XR700 Thoughts and Questions

[FQs19]

42 minutes ago, Netduma Fraser said:

FQs, if you go to System Information what does the CPU graph show? Also have you contacted Netgear support and if so have you got the case ID?

This screenshot is with the XR700 connected to my Fios G1100 and only my Macbook Pro connected to one of the lan ports. 

It was just turned on before taking the screenshot. 

I have contacted Netgear through their support portal, Case ID # 40633719.

I have not heard anything from them yet. 

I have already submitted a Return request through Amazon.com. I have until Nov. 22 to return it. My replacement XR700 won't be available to ship until Nov. 6. 

Very frustrating. 

[Netduma Fraser]

Thanks FQs, sounds like maybe a hardware issue. I've given your case ID to someone at Netgear who will take a look. I believe they have made an account here also so may respond directly. Please keep it for as long as possible as it will be really helpful for them to see whats causing it.

[twalls]

Yeah, Amazon waited until the last minute to decide that my XR700 isn't arriving today after all. More like Nov. 1st (this is the third time the date has changed). I think I may have grabbed the only one available on Newegg just now, so I'm cancelling the order on Amazon. Who knows, FQs19, maybe that'll make your replacement arrive sooner. 😉

[crunkjuice1]

It is the plastic as I only tinker with it while trying to figure it out. I fall back to the stock att gateway as this is close to being the second one to go back to the store soon. 

[xr500user]

Hi Fraser,

Just wanted to add to this so you can test some things in your test environment, I have a feeling it's a combination firmware / hardware (on the network) thing-- I ran into some issues with the .32 firmware on the XR500 ...  .22 was solid for me.

situation 1...

We had a power outage, and one of my switches failed (it was the only one not on a protected UPS, lol -- and it was very old anyway, a junker just holding its own where it was and I forgot about it) but the symptoms slowly developed over a day or so  -- any device connected to it showed "Wired network disconnected", "Wired network connected"  back and forth.. saw this on the ps4, and a smart TV connected to it - basically anything connected to that switch in that zone.  It started slowly, at first youtube wouldn't cast to the tv (wasn't on the list of choices) -- then the TV started complaining Wired network connected,disconnect,connected etc.   .32 logs show many DHCP renewal requests in a row for the TV and PS4 that coincided with those messages --  as this was happening.. I swapped cables first, then finally the switch and all was good. For all I know switch is probably still good, just XR500 has an issue with it, bad blood, lol.  The logs are showing what they should device seen, DHCP request, device gone, device seen DHCP request, device gone, and on and on..

I think the firmware currently running on both 500,700 really has a hard time dealing with situations when the conditions on the network are abnormal.  I since replaced that switch with a better one, and everything is fine there now.  But if you have a bad switch, or a bad cable, or a bad device on the network doing something not by the book it just has a hard time dealing with it. (xbox /ps4 sleep, network-wake for example) Other routers deal with these things better... but since .32 it's been very sensitive. I had no issues on .22 ...

situation 2..

Just yesterday -  I was doing network testing just to make sure everything was back up to par, and I noticed when I ping the XR500 w/ "ping 192.168.1.1 -t" from a command prompt over a switch I get <1ms response time, but after a little while letting this run I see some spikes 39ms, 54ms, back to <1ms --and a few ""Request timed out."  -- What? Request timed out to the router? but then right back to <1ms.   I have a feeling this is something with the router firmware, because if I ping something outside on the Internet  like google.com -t, netduma.com -t, 8.8.8.8 -t, or 8.8.4.4 -t -- it never ever does this, just consistent ping replies. Never a Request timed out, and no spikes.  So makes me think something is up with .32 -- I think the router may be de-prioritizing it or suspecting a ping flood DDOS maybe?   And another thing, as I was trying to diagnose this, I started moving cables around that were directly connected to the XR500.  When you shift cables the firmware gets very touchy again..  I see many DHCP requests in a row from certain IP's (Extenders mostly).  Not the normal DHCO renew requests, but like 5 in a row, sometimes more.  I had to reboot the router and everything is back to normal. 

It's just very touchy when conditions aren't status quo..   So give that a try, ping your router either directly connected, or through a switch with a -t option for a while and see if you have a similar result? -- and swap around cables that are connected to it -- move port 1 to port 3, 3 to 4, etc. and watch if the firmware has a little bug out condition.

xr500user

[xr500user]

also just to be more clear, I'm not shifting just 1 device when moving cables, one cable swap from port 1 to 3 could shift 16+ devices (they are on switches and uplinks to other switches, APs, etc) and some of them are cisco business class 48+gbps switches, so not cheesy ones (except the one that died..it was on its way out anyway) .. so swapping a cable is like hello xr500 20 or more devices say hello at once on one port.  so that is how it needs to be tested

[Guest Killhippie]

9 hours ago, crunkjuice1 said:

It is the plastic as I only tinker with it while trying to figure it out. I fall back to the stock att gateway as this is close to being the second one to go back to the store soon. 

