I’ve bought some 50v1000uF capacitors too see if that makes any difference
I was able to point 3 of my pig tails away from the WiFi card and I went from -82/83dbm to -85/86dbm, Ill probably 3x 20 cm cables so I can route the remaining 3 away from the WiFi card
I tested with heatsink, but it did not provide better noise levels (perhaps because heatsink is still small and low mass and not connected to ground).
I measured with metal-bpi case - adding SFPs did indeed help for 5G and 6G networks. Also to note, I got the noise figures with iw phy-2g survey dump | grep -B 1 noise and looking at them, they vary massively depending on the frequencies, so there are some channels in 5G which report -90 dBm - I think to further test, we should always use the command-line and not luci. Depending on what OpenWrt chooses on automatic channel detection will massively affect the reported noise levels - and after each restart, the device chooses other channels, so there might not be consistency in reporting.
No SFP, no heatsink
- 2412 MHz → -80 dBm
- 5180 MHz → -66 dBm
- 6215 MHz → -76 dBm
With SFPs, no heatsink
- 2412 MHz → -79 dBm
- 5180 MHz → -77 dBm
- 6215 MHz → -86 dBm
With SFPs, with heatsink
- 2412 MHz → -81 dBm
- 5180 MHz → -76 dBm
- 6215 MHz → -88 dBm
Eg. here the noise floor reported by iw phy-2g survey dump | grep -B 1 noise for all bands:
for the 2G band, only one channel is reported, but 5G range from -76 dBm to -89 dBm and for the 6G band from -81 dBm to -91 dBm - not sure what luci reports - I guess it just always reports the first number found (so in this case -81 dBm)
frequency: 2412 MHz [in use]
noise: -81 dBm
frequency: 5180 MHz [in use]
noise: -76 dBm
frequency: 5955 MHz
noise: -88 dBm
frequency: 5975 MHz
noise: -89 dBm
frequency: 5995 MHz
noise: -89 dBm
frequency: 6015 MHz
noise: -90 dBm
frequency: 6035 MHz
noise: -91 dBm
frequency: 6055 MHz
noise: -91 dBm
frequency: 6075 MHz
noise: -90 dBm
frequency: 6095 MHz
noise: -90 dBm
frequency: 6115 MHz
noise: -90 dBm
frequency: 6135 MHz
noise: -88 dBm
frequency: 6155 MHz
noise: -88 dBm
frequency: 6175 MHz
noise: -88 dBm
frequency: 6195 MHz
noise: -88 dBm
frequency: 6215 MHz
noise: -88 dBm
frequency: 6235 MHz
noise: -89 dBm
frequency: 6255 MHz
noise: -89 dBm
frequency: 6275 MHz
noise: -90 dBm
frequency: 6295 MHz [in use]
noise: -81 dBm
frequency: 6315 MHz
noise: -91 dBm
frequency: 6335 MHz
noise: -91 dBm
frequency: 6355 MHz
noise: -91 dBm
frequency: 6375 MHz
noise: -91 dBm
frequency: 6395 MHz
noise: -91 dBm
frequency: 6415 MHz
noise: -90 dBm
I think LuCi must be reporting the channel in use, which indeed has the noise @ -81 dMb in this case. I, personally, never set the channel to auto once I have figured out the one that gives the best SNR.
I made an interesting discovery regarding the wifi noise. It seems that enabling ASPM for the BE14 reduces noise on all bands by ~5 dbm.
Without ASPM:
root@OpenWrt:~# iw dev 2G survey dump | grep -A1 "in use"
frequency: 2412 MHz [in use]
noise: -79 dBm
--
frequency: 5500 MHz [in use]
noise: -76 dBm
Directly after enabling ASPM:
root@OpenWrt:~# iw dev 2G survey dump | grep -A1 "in use"
frequency: 2412 MHz [in use]
noise: -85 dBm
--
frequency: 5500 MHz [in use]
noise: -81 dBm
You can change the ASPM policy and check the status via:
root@OpenWrt:~# echo powersave > /sys/module/pcie_aspm/parameters/policy
root@OpenWrt:~# lspci -vv | grep 'ASPM.*abled;'
LnkCtl: ASPM L0s L1 Enabled; RCB 64 bytes, LnkDisable- CommClk+
lspci: Unable to load libkmod resources: error -2
LnkCtl: ASPM L0s L1 Enabled; RCB 64 bytes, LnkDisable- CommClk+
LnkCtl: ASPM L0s L1 Enabled; RCB 64 bytes, LnkDisable- CommClk+
LnkCtl: ASPM L0s L1 Enabled; RCB 64 bytes, LnkDisable- CommClk+
Of course there’s the question if this is a good idea / the device is stable. So far I had no problem. Together with changing the CPU scaling_governor to powersave the power consumption of the device drops by ~3 W and it is much cooler.
I still need to test if there is a measureable difference in wifi range.
4 Likes
can confirm this powersave mode made a huge improvement, i am now at -88 and -87 from before -81 and -80
Yeah for me 6ghz on channel 65+ achieves -89dbm, even tho no one in my neighborhood uses 6ghz, so it’s all to me lol
Wow this actually worked went from -88/89 to -90/91
There’s also powersupersave which I ill test
I’m wondering if this commit here is related
- Fix 5G/6G Throughput Drop due to EVM increase at High Temperature
I got a marginal improvement from -89 to -91 dBm in the 5G band, since I have ghetto shielding installed and don’t use the metal housing anymore. Still, the Rx throughput is more consistent now. Temperatures dropped, too, especially the SSD. I wonder why ASPM wasn’t enabled by default. It didn’t cause any stability issues so far.
Try this I compiled OpenWrt from MTK source
This makes sense, it’s not ASPM in powersave that’s helping improve noise, it’s the reduction in heat @Betonmischer @max_zen what do you guys think?
Since I installed a copper heatsink onto the BE14 ICs with a fan blowing on it, the temperature dropped from over 70 to below 40 °C, but I didn’t get any improvement in noise level. However, turning ASPM on helped. It’s more likely a shoddy VRM design on the main board or the BE14, than temperature alone.
Hmm ok, I thought it might be Todo with temps
Has this resulted in any additional improvements?
For me, powersupersave didn’t make noise level any lower, but throughput suffered.
Hmm it didn’t suffer for me but if that’s the case I’ll switch it back to powersave
Remained the same, I’ll switch back to powersave instead