I’ve had the N900 now for about 6 months and it usually requires a reboot about once every two/three weeks, but this latest firmware has required a reboot every day since I downloaded on Friday, as it keeps losing the network connection through wifi. This must be the third firmware update I’ve tried but I cant believe its so hard to get a reliable network connection, my previous netgear and current netgear router (from the ISP) have been rock solid without a single reboot required. I dont have attached network storage to complicate matters, just one pc connected by cable and 4 or 5 other devices connected through wifi so I am really disappointed that even after atleast 3 updates the basic functionality still isnt robust.
The most irritating thing with this router is the obviously really mixed impressions.
Some experience nothing but problems.
Others are satisfied with it… like me. With the previous firmware, I have lived for 3 months without a single reboot. The router “renewed” the connection every 30 days or so, but that was hardly noticeable as it just disconnected to reconnect without an intervention on my side and I only was able to notice that when checking the router’s “uptime”.
But I seem to be an exception…
I have just installed the latest firmware. Let’s see how long this lasts. So far, it’s just running since 10 hours, so nothing to conclude so far.
I really liked the features on the router but i think its time for me to move on. I dont have cable tv and just stream from hulu or netflix. I would say 40% of the time it freezes or locks up while streaming. Think im just going to trash it and bite the bullet and **bleep** up the loss and buy another router.
I should have explained better, sorry. What I mean is listed below…
NAS = hardwire Ethernet or wireless appliance connected to LAN via TCP/IP
N900 central - Built in HDD into router, uses some other medium to transfer IE Internal USB or Internal TCP
N900 Non-Central - Uses external USB
I use my Non-Central N900 with a USB HDD. My speed is 4-5MB (Yes, megabytes) per second - junk at best. USB 2.0 protocol can handle 60MB (in theory), reality = 30 or so depending on USB setup.
You have a NAS using external TCP/IP to your router to other gizmos. You see respectable throughput around 30+MB/s which is not to bad for down to earth NAS, kind of slow, but still useable.
The problem is the N900’s USB external interface. I use it for LAN cloud storage which is available to all my LAN clients. I have a USB 3.0 1TB drive attached. I should be able to get really good transfer in theory, but only see 4-5MB/s. This is what myself and others complain about. Persons with external NAS see great bandwidth due to using the N900 as a switch.
I backup media, settings, misc stuff to this drive from all of my clients for primary backup nightly. Then backup the cloud to my server weekly. When I backup it takes days due to the horrible speed and the router crashing about every 500MB. I use an intelligent backup like synctoy to synchronize everything to everything. It only copies what is new/changed to minimize the problems. The N900 is not a reliable storage solution, period. Neither is the central from the comments of others (similar speeds…)
I upgraded to 1.07.16 on Saturday and tested it for 3 days. Unfortunately, I would loose the wireless connections randomly - from every 3-4 hours to every 5 minutes.
As a result I downgraded back to 1.4.11 which is the only firmware that works a bit better (getting resets once very 7-8 hours). Be aware that I de-activated all the frills and still no luck.
I upgraded to this version from the previously released version. Prior to upgrading, the box would freeze up during WiFi transfers of large files (~10GB). This problem is now resolved in my case.
I am having the same issue. When I reboot the router, it looks like it is working fine. But then at some point, the WiFi just stops working and if I try to re-connect, Windows 8 reports that the WiFi is unreachable (even though it is still listed). This is the same problem I had with 1.06.28 as well.
The only firmware that’s somewhat stable is 1.05.12. I have now reverted back.
My Network setup is as follows:
Cable Modem SB6120 connected to N900Central.
N900C connects to various wired devices and also Asus RT-N56U in AP mode
When the N900C stops working, I can’t connect to any WiFi on the N900C. If I am connected to the N56U’s WiFi instead, I can’t connect to the router (192.168.1.1) and many times the internet is not working.
I should note that the N56U is assigned to 192.168.1.2.
I hope that someone from WD can look into this. I may submit a ticket as well. This is VERY frustrating. We are talking basic funcationality here not some special feature that we can do without!
I should note that the N56U is assigned to 192.168.1.2
This could be a problem. If your DHCP server is default to 192.168.1.100 to 149 your n56u is not in the n900 subnet. Check your DHCP range. Your AP needs to be inside that range, period. If it is not, not sure how it works. Also due to setting a static IP on the AP make sure you manually reserve the Mac and IP so it does not get reassigned. I have two APS and I feel your pain.
