Question Replacement Suggestions for Netgear Nighthawk R8000 Router

[mmitsch]

Our Netgear R8000 router seems to have become unusable. Power went out at our house today and, when it was restored, the router is somehow "bricked". It shows an amber power light and no matter how often I reset or try, it just won't come back to life. It trys - lights flash but no internet connection. If you have any suggestions let me know.

We want to get a perplacement (we're using a Netgear R6300v2 that we had now) and I am not sure what I should get. Can somebody here give a recommendation? The R8000 performed flawlessly for years and seems to run well throughout our home.

Let me know your thoughts and I appreciate any help!

 

[lantis3]

Single unit
https://www.amazon.com/TP-Link-Archer-AX73-High-Speed-Streaming/dp/B0BTT3F159 or
https://www.amazon.com/TP-Link-Tri-Band-Archer-AXE75-Wireless/dp/B0B3SQK74L
(OneMesh capable)

Mesh
https://www.amazon.com/Deco-Mesh-Wifi-6E-Router/dp/B09VW5JHPH

* No personal experience *

 

[BFG-9000]

This was a very common issue on all Broadcom powered Netgears, so much so that they supplied a recovery tool on CD in the box as well as online instructions on how to recover it without the CD as well as a FAQ

Of course this was only a problem for them because unlike ASUS, Netgear decided to disable the built-in recovery webserver that Broadcom provided them free of charge with their chipsets and drivers. That would have allowed you to upload firmware straight from a webpage built-into the CFE (essentially the router's BIOS) instead of having to mess with TFTP.

If you can't seem to be able to install firmware this way, the power supply brick would be strongly suspect as it's now up to 10 years old.

The R8000 has very recent firmware dated June 2024, but when its factory firmware goes EOL, the R8000 is well supported by both the Freshtomato-ARM and DD-WRT 3rd party firmware projects for continued security updates well into the future. So unless you actually need to upgrade to an AX (Wifi 6) router right now, save your money. After all, overpriced BE (Wifi 7) routers are already out now + if you've been on AC (Wifi 5) all this time anyway, may as well wait until you have an actual need, since they will be much cheaper by then.

 

[bill001g]

Be a bit careful chasing big numbers a lot of that is marketing fakery

Your r8000 router for example has 2 5ghz radios but a single device can not actually use both at the same time and few people manually balance their devices.

So is there really anything wrong with the "backup" router you are currently running. From what i can tell it supports the same speeds as the r8000 but only has 1 2.4 and 1 5g radio.


Key here is you end devices are 1/2 the connection. If the end device also does not support some fancy wifi you are pretty much wasting your money on a router that does. For example if you were to buy wifi7 now and your end devices do not have support many times by the time you get new end devices the cost of wifi7 routers will likely have dropped.

So general guidance. I would avoid wifi7 it is just too new and not all devices fully support all features....things like bonding multiple radios together. I would also avoid wifi6. It was pretty much a failed tech because it is almost impossible to get 160mhz radio bands on 5ghz. Most end devices only supported 80mhz.

So if you had to buy a router today I would stay with almost the backup router you have.

If your end devices support wifi6e then that would be a option. The key advantage of wifi6e is the support of the 6ghz radio band. There is a lot more bandwidth and hopefully less interference from neighbors on 6ghz.

Just be careful do you "really" need super fast wifi. More bandwidth is mostly useful for large downloads it doesn't really do much for say netflix. Netflix 4k only uses 30mbps and if there is more it does not run faster or better. Most wifi devices are portable and have very little storage so it is not like you are downloading some 20GBYTE game to them.

A desktop machine you should try to use wired connections for especially if you are playing online games. No matter how fancy of wifi you get they are all subject to random interference which causes lag in online games.

 

[BFG-9000]

I should point out the latest factory firmware for R6300v2 is from 2021 and missing any more recent security updates--fine enough for AP duty but probably not the best for use as a gateway router. Fortunately it is also well supported by Freshtomato-ARM and DD-WRT 3rd party firmware which would give you features like CAKE or fq_coDel. The difference is Freshtomato uses the same ancient 2.6.36.4 kernel and drivers as the stock firmware (so should have the same wifi performance as stock) while DD-WRT uses the old but still-maintained 4.4 kernel so drivers are more beta-ish and problems still appear and get resolved in builds all of the time.

As for R8000, one of its three radios is attached via USB and tends to have poor performance or even disappear if hammered hard enough with traffic. If you want an extra 5GHz radio it's always best to locate it at a distance in an AP, rather than putting it in the same box anyway, where it would only be useful for increasing client density. Fortunately its other two radios are reliable PCIe. For awhile the R8000's wifi even worked great in OpenWRT, which is a rarity for a Broadcom device as that project only uses open-source drivers (generally people only run OpenWRT on Broadcom hardware if they are security-minded enough to want the latest kernel of any 3rd party firmware... and are willing to use it wired-only to do so)

 

[mmitsch]

Single unit
https://www.amazon.com/TP-Link-Archer-AX73-High-Speed-Streaming/dp/B0BTT3F159 or
https://www.amazon.com/TP-Link-Tri-Band-Archer-AXE75-Wireless/dp/B0B3SQK74L
(OneMesh capable)

Mesh
https://www.amazon.com/Deco-Mesh-Wifi-6E-Router/dp/B09VW5JHPH

* No personal experience *

Thank you for your response!

Of the 2 TP-Link Single Unit devices, is it "better" to get the one that is OneMesh capable? Not to familiar with terminology of Mesh (and if the R8000 is a single unit it had been doing great in our home.

Is there cool new features wit the TP-Link's that we'd notice? It might be time for an upgrade I guess (have had the R8000 for years).

Is TP-Link a pretty good brand (good meaning reliable, easy to set up, etc.). We kind on put these things in and forget them. We are using a Netgear cable modem and I am assuming it'll work fine with these?

Let me know your thoughts and, again, thanks!

 

[mmitsch]

Be a bit careful chasing big numbers a lot of that is marketing fakery

Your r8000 router for example has 2 5ghz radios but a single device can not actually use both at the same time and few people manually balance their devices.

So is there really anything wrong with the "backup" router you are currently running. From what i can tell it supports the same speeds as the r8000 but only has 1 2.4 and 1 5g radio.


Key here is you end devices are 1/2 the connection. If the end device also does not support some fancy wifi you are pretty much wasting your money on a router that does. For example if you were to buy wifi7 now and your end devices do not have support many times by the time you get new end devices the cost of wifi7 routers will likely have dropped.

So general guidance. I would avoid wifi7 it is just too new and not all devices fully support all features....things like bonding multiple radios together. I would also avoid wifi6. It was pretty much a failed tech because it is almost impossible to get 160mhz radio bands on 5ghz. Most end devices only supported 80mhz.

So if you had to buy a router today I would stay with almost the backup router you have.

If your end devices support wifi6e then that would be a option. The key advantage of wifi6e is the support of the 6ghz radio band. There is a lot more bandwidth and hopefully less interference from neighbors on 6ghz.

Just be careful do you "really" need super fast wifi. More bandwidth is mostly useful for large downloads it doesn't really do much for say netflix. Netflix 4k only uses 30mbps and if there is more it does not run faster or better. Most wifi devices are portable and have very little storage so it is not like you are downloading some 20GBYTE game to them.

A desktop machine you should try to use wired connections for especially if you are playing online games. No matter how fancy of wifi you get they are all subject to random interference which causes lag in online games.

Thank you very much for your input!!! Do you think it's worth buying a new device (like the TP-Link one's noted in a respones?) for newer units? The backup is running well now and we were considering getting a new one, a used R8000, a used R8000, etc.. We want a backup (if we got a new one we'd keep our backup as backup.

We use Comcast for our internet provider and have 1g service (I think). This is used in our home (a large 2-story) by family / etc. for steraming, gaming, etc. And the R8000 had been working well (until the power outage ).

Let me know your thoughts and, again, thanks!

