NETGEAR - Nighthawk AX5 5-Stream AX4200 WiFi 6 Router (RAX42)

Please explain, why not? Please reply with your opinion of an alternative choice of separate home router and cable modems here before Black Friday if you have time. Thank You.

Nighthawk AX5 5-Stream AX4200 Wi-Fi Router (RAX43) NETGEAR Cable Modem CM1000 Purchased: 2022-02-16 This router has worked well, and speed was fine after cox upgraded my speed free for 1 year to gig for my loyalty, they are a monopoly here. Now the issue my provider frequently has outages in Wichita Kansas and when they come back online it requires me to reboot my cable modem and router before I have reliable internet service again for my home. Now I am looking for a new backup system that I will purchase on Black Friday to replace the ones I have. I will use your suggestion and rent from Cox if I have speed problems again, thank you for reminding me of that. What is your opinion on combos and what do you recommend for Cox compatible replacements. Please reply before Black Friday with links if you have time!

I have a 3,000sq two-story house and am currently running with a Nighthawk AX5 AX4200 WiFi Router(RAX42v2) that I bought last year. We have a decent spot right in the center of the house downstairs to place it and it covers everywhere just fine. YMMV but if you're just looking for general use, this might be a good fit for you.

With a descent router wireless is nearly as good as wired these days. I speak as someone who was once a 'wired network' purist for the same reasons as you, and also someone who works from home. A good router, set in a centralized place will probably be a cheaper and simpler solution than wiring everything together. I use one of those nighthawk routers with four antenna. Alternatively, doing data cabling runs throughout your house can be in DIY territory. It would be much cheaper than hiring a contractor and you could be done with it in about a day depending on how many rooms you want patched in and how much you care about wire enclosures being visible. Lots of people just put cable mounts in the corner near the ceiling and run them outside the wall.

With a descent router wireless is nearly as good as wired these days. I speak as someone who was once a 'wired network' purist for the same reasons as you, and also someone who works from home. A good router, set in a centralized place will probably be a cheaper and simpler solution than wiring everything together. I use one of those nighthawk routers with four antenna. Alternatively, doing data cabling runs throughout your house can be in DIY territory. It would be much cheaper than hiring a contractor and you could be done with it in about a day depending on how many rooms you want patched in and how much you care about wire enclosures being visible. Lots of people just put cable mounts in the corner near the ceiling and run them outside the wall.

Netgear nighthawk for 6. Using tplink easy mesh for 7 and been happy so far

Definitely 👍. I use a Netgear Nighthawk with WiFi 6.

Considering that you’re using a very old 802.11n-only device, an upgrade to a decent WiFi6 device will modernize you greatly. These can be very inexpensive. I picked up a used Netgear Nighthawk WiFi6 router for $30 and it covers my apartment perfectly, despite the 200 neighbors. Then, when the future arrives and it’s time to expand, I’d buy something new. WiFi7 prices are only going to fall faster and WiFi7 clients will become all that more common, so it will pay to wait. Network gear is one of those things that you can’t future-proof. The tech changes fast enough, and the prices change fast enough, and the client support lags enough to the point where it’s is more efficient to buy for today, and not for 24 months from now.

I agree. I have tried numerous Netgear products, going back to a PCMCIA card, and all of them have had problems. The last Nighthawk I had constantly resulted in "Connected, No internet" for too many devices.

They were all WiFi 6. I used a Nokia linksys Atlas, a TPLink one and a Netgear Nighthawk. Except for the Nokia (wifi5), none of them even came close to the signal penetration I got from the GLinet flint 2. 

Yeah their speeds are terrible man! I swapped out to a nighthawk router for $300 at Best Buy has been worth it

they are awesome on a deal, and netgear nighthawk are fantastic... not that thing you linked...

