BPI-R4 WiFi range

Banana Pi Router design BPI-R4/BPI-R4 Pro(MT7988)
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in that way… honestly, sinovoip should clearly state this in the product description, right at the top:

“No official software support or updates. Driver development is community-based. Due to hardware limitations, the ideal WiFi 6 range may only be 1–3 meters. Most WiFi 7 features are just not work, typical starting speed at 30~50Mbps.”

Otherwise, people will seriously start questioning their own skills when setting this up — even those of us who are fairly experienced with OpenWRT. It’s misleading, and a clear disclaimer would help set expectations and avoid frustration. most important, save a lot of people’s time include mine xxx+ hours😂

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Right now, I’m waiting for a device from another vendor. They’ve already released one model — it’s somewhat limited (IPQ5312, BE3600, and only 2.5GbE), but promising.

In their community group, they’ve shared plans for several upcoming devices. One of them is based on the IPQ5322 platform, featuring tri-band support including 6GHz, 10G SFP+, 4×2.5GbE, PoE output on LAN ports, and PoE input on the WAN port — meaning it can be powered with just a single Ethernet cable. They also mentioned future NAS / 5G CPE version.

What really sets them apart is the partnership with iKuai. Their current device (IPQ5312, ~288 RMB) ships with the enterprise version of iKuai firmware preinstalled, ready to use out of the box. It also supports booting OpenWRT from a TF card, with the community already release a QWRT build (OpenWRT with Qualcomm’s proprietary SDK, drivers, and hardware acceleration). If a TF card is inserted, it takes boot priority over eMMC; otherwise, it boots from the internal emmc.

I won’t mention the brand just yet — I’m waiting to get my hands on the hardware and test it in real-world conditions (especially WiFi performance and whether MLO is actually functional and stable.) (:grinning:for… hopefully saves others some time

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Is it possible to connect the BE14 module to PC?

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Believe me, you’ll definitely be disappointed — most Chinese company only care about making quick money and don’t treat their work as a true career.

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I respectfully disagree.

What case would make you more motivated to develop software? Developing software for a board that you know, when it will be ready, will be a major kick ass and stable board, or a lamely, craply designed one that you know for a fact it will never be the dream board you desire for your network?

I guess any company wouldn’t mind have 10x more success. Imagine a fully working and stable banana pi router instead of wasting 500 ou more euros/dollars for a big brand router.

Raspberry pi is also a development board, look at its success.Raspberry does the right thing, banana does not. That’s the difference between success and fail.

Thanks for mentioning those brands. I really was looking for that kind of stuff… Unfortunately, none of those boards support dual wifi slots (for 2.4 and 5ghz). Please correct me if i’m mistaken.

P.S. - Does cards like MT7922, MT7925, etc, have that eFEM?

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I was very excited to have found in the BPI-R4 a board that integrated everything I need, in a compact design and with a single governing chip providing everything: 2 SFP+ 10Gbit, 4 RJ45 Gb, PCIe ports for NVMe SSD, Wi-Fi and 5G.

I purchased two AsiaRF (AW7916 and AW7915) thinking to avoid the problems of the BE14, but I have to say that the performance is completely disappointing. I feel like I’ve thrown my money away.

Which makes me think that the Wi-Fi problem rather than being in the boards, both the official and AsiaRF boards, is in the design of the BPI-R4 board itself. Either it is an amateur electronic design, or the tracks are not properly electrically isolated. Either the electronic components are not of high quality or they are insufficient. I have no explanation.

So before I had 3 devices (x86 box, ONT, AP), I went to only 1 (BPI-R4) and finally I have resigned myself by adding again the AP.

I was probably abducted by how complete it is, the all-in-one integration possibility it offered me and that I thought it was made with Mediatek backing, but I should not have bought a development board (both software and hardware).

303

Just to chime in on the noise. Using the bpi-r4 without the provided metal casing - especially the top lid - results in the router being practically unusable.But with it, it’s just fine. But yeah, there appears to be some interference being emitted. Using BE14, nvme, standard metal case, heatpads on the underside of BE14 making contact with the case’s underside, and an aluminium slab of a heatsink on top of the lid to additionally dissipate heat. But yeah, acrylic cases are definitely not an option if the intent is to daily-drive this.

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Thanks for the reply! :slightly_smiling_face:

“What case would make you more motivated to develop software? Developing software for a board that you know, when it will be ready, will be a major kick ass and stable board, or a lamely, craply designed one that you know for a fact it will never be the dream board you desire for your network?”

  • I’ll try to give you a short answer: I think I want what you want :+1: → a good hardware platform with working software

  • What is the purpose of the board? I think it is not about delivering a finished router to the end customer.

  • The software development is done for the whole MediaTek platform.

  • I assume the industry can get a first impression of what they are dealing with (MediaTek marketing strategy?)

  • The open source community could get its hands on the platform long before the first routers are published.

  • That we get what we want is just a coincidence (best case)! :see_no_evil:

"I guess any company wouldn’t mind have 10x more success. Imagine a fully working and stable banana pi router instead of wasting 500 ou more euros/dollars for a big brand router.

Raspberry pi is also a development board, look at its success.Raspberry does the right thing, banana does not. That’s the difference between success and fail."

  • The “right thing”, “success and failure” :thinking: I think the purpose of the boards is not the same! And I also think the development costs differ…

“Thanks for mentioning those brands. I really was looking for that kind of stuff… Unfortunately, none of those boards support dual wifi slots (for 2.4 and 5ghz). Please correct me if i’m mistaken.”

