycle but the EA9500. After the powercycle everything clears up for a while. My only thought is possible overheating or a software bug. Any ideas as to why I need to do this?

Bet that didn't happen with the old Airport AC - and it's a better device than many would admit.

Airport AC's can easily handle 50 clients without breaking a sweat...
 
Hello everyone,

I recently purchased a Linksys EA9500 and EA8500 to replace my Apple Airport Extreme AC. I wanted the Tribands because I felt the Apple Router was not able to handle all of my devices. Anyways, I had the apple routers setup as such: One was my router and WAP and the other one sat about 20ft away as a wireless bridge. I never had issues with these in terms of having to powercycle or dropping connections. I have since setup the linksys (EA9500 as router and EA8500 as wireless Bridge with Xbox One and PS4 attached) and when I am streaming something or playing a game, the linksys will crash after a few hours and I have to powercycle. To specify, it is not the EA8500 I have to powercycle but the EA9500. After the powercycle everything clears up for a while. My only thought is possible overheating or a software bug. Any ideas as to why I need to do this?
Make sure the firmware is up to date on both.

In this network scenario I recommend configuring the EA9500:

  1. Disable Band Steering
  2. Have all wireless SSID's unique
  3. Set the wireless channels, don't use the auto setting
Also set the EA8500 with a Static IP Address for easy access.
 
Most likely the band steering, turn it off.
 
Bet that didn't happen with the old Airport AC - and it's a better device than many would admit.

Airport AC's can easily handle 50 clients without breaking a sweat...


Nope. Those Airports are rock solid. I noticed the airport seemed to struggle a bit when I made it the primary router. That is why I wanted the "better" wifi and dual processors from the Linksys, to handle the load better and to also give me more control over my Internet Connection. The Airport ha almost no options. I noticed my internet getting much slower (I have FIOS 150/150) but now I am starting to think it was not my apple router at all but the switch from Verizon to Frontier. Frontier is a terrible ISP.
 
Make sure the firmware is up to date on both.

In this network scenario I recommend configuring the EA9500:

  1. Disable Band Steering
  2. Have all wireless SSID's unique
  3. Set the wireless channels, don't use the auto setting
Also set the EA8500 with a Static IP Address for easy access.

I do not see any option to make this static while in wireless bridge mode. I also have an EA7500 which I have as an WAP and that one I can set static.
 
That's confusing because both the EA9500 and EA8500 Smart Wifi WebUI is basically the same but the older firmware for the EA8500 didn't have Bridge Mode organized this way.

ea9500-bridge-mode.PNG
 

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