PS disable all dhcp routing on your AP. It should be a dumb switch at this point. Also plug the lan cable into lan ports. Some routers use the wan for AP uplink, make sure this is correct. All my APS use the lan ports to connect to the n900. Cable plugged into ap on lan port, cable plugged into n900 lan port. Majority of routers acting as aps act this way. Some special exceptions to this rule, for example the n900 uses the wan port for uplink when in ap mode.
Actually the AP set to 192.168.1.2 is acceptable and will not conflict with any DHCP clients in th 100-149 range. Routing will also be valid if AP has it’s gateway set to 192.168.1.1.
For the N900 if set to AP mode, I can get the N900 to receive a DHCP address when connected to another router regardless of what port on the N900 is connected to the primary router.
Is your ASUS SSID the same as the N900’s SSID? Basically how do you know your N900 SSID is still broadcasting and when trying to connect to the N900, does your client get an IP address?
The RT-N56U is in AP mode and is also set to get IP automatically from the DHCP server (N900C). In the N900C’s DHCP Client Table, I list the MAC address of the RT-N56U and assign it the static IP of 192.168.1.2. So the RT-N56U is not setting its own IP address.
Both N900C and RT-N56U have 2.5GHz and 5GHz WiFi. So I have setup 4 distinct SSIDs:
N900C
N900C_5G
N56U
N56U_5G
Under 1.07.16, when my WiFi connection dies, I still can see N900C and N900C_5G listed in the WiFi SSID list. It just refuses to connect and Windows 8 tells me it is “unreachable”. I then have to reboot the N900C and it will work again (for a while anyway).
If I instead try to connect to N56U SSID, then funny things start to happen. Sometimes it connects and will work okay through the N56U acting as AP. Sometimes it doesn’t work and the N56U acts as though the N900C is shut off (even though it is not). In these cases, I can’t even reach the WD router itself through 192.168.1.1.
Note that this issue ONLY HAPPENS under 1.06.28 and 1.07.16. It doesn’t seem to happen (or very infrequently anyway) under 1.05.12. So it would seem to be a firmware issue rather than some issue with my network setup.
1.05.12 has some issues of its own though. One issue is that Fastrack Plus doesn’t seem to work right and I have to disable it (otherwise it causes intermitten failures as well). Buit with Fastrack disabled, 1.05.12 seems to work okay.
Some others have reported this very same issue in this thread of needing to constantly reboot. There is something going on with the changes in firmware after 1.05.12 that is causing instability in the router. What that is I’m not sure but it would seem that whatever issues they were trying to fix have broken basic functionality, at least for a good number of us.
I just picked up the My Net N900 and my firmware is 1.02.02, I pressed the button to check for updates and it comes up with nothing, so I went to the website and saw 1.07.16 (5/21/2013) and downloaded it, but the router rejected the file.
I would suggest you be careful before updating… For me it turned out to be a bad idea. Everything was running smoothly before (though my firmware was a bit more recent than yours) and then… it is a nightmare ! Wifi and Ethernet loss of connection every 5 min to an hour !
I can’t connect to the built in HD from anything but my computer, I need access from my tablets, phone and media players I have around the house. it shows the drive as no files.
I was using the router as a bridge, you can’t update firmware unless you are connected on a WAN, so i moved the router to the main connection, reconfig the router from bridge to router and the updates worked and any problem I had was resolved.
I decided to give 1,07.16 another try. Again I installed it and then reset the router to factory defaults before entering in my custom settings. One thing I did though was to set my WiFi setup for both 2.4GHz and 5GHz to be 802.11n ONLY. Previously I left it at the default (2.4GHz 802.11b+g+n and 5GHz 802.11a) which was compatibility with all protocols.
This change seems to be making a difference and the router is much more stable. I made the change a few days ago and haven’t needed to reboot the router yet.
I believe that the 802.11b and 802.11a compatibility is what might have been causing problems. Perhaps the router and device are confusing each other somehow and trying to connect in b when the other is in n mode or vice versa. I recall that I was able to actual see the SSID but my laptop refused to connect after dropping connection.
Anyway for others that are having problems, give this solution a try. All of my devices are modern so all are 802.11n anyway.
Interesting, I seem to be having the same experience here, I re-installed 1.07.16 and de-activated 5-GHz wireless and my router has been stable for 16 hours… and counting !