 

[mmitsch]

This was a very common issue on all Broadcom powered Netgears, so much so that they supplied a recovery tool on CD in the box as well as online instructions on how to recover it without the CD as well as a FAQ

Of course this was only a problem for them because unlike ASUS, Netgear decided to disable the built-in recovery webserver that Broadcom provided them free of charge with their chipsets and drivers. That would have allowed you to upload firmware straight from a webpage built-into the CFE (essentially the router's BIOS) instead of having to mess with TFTP.

If you can't seem to be able to install firmware this way, the power supply brick would be strongly suspect as it's now up to 10 years old.

The R8000 has very recent firmware dated June 2024, but when its factory firmware goes EOL, the R8000 is well supported by both the Freshtomato-ARM and DD-WRT 3rd party firmware projects for continued security updates well into the future. So unless you actually need to upgrade to an AX (Wifi 6) router right now, save your money. After all, overpriced BE (Wifi 7) routers are already out now + if you've been on AC (Wifi 5) all this time anyway, may as well wait until you have an actual need, since they will be much cheaper by then.

Thank you very much!

Will play with the links you gave me and see if I can bring the R8000 back to life. What did you mean about the "power supply brick"? Do you mean that the power supply in the unit might be bad?

Will let you know how I do and, again, thanks!

 

[BFG-9000]

Do you mean that the power supply in the unit might be bad?

There is no power supply in the unit. It's the external power supply in the plug that goes bad frequently with age.

1Gbps service is a tall order for such old routers with 3rd party firmware, but can be done with every hardware acceleration trick enabled and no traffic shaping used. Your R8000 has received 10 years worth of software updates while TP-Link is famous for only providing ~2yrs worth.

 

[lantis3]

TP-Link is a big brand for years.

Both AX72 and AX75 are OneMesh capable, whcih you can add TP-Link OneMesh wifi extender if necessary.

The advantage AX72 over AX75 is it has one WAN/LAN 2.5G port. However AX75 is 6E and AX72 is wifi 6.

I believe most people don't need a 2.5G internet. So if you use that port as a LAN port, you still have 3 gigabits LAN ports. You can plug in a NAS with 2.5G port and share the bandwidth with 3 clients each read/write at 800Mbps at the same time in the future if you will, but you might not need that after all.
6E router's wifi is better than wifi 6, so you have to make your choice.

TP-Link vs Netgear
https://9meters.com/technology/networking/tp-link-vs-netgear-decision-guide

I also have Netgear R6300v2 (released in 2015, it's newest firmware is 2016, so it's also 2 years for me) , but I use FreshTomato firmware on it, it's still being updated. R6300v2's wifi signal is weak and fluctuate a lot in my opinion though.

So advantage for Netgear is that there are 3rd party firmware that you can flash. There are no 3rd party firmware for TP-Link, however.

It's possible that power brick (adapter) for Netgear went bad. Years ago I have a brad new Netgear switch and it's adapter went bad in less a month. Personally I don't have a very good impression for Netgear.

Everyone has different experience. It's also your choice.

 

[BFG-9000]

There are no 3rd party firmware for TP-Link, however.

Oh but there is, even for AX. I suggest the cheap TP-Link AX23 v1 which is MediaTek chipset, and AX Atheros chipsets are already supported by some devices in DD-WRT. No Broadcom AX device will ever be supported by 3rd party because Broadcom doesn't want that. The current easiest to find AX router with 3rd party support though is Belkin RT3200/Linksys E8450 which is also super cost-reduced (the 2.4GHz radio isn't AX or even Wave 2 AC but is straight N, no 6GHz and it only has USB 2.0... but then the TP-Link doesn't even have that)

It's usually not the router brand that matters but the chipset, because most router manufacturers use the suggested reference design by the chipset manufacturer. The problem is it's hard to predict which router models will receive longer factory firmware support in the future, as that usually depends on how long the router manufacturer continues to come out with other models using the same chipset. If you want longevity then only buy a router with 3rd party support already, since even if performance is worse (and it is sometimes, especially early on), it will at least continue to receive security updates until the RAM and flash size become insufficient to run the latest. You don't have to run the 3rd party while it is still supported by factory firmware, but it's nice to have another option in case stock turns out to be unstable/unreliable

 

[lantis3]

Oh but there is, even for AX. I suggest the cheap TP-Link AX23 v1 which is MediaTek chipset, and AX Atheros chipsets are already supported by some devices in DD-WRT.

