Wondering if I bought a defective product

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Wondering if I bought a defective product

This thread has been locked for further replies. You can start a new thread to share your ideas or ask questions.
Wondering if I bought a defective product
Wondering if I bought a defective product
2019-07-03 00:57:54 - last edited 2019-07-03 00:59:26
Model: Archer C6  
Hardware Version: V2
Firmware Version: 1.1.1 Build 20190115 rel.60612(5553)

So, I just bought a router, Archer C6 AC 1200, 4 Gigabit ports and stuff, and have tried to make it work here, to absolute tiring results.

 

My situation is that my ISP has its modem, it's bad in features compared to the previous one, so I needed a new router to keep my current network, as such, I went after one with Gigabit ports.

 

The wi-fi works, so the router at least turns on and seems to work to some extent.

The internet itself however is a mess. I connected the cable from the modem/router to the WAN port, most of the time it didn't work until it did. Then I restarted it and the connecting has not come back again, it just says "poor network" now.

 

So I checked multiple cables in between my laptop directly to the modem, they all work, but the moment I connect them to the WAN port of the Archer C7 it doesn`t work. I`m currently connected to it through the wi-fi with the Poor Network excuse, while connected directly to the modem for internet access.

 

And then there are the ports, all ports are connected, yet not wired connections were found. I check my laptop and it didn't even got an IP. The cable is not a problem, I'm using the same cable directly with the modem without any problems, I have used the same cable for quite some time.

 

Then the password stopped working and I had to reset all configs, and it`s not working again.

 

So.. Is there a trick? Am I using an old version of the firmware? I just bought the item, but as I was selecting the item here I noticed that Revision 20 is already available compared to 2. So is this a hardware thing? Is this a bug? Can it be fixed or should I return the item?

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#1
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4 Reply
Re:Wondering if I bought a defective product
2019-07-03 07:20:02

Hi,

 

We can do some troubleshooting first and try to fix it.

 

With the modem connected to the WAN port of the C6, what is the light status of it?

 

When the internet does not work, please login to the web interface of C6 and take a picture of the status page and send to us. At the same time, with your computer connected to the modem directly, what is the IP and gateway? Can you get internet from the modem directly? 

Note: How to check the IP and gateway on computer: https://www.tp-link.com/support/faq/838/ Please show us a screenshot as well.

 

Besides, you can connect the computer to the C6 by cable to clone the mac address if the computer works fine with it connected to the modem directly. 

 

Regarding to the no wired connection found issue, with the device plugged, does the ethernet led come on? You can connect a cable from port 1 to port 2 and check the light status. 

 

Meanwhile, what do you mean by saying the password stopped working? Is it the wifi password or the login password? Please provide more information.

 

Nice day. 

Nice to Meet You in Our TP-Link Community. Check Out the Latest Posts: Connect TP-Link Archer BE550 to Germany's DS-Lite (Dual Stack Lite) Internet via WAN Archer GE550 - BE9300 Tri-Band Wi-Fi 7 Gaming Router Archer BE800 New Firmware Added Support for EasyMesh in AP Mode, DoH&DoT, and 3-Band MLO Connection Archer AX90 New Firmware Added Support for EasyMesh and Ethernet Backhaul If you found a post or response helpful, please click Helpful (arrow pointing upward icon). If you are the author of a topic, remember to mark a helpful reply as the "Recommended Solution" (star icon) so that others can benefit from it.
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#2
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Re:Re:Wondering if I bought a defective product
2019-07-03 11:56:49 - last edited 2019-07-03 11:57:25

> With the modem connected to the WAN port of the C6, what is the light status of it?

All lights runnings

 

> When the internet does not work, please login to the web interface of C6 and take a picture of the status page and send to us. At the same time, with your computer connected to the modem directly, what is the IP and gateway? Can you get internet from the modem directly? 

I can't do a screenshot for now, but this was the network setup and how it appeared:

The modem's gateway is at 192.168.0.1, the C6 was at 192.168.1.1, the first time I changed it manually, after the reset however, it recognized the conflict and changed by itself.

 

In regards to the IP, this is the funny thing which is the main reason I understood my unit to be defective:

1 - If I disconnected the cable from my laptop, it would show it as disconnected.

