Netgear Orbi unstable after months of reliable use

[kingston12]

I’ve been very impressed with my Netgear Orbi mesh WiFi setup for the last six months, but it has started exhibiting some very odd behaviour.

I’ve got the RBR50 kit with the router and two satellites. The router is in the middle of the house, one satellite at the back (5m away through two walls). The other one is a further 8m back in the garage to serve a few devices in there and also cover the garden. All show ‘green’ on the app.

The first problem is that my main computer (2017 iMac) gets a really slow connection. It is permanently sited about 2 metres away from satellite ‘1’ and the Orbi app confirms it is connected to that satellite at the highest possible speed of 866mbps.

When I run a Speedtest on my 200mbps internet, the iMac returns around 0.5-1mbps speed and this is accompanied by similar slow speeds when trying to transfer files across the network.

If I put my iPhone or iPad right next to the iMac, they always show 200mbps or higher when connected to the same satellite.

The second problem is with satellite 2. I have got three smart plugs sitting right next to the satellite, but they seem to prefer to connect to the main router at the other end of the network, at such a slow speed they fail to work! If I take my phone down there, it swaps to the correct satellite immediately and had a fast connection.

I’ve tried resetting everything and firmware is up to date. Is there anything else I can try?

[bristoltype603]

Sorry OP can't help with your question but my own experience of mesh wifi in a large house with thick walls wasn't great. I replaced the system with a Ubiquiti unifi AP AC LR unit and it's really been amazing. Can't recommend it highly enough.

[The_Doc]

I have Netgear Orbi SRK60 and the only time I had trouble, it was cured by setting up the network from scratch using cables, then going wireless.

So the satellites setup/installation in wired mode, then you walk them away, I think.
Then I carefully forced connections onto the desired satellites for tricky items (? your smart plugs) Trouble with a mesh system is there are too many signals to autoconnect to.

I've also had trouble with Bluetooth signals interfering hugely with 2.4GHz WiFi, perhaps your iMac is doing this. This only happens with some Bluetooth (a single set of headphones for me) and 2.4Ghz. I was down from 75mb speed to 0.5
See: https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT201542

Maybe this helps, maybe not. In general I think Orbi is amazing

Edited by The_Doc on Sunday 28th June 07:13

[MetalMatters]

What if you hardwire from Mac to nearest Orbi, what speeds then?

Can you swap satellite 1 and 2 around to see if there’s any changes in behaviour?

I’ve got the RBR40 and 3 satellites, they’ve been mostly reliable, just the odd reboot needed every 4 or 5 months.

[kingston12]

MetalMatters said:

What if you hardwire from Mac to nearest Orbi, what speeds then?

Can you swap satellite 1 and 2 around to see if there’s any changes in behaviour?

I’ve got the RBR40 and 3 satellites, they’ve been mostly reliable, just the odd reboot needed every 4 or 5 months.

Several reboots later and the Mac connection is now working fine.

I also swapped the two satellites, but that didn’t help. All of the devices still connect to the distant node rather than the one they are sitting right next to!

I think that this issue might be limited to 2.4ghz. All of the devices connecting to the ‘wrong’ node are 2.4 (camera, smart plug, Wemo Maker) where as my phone connects to the correct node straight away on 5ghz.

There is a lot of reading to do on the Orbi forum. Apparently, it is the most commonly asked question on there.