I would still remove the plastic as heat is also dissipated from the top too. and its blocking the vents at the front where with the routers thermal design induction beings fresh air in and  hot air out the rear.

[altsai]

@FQs19:

1) definitely, routerlogin.net only works for NTGR products (I believe NTGR purchase this domain name). if indeed conflict, you may try routerlogin.com. 

2) initial setup with same SSID on both 2.4G/5G band - did not encounter the issue. repeatable?

3) LAN LED: when it's running gigabit speed, the color is white. when it's link at 10M or 100Mbps (in your case, sleep mode will maintain the link rate to 10Mbps only), the LED indication is "amber" 

[FQs19]

5 hours ago, altsai said:

@FQs19:

1) definitely, routerlogin.net only works for NTGR products (I believe NTGR purchase this domain name). if indeed conflict, you may try routerlogin.com. 

2) initial setup with same SSID on both 2.4G/5G band - did not encounter the issue. repeatable?

3) LAN LED: when it's running gigabit speed, the color is white. when it's link at 10M or 100Mbps (in your case, sleep mode will maintain the link rate to 10Mbps only), the LED indication is "amber" 

1. my browser cache could have been the issue. But my Fios router, which is 192.168.1.1, was always the one to open up when entering routerlogin.net. Again, I have multiple routers and don't like setting them up Online. And the XR700 did not like that at all. 

2. That issue did not repeat itself after Factory Resetting the XR700 and setting it back up Online. It only happened when I was setting up the XR700 offline and using the Setup Wizard. 

3. I know that sleep mode lowers the link rate to either 10mb or 100, but the color is Red not Amber. Amber is more orange than Red. Now, if I tilt my head and adjust the room lighting, the color may look Amber, but it's still Red. My color vision, besides my hearing, is the only thing working on my body. 

[twalls]

Setup my XR700 today! A few observations so far:

- Something feels better about the build quality on this router (and accessories/packaging). This is probably my fourth router from Netgear. I've had 10-15 over the years from various brands. Gone is the yellow Ethernet cable that Netgear traditionally includes. Instead a flat, black one is included instead. Power brick is still large but feels more compact. The antennas come pre-installed so no messing with that when setting things up.
- The design of this router is rather clean and sharp. I like how you can see inside through the mesh cover on top. I can definitely see a fan on the left. The materials and colors for everything makes it look and feel nice. Very thankful that the stupid password sticker isn't on the top this time. It came off cleanly with the clear protective cover that I took off during installation.
- Most items in DumaOS are the same if you're familiar with the current version on the XR500. Notable changes include a Hybrid VPN app, an Amazon cloud drive backup option for USB drives, a Plex media server for USB drives, and the NTP time settings have a separate section now under Administration. There are also hardware-related changes like settings for the 10G port being used as WAN and options related to the 60G wireless connection.

Because the router likes to do an update during the first setup, a factory reset is almost necessary afterwards. I tried just using it as is without resetting it initially, and weird stuff happened:

- Even though I don't really have anything that uses 60G wireless yet, I thought it was weird that it said it was disabled (while every setting indicated that it was enabled).
- After an initial reboot, it took a bit of time before routerlogin.net would work. Much longer than normal, but it finally came up.
- Once I turned on anti-bufferbloat and rebooted later on, I couldn't get the QoS page to load. The app would just keep spinning the circles and saying they couldn't load.

Those all went away after the reset. However, there were some other random issues:

- The upload speed test during setup still doesn't work, and that was on initial setup and after a factory reset on latest version.
- While probably not a big deal for most people, the 60G wireless feels kinda tacked on in some ways. For example, if you change the SSID for the 2.4 GHz network, it updates the 5.0 GHz one as well. The 60 GHz one stays the default. Same for the password. There's also no guest network for 60 GHz. I can change things manually, and I honestly can't use it yet, but it just feels clunky when adjusting settings.

I'm currently leaving most settings at default after the factory reset. Trying to get a baseline of stability and to see if any new issues pop up. Cheers!

[Netduma Admin]

Thank you for the write up. Very helpful to read what you are enjoying, and what needs to improve.