2 - If I connected it to my modem, the IP would be 192.168.0.100 or something (I configured it to start DHCP at 100)

3 - When connected to the C6 it would stay on Limbo, it would never get an IP, but at the same time, it was not disconnected either. There was an auto-configuration IP that didn't start with 192, and it never went ahead of that.

 

I tried all 4 ports, I tested with multiple cables, all which worked when connected directly with the modem.

 

The status page of the C6 would get an IP (192.168.0.103), but would also show "Poor connection", and so the network would never work, not even trying to access the modem page (192.168.0.1)

 

One interesting side-effect from when I got it to work at first was that sometimes the connection would just die randomly, and both my laptop browser and my phone would give me a warning that I may "need to login to use this network", the reason being that the router would always show an error that it got no IP instead of simply timing out.

 

 

> Besides, you can connect the computer to the C6 by cable to clone the mac address if the computer works fine with it connected to the modem directly. 

I stopped trying Bridge Mode after it was not working at first, so there was no need to clone the mac address, the problem was not the mac as it did work at one point, and it did get an IP from the modem. Considering that none of the ports worked (Were giving me the limbo status), and not even the WAN port was working properly, I started to guess that the problem was on the hardware, I'm planning to try to replace it on the store.

 

> Regarding to the no wired connection found issue, with the device plugged, does the ethernet led come on? You can connect a cable from port 1 to port 2 and check the light status. 

Now that you mention it, I did forgot to check the port leds, although I do think they should have been working as both the Router got an IP from the modem, and my laptop would get the same limbo status in whatever port I connected. I also connected another raspberry pi just to confirm if the problem could simply be my laptop, but none of the MAC addresses appeared as connected.

 

> Meanwhile, what do you mean by saying the password stopped working? Is it the wifi password or the login password? Please provide more information.

This is something curious, but I found a way to counteract it. Basically, my browser already had some saved passwords on that IP from previous routers and modems, and not all of them had "admin" as the user name. So when I would try to select an account with the same password I had setup previously (The username was different), even if I typed the right password it would give be a miss.

 

But once I Ctrl+F5 to fully refresh the page and manually type the password it worked, I didn't check cause I was pretty stressed out, but I'm guessing there is a hidden username input fixed with "admin" or an specific username, and when I selected a saved password, it's rewritten, this, the password may be correct, but the hidden username would not be.

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#3
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Re:Re:Re:Wondering if I bought a defective product
2019-07-04 00:03:03

> Regarding to the no wired connection found issue, with the device plugged, does the ethernet led come on? You can connect a cable from port 1 to port 2 and check the light status. 

Ok, I have just confirmed, none of the lights turned on the router, only on the modem. I checked for bad contacts, changed cables and so on, nothing worked, it's like they are just decoration.

 

I have also asked for a replacement, got another which ended up the same way.

I had thought that the Gigabit ports would mean support for a local network, but I can see it's only a wireless router with a WAN port that hardly works to boot. But the wifi connection was good, although there was no internet either...

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#4
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Re:Re:Re:Re:Wondering if I bought a defective product
2019-07-04 10:58:38

Hi,

 

Thanks for your feedback, with devices plugged into the LAN ports but the ethernet leds do not come on, there may have something wrong. 

 

And you said you got replacement, but still the same thing? 

 

If the wired connection still cannot be detected, with port 1 and port 2 connected to each other via one cable, does the led come on? 

 

Good day. 

Nice to Meet You in Our TP-Link Community. Check Out the Latest Posts: Connect TP-Link Archer BE550 to Germany's DS-Lite (Dual Stack Lite) Internet via WAN Archer GE550 - BE9300 Tri-Band Wi-Fi 7 Gaming Router Archer BE800 New Firmware Added Support for EasyMesh in AP Mode, DoH&DoT, and 3-Band MLO Connection Archer AX90 New Firmware Added Support for EasyMesh and Ethernet Backhaul If you found a post or response helpful, please click Helpful (arrow pointing upward icon). If you are the author of a topic, remember to mark a helpful reply as the "Recommended Solution" (star icon) so that others can benefit from it.
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#5
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