R7000 & Netgear = Worthless. Next steps?

[giraffe]

Deleted to avoid further attacks on each other and due to distraction to community.

 

[stevech]

...
Anyway, any advice would be appreciated. I know my rant above is probably annoying to read, but I just want to help any lurking people from making the same mistake I did.

Thanks in advance

What do you expect in a new router that a commonplace $50-75 one cannot provide? Assuming you don't NEED 11ac yet.

PS: I received as bad or worse support from Netgear's BUSINESS support staff for business grade proudcts; same people, different phone #. That's all one can expect when you sell commodities to consumers. May as well be vegetables. Want good? Buy from business oriented WiFi companies like Cradlepoint, Engenius, ZyXel (excluding enterprise focused like Cisco/Aruba).

 

[giraffe]

If your unhappy with the product and are unwilling to wait for firmware updates and call backs from tech support, then send it back and hope the next vendor will iron out their firmware and that their level 2-3 tech support will call you back within minutes to solve your issues. (Good Luck)

I didn't expect it to be done within minutes, and as I mentioned above I gave the 2-3 tech support 36 hours to at least touch base. I see you are a fan of their products, and that's fine, but don't twist things to make me the bad guy here for sharing my story. I did nothing wrong here but buy a top of the line product that can't do bare minimum wireless for all my devices.

I think if it works the router is probably fine, but if it doesn't work people are in for a headache with this company. I'd advise passing and choosing a company with bare minimum customer support.

 

[giraffe]

What do you expect in a new router that a commonplace $50-75 one cannot provide? Assuming you don't NEED 11ac yet.

PS: I received as bad or worse support from Netgear's BUSINESS support staff for business grade proudcts; same people, different phone #. That's all one can expect when you sell commodities to consumers. May as well be vegetables. Want good? Buy from business oriented WiFi companies like Cradlepoint, Engenius, ZyXel (excluding enterprise focused like Cisco/Aruba).

I think just getting better coverage throughout my house is the most important. I'm on the phone 6-8 hours a day as I'm a remote worker doing cloud design for a company in another State. So I like the mobility to work throughout my house rather than confine myself to one room. My N66U is on the top floor of my house on the center of the East side and signal is fine up there, but my office is on the main floor of the South-West side and 5Ghz really degrades.

This is why the Beamforming with the 5Ghz really interested me with the R7000 because we have a lot of interference in our neighborhood and house on 2.4Ghz (close neighbors, microwave, and baby monitor). 5Ghz was actually about 10db stronger than the N66U down there, but as mentioned it kept kicking my phone off WiFi so I never got a feel for things on the 5Ghz band otherwise.

I'm also going to put a new 54250 Nuc in as a HTPC in my living room and just went ahead and got the AC card for that as it was a $30 vs $20 thing.

So is AC 100% mandatory? No. It just seemed that in order to get the advantages and range with beamforming this was the direction I had to take. However, now I'm wondering if I just get an A66U and use the N66U as a bridge on the first floor. I obviously don't have to have AC for my Galaxy Note 3,...just looking for more stable 5Ghz.

 

[RogerSC]

Now that I've had the R7000 for a few days (up for almost 3 days now, not long term by any means) and it has been solid after one mishap, I can't really agree that it is worthless. I do agree that Netgear phone support is worthless, I learned not to bother with Netgear support when I had a WNDR3700 for a couple of years. Peer support has been very useful when I've needed it, and always tends to be a lot better than most companies support anyways.

Anyhow, with the caveat that I'm not sure that I'm keeping it yet, I'm happy with the R7000 at this point. I have a collection of various wired and wireless devices, and it is doing a great job of keeping everything connected and going at full speed. As I've said before, not the best firmware, especially for things like the attached device list or access to every setting that I'm used to being able to get to, but what I've needed so far has been there. My decision to keep it will be based on the firmware at this point, since the hardware is working well.

 

[TonyH]

Hi,
IMO, in a way it is buyers fault to a degree. They have deep pockets and easy money to spend(waste?) on something 'cuz it is newer. I never bother any one's tech support. In my working days, I was in top tier support function. If some thing is not working to my liking, I can deal with it myself. High tech stuffs seem to make people dumber and dumber and when battery dies they are pretty well dead too, LOL!
We live in an era where every one just pushes buttons and touches pads, no brain needed. Nothing is perfect any where.

 

[Mastiha]

I'm also having similar issues with a GN3.

 

[jerry6]

I think just getting better coverage throughout my house is the most important. .

AC 66 has not improved coverage or throughput over my N 66 , in fact I'm getting complaints about dropped and weak signals .

 

[Sky1111]

The sad reality of ANY high-tech industry is that tall the companies are driven by time to market. Quality , support do not gain shareholders support as those deemed overhead... as a result, any first gen technology is always raw.... Raw firmware for routers, buggy drivers for new gen video cards, astonishingly buggy operating systems. Is there ANYTHING these days which does not require software patches and updates right after it has been released to the market?

