Home Router Network Connectivity Issues

Question

I'm not entirely sure whether my question here is appropriate for this Stack Exchange site, but if there's one that's more appropriate, please let me know how to put my question there as well.

So, today, my router had some issues. I've been using it for almost 3 months now. It's the Linksys WRT32X AC3200 Wi-Fi Gaming Router, hosting two wireless bands at 2.4 and 5 GHz. Today, there was some rain in the neighborhood, but no lightning, and the rain wasn't that heavy. Anyways, for some strange reason, the 2.4 GHz band went kaput while the 5 GHz band remained well. I was able to connect to my 2.4 GHz band, but I couldn't access the internet while I was able to do so on the 5 GHz band. I tried resetting the router but to no avail. My mom thought we had been hacked, so I changed the password to the 2.4 GHz band, but that still didn't solve the issue. Ultimately, I just reset the router to factory settings, renamed the wireless networks, gave the bands a complex password, and the issue went away. Now, both bands are usable again.

This kind of issue seemed very strange to me. To be honest, I'm not entirely sure whether my home network was hacked or not, and I wouldn't think inclement weather would cause issues with my home router. Perhaps at worst a power surge, but for this specific problem to occur.. Can anyone give me some ideas on why this happened and what can I do to prevent this in the future? Also, under what conditions is it acceptable to reset the router to factory settings? That seems like a last resort for something like this, but it worked.

Also, I'm not sure if this will help much, but my devices at home are a mix of Apple, Android (Samsung, LG), Windows, and a ChromeCast that only operates at 2.4 GHz. I don't think it's necessarily a problem with the devices.

Answer 1

It's unlikely rain caused this since your results were opposite of typical behavior.

The 2.4GHz band should've been more resilient than 5GHz since the higher frequency is more vulnerable to interference and obstructive objects.

Restarting, then resetting and finally reloading your router was the absolute best practice that every tech professional would've followed and your methodology was equally as sound.

I'd recommend taking a backup of your current working router setup and storing it somewhere accessible in the event you have to reload the device again since further and especially more frequent issues like you just experienced underscores a potential deteriorating hardware problem that might require replacement.

SOHO WiFi devices can age, they can overheat and their commodity priced to be easily replaced.

You did everything possible and correctly.

Answer 2

Just to let you know, the Linksys Community forum has a big thread for this router. There was a Marvel Wi-Fi driver that was broken. The beta firmware has been posted and fixed these woes for me. Also, Google has identified a wi-fi woe with their android devices, but make sure to grab that beta firmware.