The 0 upload on the initial test - if you go to speedtest directly afterwards, do you get full speeds?

[xr500user]

On 10/23/2018 at 6:52 PM, Killhippie said:

I recently beta tested a Netgear router with a 2.2Ghz quad  Core processor, that router which also had a fan, but in the time I tested it the fan didn’t come on or was so quite I never noticed, you have to really hammer it I think for it to come on. I think asking on the Netgear forum or asking on smallnetbuilder may help as basically your router is a R9000 with DumaOS so maybe ask other users how often the fan comes on, I think it doesn’t come on that frequently. I hope you get it sorted one way or another. 

I think this slipped through and nobody said anything, lol.  Ok, I'll bite ..

I would like to test this, hint hint ... Do you get to keep it after you test it?

... it was supposed to be released on the 21st of Oct. but got pushed back because of the XR700 -- it's the imperial fighter router..

NetDuma, please do not make an XR-AX6000 flavor of this, go right for the AX8000  -- too many models and they will all suffer as I've said in the past.  If Duma flavor is supposed to be the best, it should be on the best -- The Nighthawk AX12 (hopefully the XR1000) -- I'll wait for it.  That's your money maker.

btw,  this is the XR700 killer-  before it even got out of the Amazon shipping department   Holding back on Hybrid VPN didn't open the wallets, so give it to the XR500 people as promised and hopefully Netgear learned its lesson. Listen to me, skip the 6000.

[twalls]

17 minutes ago, Netduma Admin said:

Thank you for the write up. Very helpful to read what you are enjoying, and what needs to improve.

The 0 upload on the initial test - if you go to speedtest directly afterwards, do you get full speeds?

Yes, upload speed test works fine when going to speedtest.net and other sites afterwards.

[Netduma Admin]

19 minutes ago, twalls said:

Yes, upload speed test works fine when going to speedtest.net and other sites afterwards.

Ok, thanks for confirming.

21 minutes ago, xr500user said:

I think this slipped through and nobody said anything, lol.  Ok, I'll bite ..

I would like to test this, hint hint ... Do you get to keep it after you test it?

... it was supposed to be released on the 21st of Oct. but got pushed back because of the XR700 -- it's the imperial fighter router..

NetDuma, please do not make an XR-AX6000 flavor of this, go right for the AX8000  -- too many models and they will all suffer as I've said in the past.  If Duma flavor is supposed to be the best, it should be on the best -- The Nighthawk AX12 (hopefully the XR1000) -- I'll wait for it.  That's your money maker.

btw,  this is the XR700 killer-  before it even got out of the Amazon shipping department   Holding back on Hybrid VPN didn't open the wallets, so give it to the XR500 people as promised and hopefully Netgear learned its lesson. Listen to me, skip the 6000.

Cheers for your thoughts. On the Hybrid VPN point, honestly it's purely technical. There's no intention from anyone to withhold a feature from one set of users to gain financially.

[xr500user]

I appreciate that, but with no real reason we are all left to speculate -- I will most likely never use it, so not a big deal to me -- but clearly there are those who want it and purchased specifically for it .. and I feel for them. And can only go on their actions ..

20 minutes ago, Netduma Admin said:

Ok, thanks for confirming.

Cheers for your thoughts. On the Hybrid VPN point, honestly it's purely technical. There's no intention from anyone to withhold a feature from one set of users to gain financially.

 

[Numo36]

 I just got my XR700  it’s amazing I love it speed of Wi-Fi I play  Sam games on PlayStation Pro I didn’t have any issues 

[Numo36]

[Guest Killhippie]

11 hours ago, xr500user said:

I think this slipped through and nobody said anything, lol.  Ok, I'll bite ..

I would like to test this, hint hint ... Do you get to keep it after you test it?

... it was supposed to be released on the 21st of Oct. but got pushed back because of the XR700 -- it's the imperial fighter router..

NetDuma, please do not make an XR-AX6000 flavor of this, go right for the AX8000  -- too many models and they will all suffer as I've said in the past.  If Duma flavor is supposed to be the best, it should be on the best -- The Nighthawk AX12 (hopefully the XR1000) -- I'll wait for it.  That's your money maker.

btw,  this is the XR700 killer-  before it even got out of the Amazon shipping department   Holding back on Hybrid VPN didn't open the wallets, so give it to the XR500 people as promised and hopefully Netgear learned its lesson. Listen to me, skip the 6000.

Yes you keep it after beta testing it, but it has issues. I'm still under a NDA till full release, so cant say more, I only mentioned what I did as its been posted online n now with pictures of its box etc and Netgear have not removed the images or details, but I cant say more until as I said, full release.