We - early adopters - pay the price for the new technology. If you are willing to take risks, than you should expect that you are not always getting what you were hoping to get... (i am in the same boat - and unlike you, I cannot even return my router for refund )

My suggestion: return R7K and wait until the new gen of routers at least stabilizes a bit. And yes, I would definitely get AC router these days, not N - for a simple reason that AC will continue to get updates until the ecosystem matures, and support for pure N products may be dropped as early as next year - who knows...

Good luck to all of us...

 

[BatJoe]

Brand new R7000 owner here. Upgraded from a ASUS N66U. All I can say is the R7000 is much better. Better performance and range over the ASUS. When I first installed the R7000 it already had a newer firmware. I ran some tests however with the inital stock firmware which were better than my old ASUS. When I upgraded the R7000 to the newer firmware I was impressed to see even better performance! I gave up on ASUS and their inconsistent firmware updates. Quantity over quality is the name of the game with ASUS right now, unfortunately.

 

[giraffe]

This is a big flaw with base functionality and zero workaround. There are other flaws with the device I was well aware of and accepted based on the review on this site, and I do believe that falls on my shoulder as an early adopter.

However base functionality? It's a wireless router for goodness sake. It better be able to at least do that for more than a few minutes. We are talking the equivalent of a car that sometimes just can't drive, a TV whose picture just shuts off, a hard drive that just randomly writes, etc. At some point the consumer isn't to blame for a companies poor product.

If I was on here complaining that network speeds are 15mbps slower than they should be or that the USB3 transport speed was slow I think I'd be a dumb early adopter. However I'm talking about wireless connection failing with two different devices. That's the basics.

Shame on Netgear, not me.

 

[jlake]

This is a big flaw with base functionality and zero workaround. There are other flaws with the device I was well aware of and accepted based on the review on this site, and I do believe that falls on my shoulder as an early adopter.

However base functionality? It's a wireless router for goodness sake. It better be able to at least do that for more than a few minutes. We are talking the equivalent of a car that sometimes just can't drive, a TV whose picture just shuts off, a hard drive that just randomly writes, etc. At some point the consumer isn't to blame for a companies poor product.

If I was on here complaining that network speeds are 15mbps slower than they should be or that the USB3 transport speed was slow I think I'd be a dumb early adopter. However I'm talking about wireless connection failing with two different devices. That's the basics.

Shame on Netgear, not me.

What troubleshooting steps did you take to potentially resolve the issue that you're having?

 

[BatJoe]

This is a big flaw with base functionality and zero workaround. There are other flaws with the device I was well aware of and accepted based on the review on this site, and I do believe that falls on my shoulder as an early adopter.

However base functionality? It's a wireless router for goodness sake. It better be able to at least do that for more than a few minutes. We are talking the equivalent of a car that sometimes just can't drive, a TV whose picture just shuts off, a hard drive that just randomly writes, etc. At some point the consumer isn't to blame for a companies poor product.

If I was on here complaining that network speeds are 15mbps slower than they should be or that the USB3 transport speed was slow I think I'd be a dumb early adopter. However I'm talking about wireless connection failing with two different devices. That's the basics.

Shame on Netgear, not me.

Perhaps you got a bad unit - it happens. More people are reporting great things than bad about the R7000.

Did you try getting a replacement through the place you bought it or RMA through Netgear?

 

[byonik]

Hmm. Hopefully, you just got a bad unit, b/c the R7000 has been rock solid for me. Granted, it's only been 36 hours, but I haven't had a single issue yet. Plus the, the range is just fantastic - better than my N66U, and way better than my AC56U.

Here are the wifi clients I have connected: VZW GS3, iPhone 5 & 5S, iPad Mini, Macbook Pro, Nexus 7, HP 8570w, DV7t & Touchpad, Chromecast, Roku, Foscam IP Cam. I know I'm taking a gamble on support, but I'm pretty much used to that experience these days. Let's face it, the forums and the open source community surpass just about every OEM's tech support anyway.

I'm hopeful that since this is their flagship, that it will get some future investment. Good luck in your quest.

 

[lexist2112]

To the OP. I have the R7000 since 9/26 with original F/W and and new one showed up in the GUI interface the day after purchase. Simple download and saved my original config and all is well.

Yes, I have not owned a Netgear product in over 20 years and was hesitant at first and still took the plunge.....could not be happier. I have owned numerous DLink products as of late 865L and DGL5500( gaming Router) Although the DGL 5500 worked well the 5ghz amp was weak and I need something stronger for better coverage.

THe Netgear R7000 has fit the bill in a house size 2300sqft, numerous 2.4ghz wireless networks arond me and handful of 5ghz networks. This router has performed well out of the box, it is the main router that feeds signals to an 8-port switch, 1AP Linksys router, 4 Bridged Linksys routers and another AP Dlink (DIR825) router and 4wireless Dlink cams. Also the Xbox 360, PS3 , Iphone 5, Ipad 2, 3 Lan PC, and wireless PC w/2.4ghz USB. All working fast and seamless.

