I have an Opal router bought during 2023 and used almost constantly since. It is wired to a DSL line and has been performing excellently. I have both 5ghz and 2.4ghz WiFi networks configured, and our personal machines use that to connect, while the NUC and JetKVM uses wired ethernet.
The router is powered by USB to an Anker C300 power station. For this it’s connected to a high power USB port.
Either yesterday or today the connection to the router started to be flaky. Both our laptops and phones prefer to connect to the 5Ghz network, but intermittently this network will drop and and the device might (or might not) revert to the 2.4Ghz network.
Checking the Opal dashboard, the firmware is up-to-date.
A possible issue might be that if the Anker powerbank see’s a power distribution on its AC power, there’s a flicker on the USB and generated AC outputs. If the router see’s a power flicker, will it go into funky mode where it misbehaves? However, I afterward unplugged and replugged the router, which should have reset any funky mode.
The router is running 24/7 and is a little warm to the touch. Could that cause degradation?
When the router is first booted, the 5Ghz WiFi works great, and the router dashboard shows that the Cable connection to the ISP is active and has IP addresses.
When the 5Ghz fails, and my computer falls back to 2.4Ghz, I can login to the router, the dashboard shows that the Cable connection to the ISP is inactive, and there are no IP addresses.
In that case the router might still be allowing traffic to the Internet.
Not entirely sure, but it sounds like a surge caused instability in the 5GHz WiFi chip, or even the Ethernet switch chip?
Please help verify:
When the issue occurs (e.g., when the computer falls back to 2.4 GHz WiFi), can the 5GHz WiFi be detected and successfully connected to by other devices to access the internet?
When the dashboard shows the ISP cable as inactive, please try traceroute 8.8.8.8 on the PC.
(On Windows, you can run tracert 8.8.8.8 in Command Prompt.)