Occasionally lose the internet but there's no indication of a problem. Have to reboot. NR5103EV2

[Psmithson]

Hi,
I've had this NR5103EV2 router for a month or so. Recently it has developed a new fault. All connected devices lose access to the internet. They have the WiFi connection but no internet. All the indicator lights on the router are good and if I log into the router it says it has a good signal. My Smarty phone is working fine on 5G during this problem. 

I have to re-boot the router and then it works fine.

Not sure what I can do about this. I'm considering buying another router but they are expensive.

[Psmithson]

I'll give it a go. It's been fine for two days now so hard to tell if a fix works. I'll see in a few weeks! 

[Psmithson]

Amazing - I followed suggestions to set the band and the DHCP timeout and rebooted. One hour later, just as my zoom meeting started, I lost the connection! Had to use my phone for the 20 min zoom meeting. Sometime during that meeting, the router sorted itself out.

[Spud]

Router lights may show connected to the Internet but I wonder if it really is? Can you ping sites, or at least the DNS server from maintenance->diagnostics?

Setting the Cellular Band to 4G then back to 5G/4G may be enough to reconnect rather than a reboot.

[Psmithson]

I'll try that next time that it's convenient. Often I just need to get the thing working and don't have time to investigate

[Psmithson]

Last night, I heard my wife having trouble with Alexa at 2.30am (she's not sleeping well!) so I looked at the router and it said there was a problem with the SIM. I rebooted and that error went away. This morning, it's now doing the original trick of claiming there's a signal but not sharing it with any connected devices. I'm sure this router is a duffer. I dare not contact customer services after hearing how they reduce the speed down to fix problems and then deny it! Or I could try unplugging my USB hard drive - perhaps that's bothering it somehow.

[Psmithson]

I bought an oldish Nokia Fastmile 5G router from ebay (the older one has a USB port but it turns out it's next to useless). 

Plus points: The kindles can connect to it without issue (had to use a guest network for the Three router). It seems a little quicker - not surprising since the thing weighs 2.1kg (600g for Three router) and uses more than twice the power. 4 ethernet ports.
Minus points: no file sharing on the USB port. Higher power consumption. Locked down UI (these Fastmiles are from some other network operator so some settings are greyed out).

It still has the odd VPN issue I have. I must re-boot the router to get a decent speed. After a while it slows right down. Both routers do that so must be some strange network issue.

So mainly downsides really. I'm hoping that it will be reliable in which case it will be worth the downsides.