Netgear R7000 Owner Has Questions

[Briant73]

I decided to take the plunge and buy a Netgear r7000 router to replace my Asus n66u router (which was replaced under warranty with a refurb unit). So far the basic settings are pretty simple with the latest stock FW but I do have some questions -

What are the best Wireless settings for 2.4ghz and 5ghz?
I currently have 2.4ghz set at 289mbps and channel 11 and 5 ghz 1300mbps and channel 153.

How do you shut off WPS completely?

Is there a setting for Time servers on it?

Are there any settings to change or avoid for best performance?

Any good article or resources for the R7000 router?

So far it seems to have a bit better wireless range than my n66u and runs cooler. The N66u seems to have more bells and whistles in it's FW though.

 

[RogerSC]

Having used an R7000 for the last year, I have some comments. Keep in mind, first, that the Netgear stock firmware is as simple as they can make it. And there is no telnet login to the router easily available.

For example, while you can set your time zone under Advanced -> Security -> Schedule, you cannot do anything with ntp or time servers. This part just works for me.

I don't think that you can turn off WPS completely. You can disable the WPS PIN under Advanced -> Wireless settings, which is the basis for the old Reever wireless security exploit. I think that's as good as it gets. There is also a reference in the user's guide to "detecting suspicious attempts to break into the router’s wireless settings by using the router’s PIN through
WPS." Which suggests that they've fixed that exploit, but I don't use WPS myself, so just leave the PIN off.

For wireless settings, I generally pick a specific channel on the 2.4GHz. band based on what I see with inSSIDer or WiFi Analyzer. That tells me what's going on around me with other's wireless networks. I also enable "20/40MHz. coexistence", and set the channel width to "up to 600MHz.". I have an external USB adapter on my desktop that's an N900 adapter, so I get the full 450Mbps that way. If you only have a 2-stream wireless-n adapter on 2.4GHz., then the setting that you have is fine. And, of course WPA2/AES is the right security to use for maximum throughput. And leave WMM enabled, as well.

For 5GHz., I have a client with a wireless-AC adapter that connects at 867Mbps, so I use the "up to 1300Mbps" channel width. I also pick a channel, usually 161, since that channel has worked well for me. The lower set of channels used to be lower power...don't know if the latest firmware has boosted that yet, or if the lower power settings there are programmed into the radios, so I'm still avoiding them *smile*.

Also, I prefer to a different SSID for each band, so that I can control which band each client connects to. Same password, but different SSID.

For the advanced wireless settings, I use "short" preamble. And leave the"beamforming" settings enabled. I do turn off "Airtime Fairness", though, I don't need it and I try to turn off what I don't need (like UPnP).

I guess that's about it. For resources, there is a Netgear forum that has a separate sub-forum for the R7000:

http://forum1.netgear.com/forumdisplay.php?f=153

That's a peer to peer user forum, but lots of good questions and answers there.

Enjoy your R7000, I really like the performance I get from the one here.

 

[Briant73]

Thanks for your lengthy and detailed response. I decided to return the Netgear product because of the following -

Weaker wireless signal - at first I thought it was stronger/faster but after using it for a few days and trying it out around the house I found more dead spots compared to my 66u. Possibly a bad sample/defective unit because it just seemed a bit weak on both 2.4 and 5 bands with my wireless clients. I did compare to the n66u as best I could and it was a noticeable difference. Also my wireless clients won't really benefit from the higher wireless speeds but possibly all my clients would benefit from the faster processor and more memory if there is a lot of activity on my network.

Standard FW just isn't as robust as I'm used to from Asus though it's easier for the novice to setup.

Large footprint - I didn't know how big this unit was until I unboxed and sat it next to my powered off 66u. One good thing though it does keep much cooler than my n66u which is good.

I had no major issues other than the wireless signal seemed reduced compared to my n66u by a noticeable margin. The rest were just preferences I have. Now I will say if my 66u goes belly up or isn't handling my network as well in the future I still may consider the r7000 as a replacement along with the ac68u.

One other note my n66u reboots in 10-15 seconds usually, the netgear with stock FW (latest from netgear as of this writing) takes what seemed to me 3x longer before it's usable. Not a big deal unless you're an impatient person or do a lot of reboots.

Again thanks for the response it seems to be a good router just my sample had the weaker signal strength coupled with minimal performance gains for my current clients I decided to return it and save my money for now.