Didn't know that.

I do know very old TP-Link routers did have 3rd party firmware support. I flashed DD-WRT on one of it's travel router (probably TL-WR710N ?). I gave it to my nephew who went to college probably 5/6 years ago.

==
Well, found the news that FCC ask TP-Link to support 3rd party firmware back in 2016

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/08/fcc-settlement-requires-tp-link-support-3rd-party-firmware

If you check dd-wrt database and enter tp-link, there are 83 models are supported at the moment

DD-WRT » Router Database

dd-wrt.com

BTW, I hardly check OpenWRT, so I probably miss a lot. OpenWRT has one big disadvantage though, it's hard to flash for power users, let along average users. You can brick it easily if you don't follow the instruction carefully.

 

[bill001g]

Third party firmware has become much less popular. Many years ago routers were extremely basic. Now days the most common features people used to install third party firmware for are even in cheap routers. You see stuff like vpn and firewall on fairly low end routers. You also see stuff like NAS and secondary/backup internet support in factory firmware.

Many of the other features in third party firmware are very much a niche thing. How many people actually run OSPF on their home network.

It does I guess let you run very old hardware that the vendor no longer wants to support.

 

[lantis3]

See if the instructions here work

https://community.netgear.com/t5/Ni...ar-r8000-bricked-router-recovery/td-p/2018041

 

[mmitsch]

See if the instructions here work

https://community.netgear.com/t5/Ni...ar-r8000-bricked-router-recovery/td-p/2018041

I was actually able to get a firmware update to work and the power light went from amber to white. I used nmrpflash and followed instructions at a video (

View: https://youtu.be/qxQu3wtpFYo?si=ka2BTaPBavTKzgmz
). I got firmware from Netgear's site (used R8000-V1.0.4.88_10.1.88.chk). It actually worked! After I rest the router it is just like new!!! One thing for all of the folks who may go through this, I couldn't get the other solution, using Tftpd64 to work - maybe Windows 10?

Anyway, our house is up and running again. I am thinking of buying a backup router on eBay and, for this series, there's an AC4000 (I have an AC3200). You think it's any upgrade? Seems it might be a bit faster? And, to get better coverage, I am thinking of getting some range extenders - but am not sure what to look for. Is the AC2200 / EX7700 a good choice for the Netgear router I have?

I found a new router (I believe like the one you mentioned, that is a TP-Link Triband AXE5400 at our local WalMart and also saw an AXE75 at Amazon. They seem the same description but I think you had suggested to look at the AXE75. Is it worth upgrading frmm the stuff I have?

Let me now your thoughts and I really appreciate your help!!!

Mike

 

[lantis3]

Your AC3200 router is also tri-band too. No reason to upgrade if it's just a bit faster. R6300v2 is already a backup.

AC3200 R8000 is not a mesh router. https://www.netgear.com/media/R8000_DS_tcm148-120169.pdf
• AC3200
- Band 1: 600Mbps @2.4GHz - 256-QAM
- Band 2: 1300Mbps @5GHz
- Band 3: 1300Mbps @5GHz
• Tri-Band WiFi
- Tx/Rx 3x3 (2.4GHz) + 3x3 (5GHz) + 3x3 (5GHz)

AC4000 R8000P is not a mesh router either https://www.netgear.com/images/datasheet/networking/wifirouter/r8000p.pdf
• AC4000
- Band 1: 750Mbps @2.4GHz - 1024-QAM
- Band 2: 1625Mbps @5GHz - 1024-QAM
- Band 3: 1625Mbps @5GHz - 1024-QAM
• Tri-Band WiFi- Tx/Rx 3x3 (2.4GHz) + 3x3 (5GHz) + 3x3 (5GHz)

Most client devices are only 2x2, also remember 4K streaming video only requires 30Mbps bandwidth.

Even if you buy EX7700 which is a mesh extender, although it will extend the range however it will not create a seamless mesh with R8000/R8000P. But does that really bother you?

Don't know what wireless issues you have at the moment. If current setup runs great, no need to upgrade at all.

