R7800 SmallNetBuilder Review

[Darcy]

Is dd-wrt any good or just stick with the stock FW?

 

[Ah-Pin-Kor]

Is dd-wrt any good or just stick with the stock FW?

dd-wrt doesn't support R7800 currently.

 

[NETGEAR Guy]

See: http://myopenrouter.com/download/r7800-openwrt-firmware

 

[niall blehein]

I occasionally have problems writing to the USB drive. It doesn't happen all the time. I get an access denied error. Sometimes remounting the drive works, sometimes not. Any suggestions?

 

[thiggins]

I moved the NiP edition discussion to its own thread.

 

[pege63]

See: http://myopenrouter.com/download/r7800-openwrt-firmware

Perform reset to factory defaults setting in newly upgraded OpenWRT Firmware pressing the Hardware reset button for 30 sec.

Witch button is that Hardware reset button?

 

[perb67]

I bought this router a few days ago and returned it yesterday.

I went from an Asus N56U to this one and my stable 97/97Mbits I used to get on my 100/100 fibre broadband went down to 95/90. Disappointing but not a deal breaker maybe.

What was a dealbreker though was that it couldn't handle my outgoing VPN connection (standard Windows PPTP). My 6 year old router gives me around 95/90 (varies a little bit every time I connect) pretty consistently. This router gave me 90/5. Yes, 5Mbit/s. A few times it crawled up to 10 but most of the time I was getting 5Mbit upstream.

Netgear support had me test a few things but in the end, they couldn't help me så back it goes and I'm back on my old Asus router.

Edit: Now I have my eyes on the Asus RT-AC3200, seems like a good candidate.

 

[RogerSC]

Perform reset to factory defaults setting in newly upgraded OpenWRT Firmware pressing the Hardware reset button for 30 sec.

Witch button is that Hardware reset button?

The hardware reset button is the recessed button on the far left of the back panel, if you're facing the back panel. Between the LED switch and "Antenna 1" connector. You need something like a paper clip to press and hold the button.

 

[RogerSC]

There is now an early release dd-wrt firmware available for the R7800. The users that are talking about it say that it works fine (except for IPv6):

http://www.desipro.de/ddwrt/K3-AC-IPQ806X/

There's a Readme there that is useful. Also, as far as I can tell, you'll need to use tftp to get back to the stock firmware. The dd-wrt forum thread that talks about this is:

http://www.dd-wrt.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=289788&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

 

[zeljko1234]

I have usb 3.0 hdd attached to r7800 and read is rarely over 30 MB/s. The same disk connected to laptop usb 3.0 reads about 100 MB/s. Any idea why r78000 is so slower? Should not be according review.

 

[NETGEAR Guy]

These are the speeds obtained during SQA testing with v1.0.2.00

 

[zeljko1234]

Thx for sharing results. Mine is running R7800-V1.0.2.04 and transfer is not even close. Disk is NTFS. Let me ask again, what I can do to improve the speed?

 

[bobsilver]

Netgear Guy asked me to follow up with you as he is on holiday till the end of August. He asks the following questions that I will forward the answers on to try and answer your questions.

First off As per the table, tests were carried out using Robocopy with 1GB file.

What are you using to measure your throughput? Obviously this will matter greatly.
What is your topology? What connects to what? What are you using for read write tests?

As mentioned Netgear Guy is out but I can forward this on to the product team in the meantime.

Bob Silver
Netgear Networking Advisor

 

[zeljko1234]

Really appreciate your and Netgear Guy engagement. Especially during his holidays.

My networks topology is very simple, Seagate USB 3 HDD (STEB5000100) is connected to R7800 (tried with both ports), laptop running Win7 is connected to ETH1 and share mapped as a disk. For testing purpose, all other devices were disconnected from R7800. I'm using Total Commander as file manager. The same app is used to copy file with size about 1 GB from share to the local SSD, transfer was about 30 MB/s. Then I connect USB3 HDD directly to the same laptop and transfer was about 100 MB/s.

If you need any other info, additional testing... just let me know.

 

[Adil]

What external antenna's could be connected to the Netgear R7800 to further improve the reception and range of the 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz?

 

[pege63]

none no need, just find a better place for the router, try center off your home.

 

[Adil]

Well, centering it is not possible, as the cable cones into the basement on one side of fhe house. Thus a more powerful signal is needed. Thus, is there an antenna that could be connected to this router?

 

[Killhippie]

Well, centering it is not possible, as the cable cones into the basement on one side of fhe house. Thus a more powerful signal is needed. Thus, is there an antenna that could be connected to this router?

The router is pretty much operating at its maximum power, most routers already are with the aerials they have and high gain ones can be problomatic, you would be better off with maybe a Orbi system but tbh no router will do well in a basement, cant you run a Ethernet cable up into your main living space?

 

[sfx2000]

Well, centering it is not possible, as the cable cones into the basement on one side of fhe house. Thus a more powerful signal is needed. Thus, is there an antenna that could be connected to this router?

Keep in mind that the AP is only half of the problem - the other side is the client trying to seek the AP, and performance there is actually more important...

Many of them do not have very good radios, so moving the client can help out quite a bit, and sometimes it does not take much on the relocation to significantly improve reception...

 

[RogerSC]

Well, centering it is not possible, as the cable cones into the basement on one side of fhe house. Thus a more powerful signal is needed. Thus, is there an antenna that could be connected to this router?

This does sound like what the Orbi is designed to do. I have my router in one end of my house, and the Orbi satellite is in the middle of my house. Works well. Somewhere around the cost of a good router and extender, only works much better. I've tried several of the current, more expensive extenders and didn't find any that worked as well as the marketing material said that they would.

I agree that it's a better plan to at least run enough cable to get the router out of the basement. Just that would really help you.