Banana Pi BPI-R4 BPI-BE14 Wi-Fi7 NIC module

Banana Pi Router design BPI-R4(MT7988)
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Its a problem of BPI. It certainly wasnt clear from reading before I bought my BPI-R4 that it was a development board.

I found this place because someone was showing a picture of an assembled and working PBI-R4 with the NIC fitted, and raving about how well it worked.

When I got here, I read about a bit, saw that a NIC was in development, but had no way to know that what I had previously seen was merely a dev with an early prototype.

This would have been FINE, had BPI not advertised the BPI-R4 on aliexpress WITHOUT the NIC, but WITH pictures of the fitted and apparently existing NIC attached to it.

I expected to receive a fully functional WiFi7 router. IT WAS ADVERTISED AS THAT - the adverts call it a WiFi7 Router.

When it arrived and turned out to merely be an ARM single board computer WITHOUT any WiFi at all, let alone 7, it was a BIT OF A SURPRISE. (I did think it seemed cheap, but stuff from China CAN be cheap.

I LIKE the concept. I LIKE the execution of the base platform. I THINK I will like the WiFi7 card when it is finally available. I EXPECT the promised 10/14 antenna variants to be produced.

As I said before, communication is important. If the advert I bought my BPI-R4 from had clearly stated that the NICs would NOT be available, I would have been a LOT happier.

I dont know how else I can say this. I dont hate the project. Iā€™m here because I liked what I saw and I want a part of this.

But Im only STILL here because Im stubborn and I spent money already. Iā€™m hoping this situation improves, and I find myself wanting to be here because the project team are giving up to date and clear information - which includes not making borderline false claims on the website.

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102

I might sound rude but next time that you buy something on Aliexpress do some research before. Also read the description and take a look at the photos in the reviews so that you know exactly what you are buying.

By the way the docs lists a compatible wifi 6e card.

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It does sound rude, because I just clearly stated that I did do research before buying.

Research does not guarantee a perfect outcome - ESPECIALLY when the main website is really not very well organised.

Case in point - the WiFi6 module you refer to in the docs looks great - but when you click on the link it takes you to a page for a completely different module.

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this link, to be clear - which sometimes works (but shows (apparently) the wrong product) and sometimes 404s.

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The same page that says to use a ā€œRT5400Bā€ for PoE, but neglects to even mention that different voltage variants and topolgies for the module existā€¦

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For the PoE it is the 12V variant (you can find that page 9 of the schematic of the board).

I dont have issues with the AsiaRF link and I see AW7916-NPD on the docs, the website and even the image of the module (you only need to plug one mini pcie with this module and this is normal).

And you said that you were surprised by the fact that the board didnā€™t come with the NIC which makes me think that you didnā€™t research enough.

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Thanks, I havenā€™t had a chance to review the schematics yet.

BUT - this REALLY should be made clear on the webpage as well - it was only on my second trip to aliexpress that I discovered that there even ARE variants of the 5400B - in the forums, no-one mentioned this (or if they did, it was not seen by me).

Luckily, I guess fitting the 5V variant would probably not have damaged my board, but fitting a 24V one (I wouldnā€™t have, because I am experienced enough to know better) would have really ruined some other less experienced persons day.

Looking again, I can see why the image on the page differ from what I see on the aisiaRF page - itā€™s because the image on the page is the (still unavailable) WiFi7 board.

Now to be fair, there is a small caption above the image saying ā€œWiFi7:BPI-R4-NIC-BE14ā€, but the layout of the page is terrible, and I missed it.

I am TRYING to be constructive here - Iā€™ve worked on linux for over 25 years now, and on SoC support and SBCs for nearly all of that time, so I have some experience of quite a number of hardware projects.

Iā€™m TELLING you that, as someone who has written pages for SoCs before now, these are unclear and badly laid out.

The Wifi6 module should have a picture. It should also be in a seperate section of the page, not lumped in with the (completely different) WiFi7 module.

The Wifi section of the page has the heading ā€œmPCIe WiFi6/WiFi6E/Wifi7ā€. It has a subheading for WiFi6, which is underlined, and NO subheading of the same type separating the WiFi7 information out.

Instead of telling me Iā€™m too stupid to use a website, why not accept that the website has room for improvement?

Iā€™m not the only person saying this. Hereā€™s an example linked from the BPI mastodon for another of their products, and the reviewer clearly has the exact same issues as I do - nice products, lousy webpage. Its the only thing the reviewer really criticised: This SBC Puts Raspberry Pi 5 to Shame

Rather than spending your time telling me how stupid I am, maybe spend some of yours improving the documentation?

108

Cā€™mon bpi isnā€™t big company to put 1000 devices of cheap wifi 7 router with two 10gig sfp, this is understandable that they managed to put base board at first and get money back to finish case and wifi module. And when you know something more than basic, you can see clearly that this isnā€™t just one simple rf chip but more.complex build, and thatā€™s because of wifi 7 mlo and other tech, if You want cheap pseudo wifi 7 router then buy what is already on the market , without mlo, 320MHz channel and more of wifi 7 advantages.