 

[mmitsch]

Your AC3200 router is also tri-band too. No reason to upgrade if it's just a bit faster. R6300v2 is already a backup.

AC3200 R8000 is not a mesh router. https://www.netgear.com/media/R8000_DS_tcm148-120169.pdf
• AC3200
- Band 1: 600Mbps @2.4GHz - 256-QAM
- Band 2: 1300Mbps @5GHz
- Band 3: 1300Mbps @5GHz
• Tri-Band WiFi
- Tx/Rx 3x3 (2.4GHz) + 3x3 (5GHz) + 3x3 (5GHz)

AC4000 R8000P is not a mesh router either https://www.netgear.com/images/datasheet/networking/wifirouter/r8000p.pdf
• AC4000
- Band 1: 750Mbps @2.4GHz - 1024-QAM
- Band 2: 1625Mbps @5GHz - 1024-QAM
- Band 3: 1625Mbps @5GHz - 1024-QAM
• Tri-Band WiFi- Tx/Rx 3x3 (2.4GHz) + 3x3 (5GHz) + 3x3 (5GHz)

Most client devices are only 2x2, also remember 4K streaming video only requires 30Mbps bandwidth.

Even if you buy EX7700 which is a mesh extender, although it will extend the range however it will not create a seamless mesh with R8000/R8000P. But does that really bother you?

Don't know what wireless issues you have at the moment. If current setup runs great, no need to upgrade at all.

Thanks for you help - again!

All works pretty well bUtil, though all this, my family says there is dead spots upstairs in our house. I didn’t know that and thought an extender may help with that. Do you think that Netgear EX7700 would work with my R8000 router - even though it’s not mesh? I found a used one that is not expensive and thought it may fix that. If a newer router would extend range I could do that too - but in reading it doesn’t seem like it would.

Let me know and thanks !!!

 

[BFG-9000]

my family says there is dead spots upstairs in our house. I didn’t know that and thought an extender may help with that

For best performance, it is strongly suggested to use an AP rather than an extender, by running a wire to somewhere near the dead spots and attaching an old router there. Your R6300v2 can be converted into AP mode by simply changing its IP address, then unticking the "Use Router as DHCP server" tickbox and using only the LAN ports (not the WAN port).

If you don't care about performance, then you could get half the bandwidth and double the latency by converting the R6300v2 to an extender, but this likely requires the use of 3rd party firmware, where such a setup would be "super easy, barely an inconvenience." Since it's not otherwise in use now you could experiment with it a bit.

 

[lantis3]

As suggested by BFG, you can use wired ethernet and put R6300v2 in AP mode. No 3rd party firmware required.

If you really don't want to use or unable to use wired ethernet, you can use R6300v2 as a wireless repeater.

This video explains very well how wireless repeater works.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuJlxD3kLL0


The good thing about 3rd party firmware is it give you many advanced features, yet the bad thing is it also means that it's a bit overwhelming, even for me.

How to flash DD-WRT on Netgear router

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TYVgKw3kJU

The following is the most updated dd-wrt firmware for R6300v2, be noted ddwrt is always in beta.
https://dd-wrt.com/support/other-downloads/?path=betas/2024/09-20-2024-r58389/netgear-r6300v2/
Do a factory to dd-wrt flash first, then do a web flash upgrade.

How to Setup DD-WRT Dual-Band Repeater Bridge

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJYb3bMzN6g

You can revert back to Netgear stock firmware just using the original firmware download here (.chk file)
https://kb.netgear.com/31105/R6300v2-Firmware-Version-1-0-4-6

If you choose to flash Freshtomato
https://wiki.freshtomato.org/doku.php/firmware_basics_procedures (Netgear instruction inside)
https://wiki.freshtomato.org/doku.php/wireless_ethernet_bridge
Initial files

Index of /downloads/freshtomato-arm/2024/2024.3/Netgear initial files/

I chose AIO Lite version for R6300v2

Index of /downloads/freshtomato-arm/2024/2024.3/

if you think it's too complex, then just buy ex7700. I definitely will go with a used one. I will not spend more than $50 for an extender.