I have a GL-AR300M and use it in a fixed router setup that mainly acts like an access point for wifi. (All the extra functionality is currently off.)
Since a few moths the device seems to freeze up regularly. At first I had to restart the device once every few days as all wifi functionality seized. The time until freezing up has kept decreasing .Now I have to do it about twice a day. Both hardware and software reset seem to have the same effect that everything starts working again for a while.
The problems first started with an older firmware, but the update to the latest version did not change any behavior. The firmware is up-to-date at 3.105 ( Compile Time 2020-12-07 15:32:56 ).
I changed the power adapter already without any change, but I will try the cable.
As to aging radio, what component would be affected by age to get such a result?
I could imagine a memory leak or some log events filling buffer or space, but that wouldn’t explain the increasing frequency.
Ok, so just in case this might help someone else as well:
Things kept getting worse until the router would freeze up after 1-1.5 hours already.
I could resolve the problem (at least things have been stable for several days).
While updating the firmware did not help at all, a reset to factory defaults (labeled
“revert firmware” in the menu) seemed to help. I would have expected the update of
the firmware to already fix possible problems there, but reverting seems to do something
additional.
Hmm, true, but would you expect them to be able to lock up the whole system?
Anyway, I spoke too early. Shortly after my post everything locked up again. But the reset to factory default still did something to increase the period until freeze-up to 3 days instead of 1-1.5 hours.
Intuitively, I would say that speak against a hardware failure.
I will keep observing it for a while to see if it happens regularly again and report back.
I am testing WiFi roaming with Android and have several of these GL-AR300M configured as gateway & access point. These routers have been extremely stable for months in both modes using a 1000ma power supply and 850ma too (which is not recommended.) But I did reduce the WiFi transmit power to 1mw because I need to limit the range of each zone. (I am trying to force wireless clients to switch to the nearest access point automatically.) So maybe you have an overheating problem? (What is the ambient temperature? What happens if you place the router in a vertical orientation?) Can you check these logs for any errors: