NETGEAR Nighthawk Multi-Gig Cable Modem

I’m a technical dude, working in video games and needed a fast reliable router that could cope with a demanding household during COVID. I’m streaming meetings all day, working with cloud services, have two teenage gamers in the house, plus wife is also working. I upgraded the whole network at the same time. I did a lot of research and ended up settling on Netgear Nighthawk equipment throughout. Big mistake, less than 6 months later I’m replacing all of it. At the same time I bought: Netgear CM1100 modem Netgear XR500 router Netgear EX7000 extender Netgear S8000 switch First issue was the modem. I have a gigabit line and initially we were able to get ~650mbps down. But after a few weeks the modem started requiring constant restarts. Eventually download speeds dropped to 0-30mbps. Resets didn’t help. I replaced the unit with a Motorola MB8600, has been rock solid ever since. The EX7000 has been useless as an extender since the day I first set it up. It constantly loses backhaul connection to the router, leaving all connected clients offline. I’ve tried it in several parts of the house, even in the same room with line of sight of the XR500. A restart would and it’d work for 24 hours, at best. In the end I wired the backhaul and ran it as an access point. The performance was poor, so eventually I just unplugged it. The XR500 hasn’t ever been a great performer, wireless speeds top about a 300mbps down and 30mbps up. At best. Even wire clients would rarely get over 500. It also needs to be restarted weekly. There are large parts of the house the signal can’t penetrate. And, as we’re getting ready of school to start, in need some parental controls. The Nighthawks don’t have any. Like at all. So I just about two weeks ago installed a Gryphon router. Immediate improvement. It’s faster, more reliable and has a way better admin setup. Wired I’m now getting 930mbps down, latency around 10ms and a health 40mbps up. Wireless clients around 650mbps. So far it’s been rock solid and has a way, way, way better admin interface. It’s also caught and blocked several bits of malware entering my network. The S8000 switch is fine, but expensive. I’ll keep it, but a cheaper box would have been just as good. So I’m done with Netgear. Hundreds of dollars wasted. Work was hard. I’m sending all of this junk to the charity shop. Never buying from Netgear again.