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I am confident there was a polite way to deliver your feedback. I wish you had put as much effort into seeking to be polite as you have blaming others for your mistake made in haste. You had perhaps intended to be constructive, but you have tripped on your own feet in your attempt. You selected an overbearing, condescending tone to convey your message, couched in an argument from your own authority.

You appear to have decided that your haste and ignorance is annyone elseā€™s problem, but I assure you, it is not. You seem to be the only person insisting that this mistake was solely made due to the state of documentation. It appears many others were able to navigate this hazard more gracefully. May you find peace.

Iā€™m sure everyone would have welcomed your energy in the form of sharing the complete edits you would like to see made to the wiki, or suggestions on the wiki content that are far less abrasive than you have been in this thread. If you do attempt either of these, for the love of god, leave your caps lock key unbothered.

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Yes, its understable AND practical for bpi to deliver the product in two parts.

But its unacceptable to produce misleading advertising.

Ive seen less misleading pictures on eBay.

Look, i dont want to go on about this, but if youre going to keep defending misleading practices, i will.

Im not singling out bpi either. Go look on the pine64 forums. They got far worse from me.

ā€œDevelopment boardā€ isnt supposed to mean ā€œundocumented crapā€. Too often ā€œdev versionā€ is used as an excuse for not writing any docs for a product that ultimately gets abandoned unfinished.

The pinephone is a good example of how not to do it - It ā€œworksā€, but the design is so bad that battery life is measured in minutes, not hours. The docs are attrocious.

The bpi-r4 actually seems to work quite well, from the little i can do with it right now.

Some of its docs are ok (board layout, pinouts, etc.)

Some is very poor, eg. PoE mod info, etc. as ive mentioned above.

Now, can this community take constructive criticism or not?

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I expect youā€™ll find quite a few people have been caught out by this.

Ive been doing linux on sbcs for 25 years, and it got me. Get off your damn high horse and just admit that the site and adverts are misleading.

Why is it that i am required to like misinformation?

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It is the way it is. It may be that BPI has used an unfortunate formulation in your eyes. I also became aware of it through announcements and I have to say I knew what I was letting myself in for. In my eyes, there was nothing to misunderstand. But well, to each his own. But back to the topic, you can get worked up about it ad infinitum, but you can also spend your time wisely instead. Next time, just read a little more carefully, internalize it and maybe ask before orderingā€¦

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is there any way to get the temperature of the wifi module? is this somewhere registered?

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have not tested yet, but on R3 there is this

cat /sys/class/ieee80211/phy*/hwmon*/temp1_input
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thanks! there is no phy* available, i will see if i get your patch working and test again

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Here are my results with the Banana Pi OpenWrt image. I get 10Gbps down and 700Mbps up from my ISP. The R4 is connected with a DAC to my box. Connected to an Intel BE200 + Intel N100 mini PC running Archlinux I got 2.8Gbps / 300Mbps. My laptop has a QCNCM865 (Qualcomm FastConnect 7800) because of AMD runs on Windows 11 24H2 preview and got 50Mbps / 100Mbps (the driver is broken and I have better results forcing the card in WiFi 6E). My desktop has a AQC107 (Marvell AQtion) connected by 2m of cat 8 ethernet cable to a 10G SFP+ ethernet module (Marvell AQR113C) plugged in the R4, and I could only get to 5.2Gbps today (speedtest servers were too busy / slow because Iā€™ve measured higher before).

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Kinda poor result, do You use mlo? 320MHz channels? I fought that we can get over 5gig over wifi.

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No MLO since the mediatek is not yet supported by recent kernel. Iā€™ve maxed all the settings so yes 320MHz on the 6GHz. You can in therory get 5.8Gbps with a 2x2 MIMO link in pratice around 4Gbps should be achievable (with MLO).

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Jens, again, ways with the condescension?

The adverts and anouncements are misleading.

I shouldnā€™t have to feel bad about buying stuff from aliexpress, but the culture there stinks. I avoid buying on aliexpress as much as i can, precisely because has an untrustworthy culture of over promising on adverts. Honestly, ebay has a better reputation.

Calling out bad practice should not always result in a choir of shills supporting it with silly comments like ā€˜you get what you pay forā€™ or ā€˜what do you expectā€™ or ā€˜ask before orderingā€™

It should just be fixed. Stop blaming customers who just want to know what is going to be in the box they are paying for.

Now, if everyoneā€™s quite finished calling me stupid for wanting to live in a world where you can buy stuff and expect it to arrive as described, perhaps i will have time to actually play with my new toy!

Sheesh!

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ā€œmyā€ patch only changes chip detection for firmware load,nothing with hwmonā€¦have to look if there is any temperature monitoring code in mt7996 driverā€¦

@all,can you please get back to topic? So talking about wifi nic itself and not any mistakes in marketing,misunderstandings and such

Edit: for mt7915 there is this patch adding thermal/hwmon support:

https://patchwork.kernel.org/project/linux-wireless/patch/202e3d430a232592c1194d4fdec1adb1b3703588.1619214926.git.ryder.lee@mediatek.com/

for mt7996 i found this which should do the sameā€¦

https://patchwork.kernel.org/project/linux-wireless/patch/[email protected]/

Maybe the sysfs entries are differentā€¦

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