Depends on your situation. If you have DSL or Coaxial Cable. You are likely going to have lag spikes due to the medium of connection. "Shared" mediums and DSL is just old teetering on ancient technology this point. That aside, I had luck with my Netgear Nighthawk back in 2015. I used it all the way up to 2020 when I got a legitimate Firewall. (Fortigate 70F) If you wanna go full blown firewall Route, I don't mind helping. Otherwise maybe look at the Netgear. (P.S. I hated the Netgear Nighthawk Smart App. Just in case you end up going that route. It should also have a built in web interface to be able to go around the app. Not sure about the Netgear Mesh boxes that they have out there now.).

I have an asus AXE7800 that works well. In the like 16 months I've had it, I've rebooted it once, but i suspect it wasn't even the thing that needed rebooting, it was more of a "might as well, I'm rebooting everything else". It replaced a netgear nighthawk that was nearly ten years old and still in GWO, but i wanted that 6G. I am generally a fan of Netgear as well. Both companies are capable of shanking an individual product tho, so just do a little due diligence looking at reviews and googling before you pull the trigger. You'll be working on substantially better odds. So long as it's the typical nitpicking of configuration interface, it's performance attaching a drive to it for NAS, etc? You'll be good, that's a sign that they're looking at normal things and got past basic operations. For VR we don't need much in the way of features, we just need it to be stable, reliable, and fast. If it's a product that's been out for a year, give or take, and googling it doesn't give you a bunch of hits about it being garbage, having actual systemic problems etc, you're good. Just know that you can get the most flawless amazing and user friendly router and someone's gonna have a hell of a time setting it up, configuring something, or just not understanding that maybe they got a defective unit and need to use their warranty lol But yeah in general I find Netgear and Asus networking products to be worth their extra cost

use their modem, go get urself a nighthawk router, thats what ive got, and have no issues

Couple ideas… Try another router. My netgear nighthawk is working fine. Put a wireless ap right near your bedroom. Sounds like you would have line of sight from the router to the ap, so that should work well. Run an Ethernet cable along the ceiling from the router to your bedroom and put a wired ap there. This gives you wifi and you could also run a wired connection out from the ap. Wired is going to give the fastest most reliable result.

I appreciate that. Youre spot on though this really does seem to a complex problem to solve since we all want and need something different. I’m using a nighthawk modem and a nighthawk router I can’t remember the models. The modem is great since it gives me multiple ports out instead of just one so I can bypass the router when I want to. This wasn’t really a requirement just a nice qol feature. The router though, I really wanted the ability to manage the devices connected to it and prioritize certain devices and applications. The one I have handles things the way I wanted. Both pieces were bought a 2-3 years ago when 1gb speeds hit our market. I refuse to deal with the isp equipment because it’s nothing but headaches to everyone here and I can’t manage it. Looking at the home network prices it still feels like a good set up for me at $400 total.

I’ve tried a few 5g routers but have not found any that are great, I’m using a Netgear NightHawk connected to my existing home network witch is as good as I’ve found but they’re not cheap. Have not come across any 5g routers with wifi 7 at all. The TP-Link 5g routers aren’t great, Teltonika are solid but not cheap because you need to get antennas and power supplies seperate for them. Not sure on the Nokia units that some carriers use for their 5g home plans but might be worth a try but they’re not wifi 7

My last router was a Nighthawk but it died, less than 5 years old. Beware!

I'm only going to tell you what I think you shouldn't buy, based on my own experience. Don't buy Netgear. I had a Netgear Nighthawk router that ended up getting a bug in it after a firmware upgrade. The bug didn't allow me to filter by MAC address. I had to end up actually editing the HTML of the router page to get it to work. It was a known issue on Netgear's website for years, but they never fixed it. I will never buy another Netgear router.

Also, I have the 1gb internet and had their router, and I still ended buying a netgear nighthawk router. Their router kept causing my internet connection to go in and out.

Wifi 7 is too... Expensive and quest isn't supported... Get a Netgear nighthawk in Amazon por 130usd

I got one of the netgear nighthawk brand, had it for 3 years now and it never has failed me and it’s a very capable router. Remote play to xbox sx (xbox wired) with 5 ping on iphone, very playable, all while wife and son are streaming something on tv/phones/tablets all on wifi.