Having used an R7000 for the last year, I have some comments. Keep in mind, first, that the Netgear stock firmware is as simple as they can make it. And there is no telnet login to the router easily available.

For example, while you can set your time zone under Advanced -> Security -> Schedule, you cannot do anything with ntp or time servers. This part just works for me.

I don't think that you can turn off WPS completely. You can disable the WPS PIN under Advanced -> Wireless settings, which is the basis for the old Reever wireless security exploit. I think that's as good as it gets. There is also a reference in the user's guide to "detecting suspicious attempts to break into the router’s wireless settings by using the router’s PIN through
WPS." Which suggests that they've fixed that exploit, but I don't use WPS myself, so just leave the PIN off.

For wireless settings, I generally pick a specific channel on the 2.4GHz. band based on what I see with inSSIDer or WiFi Analyzer. That tells me what's going on around me with other's wireless networks. I also enable "20/40MHz. coexistence", and set the channel width to "up to 600MHz.". I have an external USB adapter on my desktop that's an N900 adapter, so I get the full 450Mbps that way. If you only have a 2-stream wireless-n adapter on 2.4GHz., then the setting that you have is fine. And, of course WPA2/AES is the right security to use for maximum throughput. And leave WMM enabled, as well.

For 5GHz., I have a client with a wireless-AC adapter that connects at 867Mbps, so I use the "up to 1300Mbps" channel width. I also pick a channel, usually 161, since that channel has worked well for me. The lower set of channels used to be lower power...don't know if the latest firmware has boosted that yet, or if the lower power settings there are programmed into the radios, so I'm still avoiding them *smile*.

Also, I prefer to a different SSID for each band, so that I can control which band each client connects to. Same password, but different SSID.

For the advanced wireless settings, I use "short" preamble. And leave the"beamforming" settings enabled. I do turn off "Airtime Fairness", though, I don't need it and I try to turn off what I don't need (like UPnP).

I guess that's about it. For resources, there is a Netgear forum that has a separate sub-forum for the R7000:

http://forum1.netgear.com/forumdisplay.php?f=153

That's a peer to peer user forum, but lots of good questions and answers there.

Enjoy your R7000, I really like the performance I get from the one here.

 

[RogerSC]

Weaker wireless signal - at first I thought it was stronger/faster but after using it for a few days and trying it out around the house I found more dead spots compared to my 66u. Possibly a bad sample/defective unit because it just seemed a bit weak on both 2.4 and 5 bands with my wireless clients. I did compare to the n66u as best I could and it was a noticeable difference. Also my wireless clients won't really benefit from the higher wireless speeds but possibly all my clients would benefit from the faster processor and more memory if there is a lot of activity on my network.

Standard FW just isn't as robust as I'm used to from Asus though it's easier for the novice to setup.

Interesting...the R7000 has better wireless here than my RT-N66U does. Not vastly greater, since the RT-N66U also provided good coverage. But I'd have to class the R7000 wireless coverage at excellent at my house.

The footprint doesn't bother me, especially since the R7000 runs cooler than just about any that I've had even though it is positioned horizontally.

Also, I find the latest firmware for the R7000 quite robust. The only downside of the R7000 with stock firmware for me is the sparse firmware web interface.

I understand that you're getting different results, and have made a different decision as a result. I have 3 wireless-1900AC routers here at the moment, and they range from slightly better than the RT-N66U to a lot better, and the R7000 is about at the top of the heap *smile*.

Have fun!

 

[TonyH]

Hi,
R7000 has poor range? With which f/w? R7000 definitely had better range than RT-N66U when I had R7000. Running on latest stock f/w? Alternately dd-wrt f/w is good too.

 

[Briant73]

To be precise all I'm saying in my house it seemed the wireless range was stronger with my n66u than the r7000 I purchased. FW version 1.0.3.80 from Netgear was what I used and tried different wireless settings also. I actually wonder if the unit was defective since I expected it to at least be as good if not better when it comes to wireless signal. I know there are a lot of variables including clients, settings, and surroundings that can cause differences in the way a wireless device performs even if it's operating correctly.

The other things were differences I noticed between Asus and Netgear units but none of those would of caused me to return it if the unit performed as strong as I was expecting.

Defective or not I decided to return it for now and save the money and revisit this when I have more clients or network congestion that really would benefit from a newer AC router or whatever is coming next.