[trymion]

Hello,

I'm running an R7000 on DD-WRT v3.0-r35965M kongac since he released the firmware. I've had no issues at all up until maybe the past couple of months.

My internet and/or wifi will drop randomly and at any interval. Sometimes I'll reboot and it'll lose either again within minutes, sometimes it'll last for days.

I've tried an nvram erase and redid my settings (very basic, only 2 people ever connect to it, I don't use IPV6 or any other features) multiple times to no avail.

I'm considering trying to flash the firmware to the latest BS build here but, considering it used to run indefinitely without issues before, I'm worried maybe it's failing hardware.

I recently got my gf bluetooth earphones and thought maybe that might interfere so I tried playing with Bluetooth Coexistance (and learned why that setting exists) but it didn't help the issue.

I've read some people had issues with DDNS and QoS enabled so I've just disabled DDNS (i use noip sometimes) but left QoS on to try and figure out what's causing this issue -- if it isn't hardware related.

Does anyone have any tips on trying to figure out what might be happening?

The wifi drops more than the internet does.

If the wifi drops and I try to change any setting in ddwrt and "Apply Settings" , the router seems to fully crash and I need to hard reset to get it back (which led me to believe it's more of a software issue thaan hardware but couldn't rule it out).

Any help is appreciated.

[GeeTek]

Sure sounds like flakey hardware. 3 years is about the most you can use these home grade routers and reasonably expect the hardware to hold up. Anyway, you pretty much diagnosed it yourself. The firmware / config did not change from when it was working properly. The old stack of 120 or 130 fucked up radios I used to have will attest to the fact that hardware does fail and typically with intermittent operation.

[LiloBzH]

Hi

Same thing for me.

Since some versions, WIFI is not stable.

For now, I rolled back to Firmware: DD-WRT v3.0-r42366 std (02/14/20)

I have tested :

03-29-2020-r42813 => Wifi unstable
03-05-2020-r42617 => Wifi unstable

[trymion]

So, after a few months, I've somewhat figured out what was going on.

As of late, my cable service has been fairly unreliable. I never bothered to check the modem when I was first diagnosing the issue.

The modem was losing upstream channels. It should be connected to 4, but sometimes it will go down to 1.

For some reason, when this happens, DDWRT can't seem to recover/renew the dhcp on it's own. If I go into the GUI, release/renew manually, my net will pick right back up.

I was running one of the older KONG ddwrt builds and thought maybe I'd try one of the latest BS ones.

The last ... 3 BS builds released all had the same issue, but made it worse. When the modem would lose upstream channels or reconnected to the service (downstream/upstream lights flashing green), the r7000 wouldn't know what to do. It was worse because the dhcp release/renew no longer worked.

One quick way I found to get the r7000 back running was to toggle SFE engine. If it was on, toggling it off and applying would bring the r7000 back to life. When the modem has it's issue, i would have to go back into the DDWRT GUI and toggle the SFE engine to whatever it wasn't on.

Unfortunately, I grew tired of this really, really fast.

I've begrudgingly gone back to stock Netgear firmware and, while I lost a lot of speed and have worse QOS (and now have to deal with other bugs now), the router is actually stable and can recover from any network outages on it's own.

[MeanE]

You could always try fresh tomato https://www.linksysinfo.org/index.php?threads/fork-freshtomato-mips-development-discussion-only-for-support-always-open-your-own-thread.74145/

[kernel-panic69]

Cooling fans are your friend.

Also, you could try <Kong>s last build before he quit DD:

http://ddwrt-kong.clonevince.fr/Supported%20Models

http://ddwrt-kong.clonevince.fr/40270/

Or the latest release:

https://download1.dd-wrt.com/dd-wrtv2/downloads/betas/2020/06-19-2020-r43471/netgear-r7000/

And, of course the other option previously posted.

[trymion]

I actually do have a cooling fan (one of my diagnosing steps for it) and the CPU stayed under 56c. I tried that because I noticed the CPU was hitting 73+c in the current weather here (humidex values of 36+ outside and I don't have airconditioning at the moment).

When I have more time, I'll attempt the KONG builds and/or freah tomato, but for the moment i'm trying to work with my ISP to resolve these disconnect issues so that I can return to non-oem firmware.

I do miss the speed and overall better quality from DDWRT, but I need the stability that the OEM is currently offering (even if it _does_ have less wifi range, less wifi/wired speed, and worse qos).

Thanks for the links MeanE and kernel-panic.

[kernel-panic69]

Seems this antique forum software balked at my wanting to not have that %20 in the link. All fixed.

[mpouls1]

I experienced similar problems with version DD-WRT v3.0-r34929. Upgraded to r43266 and WiFi dropouts and internet connectivity issues have seemed to resolve. My Netgear is 2.5+ years old. I did have to reset to defaults before upgrading.