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Netgear Nighthawk X8 AC5300 Router With Active Antennas Tested (hothardware.com)
MojoKid writes: Netgear recently launched the Nighthawk X8 router, which is part of a new round of second-gen wireless AC devices dubbed "Wave 2", carrying the AC5300 moniker. Instead of using a 3x3 configuration with six antennae, this router offers a 4x4 configuration, with four internal antennae and four active external antennae, each with their own blue LEDs to signal their active state. The actual amplifiers are on the antennae themselves, rather than down on the main board, helping to boost the signal and minimize crosstalk and loss associated with modern PCB circuitry. Each 5GHz radio is able to broadcast at 2.1Gbps compared to 1.3Gbps on Gen 1 devices, and the bandwidth on the 2.4GHz channel is also increased from 600Mb/s on Gen 1 devices to 1GB/s. When you take both 5GHz channels at 2,100Mb/s and add it to the 1,000Mb/s on the 2.4GHz channel, you end up with a number around 5,300Mb/s, hence the branding. Performance-wise, the Nighthawk X8 is one of the fastest Wi-Fi routers on the market currently. However, its hefty price point might be hard to justify for most mainstream users. Enthusiasts and small office/home office users looking for ultimate range on a 5GHz channel with lots of clients connected will appreciate this routers throughput and power, however.
What's the thought process that results in that spelling?
I've got a cheaper dual band 802.11ac router in my house and I'm not very impressed with range on 5 ghz. In fact it only really works well in the same room. No other 5 ghz signals in the area except for a directional ubiquity device on the roof, which works great by the way. I know range in 5 ghz isn't great compared to 2.4 but are others having better luck in a home through walls? If this is supposed to be a viable option in congested 2.4 ghz environments, I wonder how people are using it. My brother had a similar experience with a dual band router also.
It only takes one idiot with one of these to interfere over all useable 2.4G and 5G bands at once so nobody gets a decent connection (i assume the kind of kiddie interested in this wont have obss active as that slows things down). But hey, its got big numbers, right? They should just ban these from the get go.
I have had one of these for a month or so now. The range is fantastic (even with 5GHz) as is the throughput, though the Ethernet bonding feature isn't useful to me.
However, I, like many other X8 users complaining in Netgear's support forum, have an ongoing issue with the WiFi in that devices still show they're connected but no data flows. And if you have a device that tries to connect to the access point, the router rejects it. Rebooting the router fixes it for a while. Netgear support has been very responsive and they've given me beta firmware, but the problem persists. It's especially aggravating for my DVR which goes back to an "unconnected" state each time this happens, meaning I have to go through its configuration again.
Netgear is sending me a replacement router to see if that helps. I hope it does, as otherwise I love this thing. I was able to disconnect a repeater I had running on the other side of the house as I didn't need it anymore.
Some countries use a comma instead of a period as the decimal point. 5.3 Gb/s would be the other way to write it.
The part where they wrote "1000Gb/s on the 2.4GHz channel", on the other hand... that's definitely wrong. That sort of wireless speed has been achieved, but only in labs so far.
Fuck it, we're going to 12 antennas.
There is actually a button on the front of it to turn off the LED lights.
the actual model number is R8500 and "AC5300" is just marketing shitting on the desk. a side note: netgear actually seems to be open source friendly now as they are using version of dd-wrt and openwrt for their routers.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
Starting with the line "When you take both 5GHz channels at 2,100Gb/s " everything should be in Mb/s instead of Gb/s.
"He took a duck in the face at 250 knots." -- William Gibson, Pattern Recognition
11% negative reviews: NETGEAR Nighthawk X8
... My time is being used to beta test their product. They obviously know something is not right with the unit as my Actiontec GL1000 router works perfectly as does my Nighthawk R7000. The Nighthawk R8500 will lock up with no access to the internet or internal setup. All lights remain on but the unit becomes unresponsive and a power cycle is required to restore access."
Quote: "The LVL 1 support team at Netgear took my information and had me try 2 beta firmwares that did not resolve the issue. They asked for all the devices connected to the router and screenshots with the config file. All the information was supplied and escalated to a higher LVL support group.
I've had the same problem with Netgear FVS336G routers, random lockups. The problem: Configuration is more complicated than the manual suggests.