Netgear WNDR3800 rebooting at intermittent intervals

I've issues with my router, it is rebooting at intermittent intervals. once now and then is ok.. but this situation is happening quite often, sometimes a couple of time during the same day, sometimes it is stable for days. This situation started around 2 or 3 releases ago, I thought the new release will fix it. but here I am.
is there any advice on how to resolve this issue?
I am not linux expert but if you guys guide me I'll follow your steps.

|Netgear WNDR3800|
Atheros AR7161 rev 2|
OpenWrt 19.07.4 r11208-ce6496d796
LuCI openwrt-19.07 branch git-20.287.57033-3d52019|

imho, some components on these boards started reaching their MTBF around 2 years ago onwards... that... or something/s in the modern stack don't play nice under certain conditions...

i'd recommend you try 18.x for a while ( or scale back any settings that were introduced in the last three years i.e. lower power consumption / resource contention ) and if the issue persists... time to upgrade...

thanks for the information.
I'll check the power consumption / resource contention.
any un-expensive router that you would recommend?
PS: I know that the list of supported routers if huge.

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my personal opinion is to diversify...

that said... i believe MT? devices ( gl-inet etc. ) hold the mantle for inexpensive... legacy replacements... with semi-decent wifi and reasonable support... for basic gigabit operations and general routing tasks up to around 250-300Mbs/s... ipq4x follows close behind... being slightly harder to find / possibly more expensive... and less solid but workable support... with marginally higher capacity and performance...

over 300Mb/s ( more ports / services etc. ) or $195AUD/135US and you enter another bracket...

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thanks for your opinion.

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fwiw... i've got a 3700v1 that began similar behavior around 2 years ago... then when I flashed 19 ( hard to remember, might have been around 18.06.2-ish ) ... things got alot worse...

there was only a handful of clients... / wired / wifi... but probably messed around installing some extroot, php stuff...

tried it again on and off but shelved it... suspected hw... / mtbf... but given 3800 has double the ram... and got a bit longer without issues... software is the likely suspect...

i'd be happy to run some tests with you to try and nail down a bit better where the 'limit' / sweet spot / best fw / use case for these devices lies...

i'm sure with a little attention to what rom is installed... and choosing one key purpose ( either ap if possible or just 'basic gigabit switch' with maybe vlans and not so fancy routing )

@hnyman is the authority on these devices... so he might intrinsically know where the 'choke point/s' is/are... but the likely cantidate is wireless driver...

some options...

  • try hnymans build if you haven't already...
  • try an alternate / lighter / older wifi stack if available
  • there is a 'light'/legacy build thread around here somewhere... worth looking into... because 17 was superb on these things...
  • worst case scenario, commit blast-famey and flash another distro...

I'll be happy to run those test. I got this device few years ago and was running nice, few updates ago it started having this issues... sometimes its run well. but now and then start rebooting it self... I thought that was windows issues, until I realized it was the modem. I use it at home... 1 or 2 computers at a time connected to it. just basic setting the only extra I added it is the simple ad block.
I will try your suggestions tomorrow in the am. its 10pm for me. and I will update you. I'll be awake for 1 or 2 more hours. I'll check messages before I turn off my computer.

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i've cut a square out above the cpu on my case... ( with heatsink connected through )

I noticed extreme temperature runaway the last time I tried to use the device... so keep an eye out/on the temperature the next time it locks up...

ok, I'll pay attention to the temperature as well. I just checked it feels very cool.

I installed the hnyman build , connection is up and running, I did a sysupgrade as hnyman suggested, deleted my old configuration and started from defaults.
it is running nice and smooth for now... time will tell the rest...
I'll keep update about my experience. thank you, wulfy23 for your suggestion.

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Just a data point that isn't going to help - I had the opposite experience with a WNDR3700. After flashing 19.07.3 it used to reboot about twice a week for several weeks. Eventually it stabilized. I cannot say what helped, I did lots of configuration changes and installed a few updates, but not in the week when it finally stopped rebooting. Now running 19.07.4 for 4 weeks straight with no issues.

Could there be heat issues with the WNDR3700? I never noticed the case getting warm.

also worth trying a new PSU. Caps go bad in PSUs as well as routers, somebtimes it;s a combination of both
as for temperatures, it's getting cooler in northern hemisphere these days

not a problem indoors with stable home heating but enough to cause borderline changes in unheated areas

so if you have a spare PSU same voltage/amps and same connector then try that if you can

EDIT: replied to wrong user - apols. Still not used to web forum threading, sorry

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hnyman build
Day 2,

  • connection is stable
  • surfing the Internet ( web ) is noticeably faster.
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hnyman build
Around 15 Days,
connection is stable, I didn't see any self / intermittent rebooting since I installed this lightweight version.
Thanks wulfy23 for the suggestion.

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