P.S. - Does cards like MT7922, MT7925, etc, have that eFEM?

*? I’m not sure that eFEM are the “main problem” may be noise is more responsible … . Someone who wants to supply a house needs both working well …

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“I was very excited to have found in the BPI-R4 a board that integrated everything I need, in a compact design and with a single governing chip providing everything: 2 SFP+ 10Gbit, 4 RJ45 Gb, PCIe ports for NVMe SSD, Wi-Fi and 5G.”

  • 2 SFP+ 10Gbit → working ?
  • 4 RJ45 Gb → working ?
  • PCIe ports for NVMe SSD → working ?
  • Wi-Fi and 5G. → working ?

→ So right now, we’re only having an issue with the Wi-Fi range? → I just wanted to point out / ask whether everything else is free of hardware-related problems?

“I purchased two AsiaRF (AW7916 and AW7915) thinking to avoid the problems of the BE14, but I have to say that the performance is completely disappointing. I feel like I’ve thrown my money away.”

  • You’re avoiding the Wi-Fi 7 problems! I think that’s a good choice :slightly_smiling_face:!

!!!

  • “Performance is completely disappointing” — now we’re getting somewhere! Did you have issues with Wi-Fi range? Noise as well?

Maybe we could investigate the noise issues using this?:

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  • And supplying clean voltage?

    • What I want to say → this is not the end

    • We will gain more knowledge

    • This will continue with the release of adapters, the BE19, and the BPI-R4 Pro

I’m interested in your AW7915 and AW7916 if you’re thinking about selling them :slightly_smiling_face:

!!!

“Which makes me think that the Wi-Fi problem rather than being in the boards, both the official and AsiaRF boards, is in the design of the BPI-R4 board itself. Either it is an amateur electronic design, or the tracks are not properly electrically isolated. Either the electronic components are not of high quality or they are insufficient. I have no explanation.”

  • If you’re experiencing noise problems too, then now we know:

    • it’s not just a 12V-related issue, because the AW7915/6 run at 3.3V

    • and it shouldn’t be BE14-related either, since the AW7915/6 are completely different modules

You’ve helped us :slightly_smiling_face: :+1: :slightly_smiling_face:

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theres a few threads on the aw7916 here… mine works perfectly on 2.4 and 5.8g channels, 6g isnt supported after openwrt 22? in 24 snapshot if you try switching to 6g by doing a command, it basically fails to start the radio. and luci wireless config glitches out

echo “mt7915e enable_6ghz=1” > /etc/modules.d/mt7915e

also ordered a shield and a bidirectional signalbooster to amplify the be14 5g, maybe the lower 6g channels, but havnt tested yet because aw7916 is working so good. the txpower patch was causing problems, be14 and luci were more stable without it, so bidirectional amplifier is next best alternative

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Thanks for sharing :+1:.

This restores my hope for the R4 working with the AW7916 (and possibly the AW7990)!

And you have no problems with the range?

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What does “works perfectly” and “works very well” mean to you? What do you contrast it with? Can you provide more data? Because what I have said about this card and its sister AW7915 is with data that I can share. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have said that they leave a lot to be desired since I wouldn’t have anything to compare with.

At the very least, the 6GHz band does not work. And that the driver is more mature than the Wi-Fi 7 chips…

Thanks for sharing.

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mostly going off of measuring range by how far i can get in the house while streaming virtualdesktop to a quest3. compared against my old asus ac1300 router. or running wifi analyzer/speedtests from my phone.
pic is taken with me standing right at the edge of reception range, asus can’t be connected to without failing, aw7916 still can, on both bands. lightmode openwrt is the asus, darkmode is the bpi-r4

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thanks for sharing that. Could you do one more test to have similar environment:

  • on Asus switch channel from 44 to 100 (usually 100> has more power)
  • for 2.4GHz set also 40MHz, or change on Asus also to 20MHz
  • disable power saving on your phone

Thanks!

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2g on the asus starts fluctuating a bit wildy if i set it down to 17dBm to match the aw7916. test isn’t very clean, i am going through atleast 3 walls, and standing maybe 30 or 40m from where the routers are. with tons of interference. :man_shrugging:

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thank you for making that test. Now it is more clean for others to understand and compare results.

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May the gods of irony be damned, there was a brief power failure here at home, the R4 got stuck on the boot prompt. For an internet gateway, this is unacceptable. Well, time to find a replacement router.

Now back on topic, via Wifi, on openwrt, ssh gets very slow sometimes. Respective bug

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Got similar - when it crash it stuck on boot prompt or it goes to recovery mode. That’s why I set in NAND to reboot into “production system”

fw_printenv  | grep bootmenu

From the list, I pick:

(...)
bootmenu_2=Boot production system from NAND.=run boot_production ; run bootmenu_confirm_return
(...)
bootmenu_default=0

To set default:

fw_setenv bootmenu_default 2

To verify:

fw_printenv  | grep bootmenu_default
bootmenu_default=2

So many times I agree with you @Casulo - it is just a router that can not trust fully. Unexpected reboots, it did not return back to main system. The whole situation with 2.5G PoE version…

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I have wondered this a bit, with the “official” case;

The basis of the case might be grounded from the board on attachment screws, but what about the slideable top plate? Because of surface treatment, doesn’t look like it would be electrically connected to the rest of the case.

Before I go ahead and cook up a threaded “corner block” inside the case - and associated counter-sunk screw holes on the frame side and top cover plate - has anyone already tried if it’d make any change grounding the top lid plate properly?

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