Netgear 1150v issues

Bought a new Netgear 1150v end-May 2021. All worked great for about 5 weeks.

Early July 2021 it started to act up wherein I could not access the internet. The Xfinity app is unable to reach my modem so a reset of the modem from Xfinity app was not possible. The only way to get the modem to start working again was to power cycle the modem or press the reset button on the modem. Once the modem recovers after the reboot, all is good for a few hours and then the issue comes back. The event logs from the modem shows:

"Started Unicast Maintenance Ranging - No Response received - T3 time-out"

It may be noted that even when access to internet is working, most times the Xfinity app still says it is unable to reach the modem and a red dot is shown against the modem status. Sometimes though the app says all good and the status is green. The above logs are seen even when internet access is good (while the Xfinity app says unreachable).

I also tried a factory reset from the Netgear app and that like other attempts helped for a few hours.

It may be noted that when the internet does work, the speed is really slow.

The new firmware - V4.02.02, is the cause.

This very same issue was detailed in this forum here (which was resolved by replacing the modem):

https://forums.xfinity.com/conversations/your-home-network/netgear-cm1150v-internet-connectivity/602db04dc5375f08cd294c8d

I am trying to see if there are stuff I could try out before I call Netgear for them agreeing to RMA the modem is not a given.