I have a netgear nighthawk router also and I get my full internet plan speed (1gb down and up) over wifi through my fiber connection. Plus it can handle a lot of devices and almost never needs a reboot.

I got one and saw the same thing. After following the instructions to upgrade my firmware, it was peaking at 80% of Ram usage with cpu at 20%. I also could not get my 5ghz channel to connect to any device other than my iPhone. It was a nightmare to troubleshoot and it’s going back tomorrow. I brought back out my Nighthawk and it’s business as usual. 

I would say look at another nighthawk, you got 5 years roi out of it, and they’re relatively inexpensive compared to other brands. Do you need a new modem too? They’re different pieces of hardware. You can also consider getting something called a gateway that combines a router and a modem together into one piece of hardware.

Yeah, I gave up on consumer grade crap too, after I had a Netgear Nighthawk system that would randomly start spazzing out and start dropping packets on the wireless network and need a full power cycle every once in a while. Ended up going with Ubiquiti a few months ago and I've been pretty happy with it so far.

Another vote for Nighthawk, it's been great for two years solid

Either nighthawk or Asus routers. Asus i like because they last much longer through custom firmware support for long term updates. Dual band is a must, tri band is better and Quad band I suggest if you have tons of devices. Make sure to get at Least Wifi 6E. However I suggest future proofing and going for wifi 7. Avoid wifi 6 and below like the plague. Also avoid TP-Link. Wifi 6e and wifi 7 have major technological advantages. TP-Link is very buggy in terms of their software and may be banned from USA because of mediocre security.

I love how they look crazy now I have an old nighthawk somewhere lol

Personally I think nothing beats a Nighthawk for converting your internet service into home WiFi. It's got great range, is super stable, and you can run 2.4 and 5ghz at the same time.

This. Omg this. I found this out the hard way. I got U6 and it has an awful signal transmission that feels like can't even penetrate paper. Too late to return it for me. I had to plug my old Netgear nighthawk router to use as AP for the unifi router which has 4x4 and has probably x3 performance of the U6. I ended up using the U6 for the IoT devices and my nighthawk as AP for everything else. Now I am looking into wifi 7 access point/mesh network to compliment my unifi router.

This. Omg this. I found this out the hard way. I got U6 and it has an awful signal transmission that feels like can't even penetrate paper. Too late to return it for me. I had to plug my old Netgear nighthawk router to use as AP for the unifi router which has 4x4 and has probably x3 performance of the U6. I ended up using the U6 for the IoT devices and my nighthawk as AP for everything else. Now I am looking into wifi 7 access point/mesh network to compliment my unifi router.

I had an older version, and it was terrible performing and died in less than a year. Got a Nighthawk instead and couldn't be happier.

You can use any, but I'd suggest at least Wifi 6 or 6e, if not 7 - depends on your devices too. The Nighthawk routers are really nice.

I had a netgear nighthawk for a while. I liked that thing. Haven't found a good router since that had 2x2.5Gb port aggregation.

ASUS any day of the weak, had nothing but TPLink and it sucked, immediately switched out for the Nighthawk routers and loved it

Nighthawk But let’s be very clear about something. When thinking about buying Wi-Fi six or seven you should understand that the higher speeds are only going to be beneficial when you are transferring data between devices on your own home network. So these higher and routers really only are advantageous to businesses. The only way you might ever need such a thing in your home is if you live in some kind of mansion full of people. The reason why they are available to you and me as average, ordinary, every day people is because that helps keep the price lower for the routers across the board.

I use eeros for my mesh wifi and it works great with my OPNSense setup. I just dropped it into bridge mode. I physically segregate my LAN / Home WIFinetwork from my Guest and IoT via a 4 port nic and Firewall rules. My IoT stuff runns off a Nighthawk and the Guest also runs off another Nighthawk. BOth running OpenWRT firmware since stock is garbage and insecure.