[xr500user]

cool.  They will fix it eventually..  I wonder if it flies if you toss it out the window, have you tested that yet

I saw people talking about it being draft AX and slamming it, but as long as nothing major changes in the draft that requires a new chip it should be able to match final spec with firmware updates. Qualcomm chip seems better then Broadcom so thats a+ (8 x8 streams!)

The R7000 was draft AC when it first came out, and now it's certified, works fine on AC -- maybe not as fast as the quad triple mimo mumu blah blah , but that wasn't out for a while after final..

[mohands]

I can see now that XR700 has the hybrid VPN option, why untill now we can't see this option in XR500. why they delayed us ?

[FQs19]

17 hours ago, twalls said:

Because the router likes to do an update during the first setup, a factory reset is almost necessary afterwards. I tried just using it as is without resetting it initially, and weird stuff happened:

- Even though I don't really have anything that uses 60G wireless yet, I thought it was weird that it said it was disabled (while every setting indicated that it was enabled).
- After an initial reboot, it took a bit of time before routerlogin.net would work. Much longer than normal, but it finally came up.
- Once I turned on anti-bufferbloat and rebooted later on, I couldn't get the QoS page to load. The app would just keep spinning the circles and saying they couldn't load.

Those all went away after the reset. However, there were some other random issues:

- The upload speed test during setup still doesn't work, and that was on initial setup and after a factory reset on latest version.
- While probably not a big deal for most people, the 60G wireless feels kinda tacked on in some ways. For example, if you change the SSID for the 2.4 GHz network, it updates the 5.0 GHz one as well. The 60 GHz one stays the default. Same for the password. There's also no guest network for 60 GHz. I can change things manually, and I honestly can't use it yet, but it just feels clunky when adjusting settings.

I'm currently leaving most settings at default after the factory reset. Trying to get a baseline of stability and to see if any new issues pop up. Cheers!

Factory Reset after initial setup and update is absolutely necessary. Confirmed from Netgear Support, with whom I talked to today. I'll make another post about that. 

The XR700 was slow after the update, including dashboard pages loading, but a factory reset cleared those issues up. Pages still load a little slow for my taste. Almost like loading pages from your modem. 

I didn't have any problems with the upload speed test during setup. 

NIce write-up. Good luck with yours!

[FQs19]

Update to my Support Case with Netgear:

Spoke with a Level 2 support expert today (thanks @Netduma Fraser for the assist).

- She has not heard of any other issues like mine, the lan/wifi disconnection and the fan not running. But there are so few out right now. 

- She confirmed that a Factory Reset must be done after upgrading the firmware on the XR700. I had already done that before my issue of the lan/wifi disconnecting arose. 

- She is going to find out if the internal fan is supposed to run all the time or when temps. reach a certain point, and get back to me on that. She believed it should run all the time. 

- She believes my issues are hardware related and that I should return the device for a new one. I have already submitted a return for it and am awaiting the replacement. 

- After I receive, update, and setup my replacement XR700, I am to contact her again and she will use TeamViewer to look through the device and ask if I've had any of the same issues. 

 

Good luck to everyone who has picked up this beast. Fingers crossed on my replacement. 

[twalls]

FWIW, my fan does not run all of the time either. The router was only slightly warm to my hand yesterday. I'll check it out tonight after it has been running for a day. We usually keep our place at a cool 73-74 degrees when we're home.

Good luck with your replacement!

Edit: Forgot to add that after the downgrade, pages load much quicker now in the admin interface. I liked your "loading pages from a modem" comparison. That's how it felt before for me as well.

[Netduma Fraser]

Thanks for the update FQs19, fingers crossed it's a hardware issue. Do let us know what happens with the new one.

[Guest Killhippie]

I have to say I am always amazed people run into the burning house that is a new routers firmware and hardware release. Netgears releases are always buggy no matter what they seem to learn from previous routers (R9000 in this case as XR700 is just a remodelled version of that router) its always best to wait a few months for fixes, then again some people like to be beta testers and on a full release that is what happens as Netgear cannot test in all environments, although you would think these current issues would have shown up in the initial Beta testing. Also there will be minor hardware revisions over time, the first version may be less stable than later versions potentially, but that may be a moot point right now. I remember the first release of the XR500 had an issue with "R-App not loaded" and of course the ports being printed the wrong way round on the back. Its not great though that even the speedtest is not working as it should for either router and Netgear seem to be doing not a lot about that so far. Also if the XR700 needs a factory reset after each firmware update why have auto update?