Question Netgear R8000 Nighthawk X6 AC3200 issues

[kkothamasu]

I purchased the Netgear R8000 Nighthawk X6 AC3200 router in about 8 months ago and it seemed to be working fine but we moved into a 3 level townhouse about 6 months ago and I've been having constant WiFi issues.

I currently have the router setup as a wireless AP since I have FIOS and primarily use the router for surfing the internet, transferring files on my network and to access our baby's IP camera. The router currently sits on the 2nd floor, near a shared wall, and I've noticed intermittent connection issues especially in regards to being able to view the IP camera which is hard wired into my network. 50% of the time I have no issues but the other 50% of the time the camera signal completely drops and I have to switch the WiFi connection between 2.4, 5.1 or 5.2 and the camera signal magically re-appears after the switch. On some occasions switching the frequency doesn't fix things and the only way to address the problem is by powering the router off for 1 minute and then turning it back on. I've tried moving the router around and it helps slightly but I continue to have these issues.

I've accessed the same camera through the FIOS router and I have no issues at all leading me to believe that it's the Netgear router. I've also noticed that my upload/download speeds through out the house are well over 100 mbs but surfing the internet is quite slow and doesn't seem to the reflect the speeds I'm seeing on speedtest.net. If I hard wire my laptop to the router, surfing the internet is improved astronomically. I've tried playing around with the antennas but I still haven't been able to address any of these issues. I just factory reset the router this morning and was hopefully some of the issues would be fixed but it doesn't seem to have made a difference. I also have the latest firmware on the router.

 

[kanewolf]

I was in another thread recently where a Netgear router was being used as an AP. WIFI performance was terrible. As a test, the poster, swapped the mode back to router mode and used the WAN port. Magically his WIFI performance was fixed. With FIOS you have to live with double NAT or use the ethernet from the ONT and then use MoCA or something to get the guide data to the TV boxes.
You might try the same test. Move the input to the Netgear to the WAN port and toggle back to router mode. See what happens with your WIFI.

 

[kkothamasu]

I was in another thread recently where a Netgear router was being used as an AP. WIFI performance was terrible. As a test, the poster, swapped the mode back to router mode and used the WAN port. Magically his WIFI performance was fixed. With FIOS you have to live with double NAT or use the ethernet from the ONT and then use MoCA or something to get the guide data to the TV boxes.
You might try the same test. Move the input to the Netgear to the WAN port and toggle back to router mode. See what happens with your WIFI.

Thanks for this! So, before I moved I had the Netgear as a router and used MoCA for the FIOS guide etc. This was fairly easy to do as we owned the house and the basement had easy access with drop ceiling. Unfortunately, we're in a rental now and the ONT itself is in a corner at the back most part of the house on the 1st floor so putting my Netgear router there is not practical; we barely pick up the WiFi signal from the FIOS router that's already down there.

Do you happen to know how the ONT for FIOS works? I have coax outlets all over the house but I think the issue will be the Ethernet cable that's coming from the ONT on the 1st floor into the FIOS router and I'm assuming that unless I can run that Ethernet to the 2nd floor I'll be stuck having to setup the Netgear as a router on the 1st floor?