Impressive is the word that works for me.

My suggestion to you would be to first to do a full reset to clear the NVRAM on the R7000.

1) Start with configuring your internet (cable/DSL) and make sure the 1 LAN machine is working well and getting the proper speed (speedtest.net)
2) Configure the 2.4ghz using WPA2 Personal encryption and finding a clutterless channel to set it to. Then connect 1 of your wireless devices and test it out. IF you have any legacy clients then your speed is only going to be as fast as the legacy stuff keep that in mind.
3) continue adding more wireless clients until your satisfied with the performance of each.

So on and So on... you get the point. Be patient


I must say this FORUM in particular have some of the best minds and they will help you...guaranteed. Be methodical and post any problems yo may run into with the router, I'll do my best to help out as well

 

[BatJoe]

Hmm. Hopefully, you just got a bad unit, b/c the R7000 has been rock solid for me. Granted, it's only been 36 hours, but I haven't had a single issue yet. Plus the, the range is just fantastic - better than my N66U, and way better than my AC56U.

Here are the wifi clients I have connected: VZW GS3, iPhone 5 & 5S, iPad Mini, Macbook Pro, Nexus 7, HP 8570w, DV7t & Touchpad, Chromecast, Roku, Foscam IP Cam. I know I'm taking a gamble on support, but I'm pretty much used to that experience these days. Let's face it, the forums and the open source community surpass just about every OEM's tech support anyway.

I'm hopeful that since this is their flagship, that it will get some future investment. Good luck in your quest.

The range really is an improvement. With the same ASUS router you had, on my main PC I would get 3 out of 5 bars of connection. Now I get for the most part 5 out of 5 bars. Sometimes it drops down to 4 bars, but then will shoot back up to 5 again.

 

[giraffe]

Hey thanks everyone for offering to help a crab-o like me. As a disclaimer just had our first baby a week ago and my sleep is non-existent so that's not helping.

Here's what I did with Netgear:

1. Disable WMM for both 5Ghz and 2.4Ghz bands and test. No improvement, both Chromecast and GN3 kept getting booted.
2. This did not resolve the situation so the next rep had me complete the steps within this KB: http://kb.netgear.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/23655
3. Once again, did not resolve the problems and the third rep then sent me instructions on how to enable QOS on the router and asked for screen shots. I was never able to get any further because my account for their support system stopped working.

The rest of course is just politics between Netgear and myself well documented above, but no other troubleshooting has occurred since #2.

Do any of you with working R7000's have Chromecasts? I see one user with a Galaxy Note 3 has chimed in with the same problem as me.

 

[jlake]

Hey thanks everyone for offering to help a crab-o like me. As a disclaimer just had our first baby a week ago and my sleep is non-existent so that's not helping.

Here's what I did with Netgear:

1. Disable WMM for both 5Ghz and 2.4Ghz bands and test. No improvement, both Chromecast and GN3 kept getting booted.
2. This did not resolve the situation so the next rep had me complete the steps within this KB: http://kb.netgear.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/23655
3. Once again, did not resolve the problems and the third rep then sent me instructions on how to enable QOS on the router and asked for screen shots. I was never able to get any further because my account for their support system stopped working.

The rest of course is just politics between Netgear and myself well documented above, but no other troubleshooting has occurred since #2.

Do any of you with working R7000's have Chromecasts? I see one user with a Galaxy Note 3 has chimed in with the same problem as me.

Can you post a screenshot of inSSIDer? Unfortunately chromecast uses the heavily congested 2.4 ghz band only.

Try the basic troubleshooting steps in link below. Since you already have the latest firmware, start with step 2.

http://forums.smallnetbuilder.com/showthread.php?t=12453

 

[thiggins]

1. Disable WMM for both 5Ghz and 2.4Ghz bands and test. No improvement, both Chromecast and GN3 kept getting booted.

Don't Mess With WMM!

Do any of you with working R7000's have Chromecasts? I see one user with a Galaxy Note 3 has chimed in with the same problem as me.

I've started another thread for this.

 

[TonyH]

Hi,
Because I have a connection, I had R7000 delivered yesterday afternoon to try it my self. During the night when no one was on the net, I replaced ASUS RT-AC66u with R7000. Practically PnP job taking half an hour or so. f/w was stock 3rd release latest. Every device works fine. Router is barely luke warm to touch. When look at the signal strength on 5GHz in our family room where HT is set up, inSSIDer 3 showed 10db improvement vs. ASUS. 60db vs. 50db. All my surveillance cameras, NAS, USB3 HDD hook up, WiFi printer work fine. So unless OP's R7000 is dud out of box, he must be doing some thing wrong. I am driving the R7000 hard cooking many things until next week or so to see it behaves. So far looking so good.