BPI-R4 WiFi range

[ericwoud (Eric W.)]

Start a new topic and share some boot/uart log.

[Casulo]

@Joiner

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.

Tried this, no difference in signal, noise, temperature, iperf3, etc. Only difference was power decreasing by 1 watt. 10 vs 9.

I think 10 watts is high for this kind of device.

1 Fan
1 BE14 with 6 antennas, 2.4G and 5G enabled, 6G disabled.
1 SFP

I got a mini pc:

Intel 1340p
2 NVME disks
64GB of RAM (2 sticks)
2 intel 2.5g nics (both connected)
Running proxmox, 1 windows VM, 1 debian VM, both idle.

8-11 watts

[匿名11]

The BPI-R4 is indeed quite power-hungry. My NAS, a CWWK U300E with dual 10GbE ports and 4 NVMe drives running in PCIe 3.0 4.0 x4 mode, consumes around 17W when idle or under low-load conditions.

[Joiner]

For me the ASPM activation only made a difference using the offical OpenWRT build with their mt76 wifi driver. Running OpenWRT with the MTK feed and their mediatek driver, ASPM activation had no effect in noise and power consumption. This is one of the reasons I stick to the offical OpenWRT, despite the MTK feed enables Wifi7 with 320mhz support on the 6G band - wich is not working on the offical OpenWRT build.

[platanopi]

Here we go!

This is my R4 together with my Flint 2 that acts as an access point:

Here I show the thermal pads (Arctic TP-3) of the AsiaRF miniPCIe cards (below. Above is a Quectel RM520N-GL modem):

And here the tests:

GL-iNet Flint 2 4x4:4 Wi-Fi 6 (Mediatek):

AsiaRF AW7915-NP1 4x4:4 Wi-Fi 6 (Mediatek):

The tests have been performed with a 1000/500 Mb/s GPON connection and an iPhone 15 Pro Max. Wi-Fi in the 5GHz band, channel 36, 80MHz (no DFS), 23dBm (ES). The distance is less than 10 meters with only one separation door (living room->room) in an environment free of interference and with the same snapshot version of OpenWrt. The power adapter used is a Chicony 19V 3.42A (65W).

I tell you, with the AsiaRF, the performance is very mediocre, but above all, unstable. It degrades very easily with distance or varying the position in the same place.

Let’s see how you and those who have the BE14 see it. I have a doubt whether a BE14 with the correct EEPROM would be able to perform better…

[tutugreen]

bro, sadly that’s true , ther other one have okey wifi (but only 1Gbps peak) and broken 2.5GbE.

details here: Banana Pi BPI-BE1900 Wifi7 Module design - #45 by tutugreen

that is their first try to make a wifi router…

[platanopi]

@platanopi

Here we go!

This is my R4 together with my Flint 2 that acts as an access point:

Here I show the thermal pads (Arctic TP-3) of the AsiaRF miniPCIe cards (below. Above is a Quectel RM520N-GL modem):

And here the tests:

GL-iNet Flint 2 4x4:4 Wi-Fi 6 (Mediatek):

AsiaRF AW7915-NP1 4x4:4 Wi-Fi 6 (Mediatek):

The tests have been performed with a 1000/500 Mb/s GPON connection and an iPhone 15 Pro Max. Wi-Fi in the 5GHz band, channel 36, 80MHz (no DFS), 23dBm (ES). The distance is less than 10 meters with only one separation door (living room->room) in an environment free of interference and with the same snapshot version of OpenWrt. The power adapter used is a Chicony 19V 3.42A (65W).

I tell you, with the AsiaRF, the performance is very mediocre, but above all, unstable. It degrades very easily with distance or varying the position in the same place.

Let’s see how you and those who have the BE14 see it. I have a doubt whether a BE14 with the correct EEPROM would be able to perform better…

I’M A KAMIKAZE, wish me luck :

[paladzin (Andrew)]

Just have fun, nice hardware toys ax211 ↔ BE14 5 GHz 160 MHz ~5m in clear vision, i have 2x be14 zero/normal eeprom,works quite well i think

[SpectreDev]

Should’ve waited for thr be19000 card lol

[ssdnvv]

My single BPI-R4 standard installation (metal enclosure + BE-14) has inacceptable high noise levels of -76dBM. The covered area on this floor is really really poor, so I need to do something.

• Did anyone try and replace the metal enclosure by the (initial available) plastic one to reduce the noise? The noise reports from @Betonmischer with and without enclosure make me think the plastic case could be a solution. I just ordered one to see whether this might help. Other than that I will try and use a different metal enclosure, which works already well with a installation of BPI-R4 + 2xMT7916 + 1xMT7915 (noise levels around -90dBm).
• Regarding SFP: I have right now only a DAC attached (via which this access point is connected). Will it really help to input the second SFP? If so - will it make any difference which one I choose or can I get any cheap from ebay?
• Will it make a difference to add a heatsink in this case (with only a DAC connected this doesn’t seem necessary)?

[Betonmischer]

Yes, switching to a plastic case and populating both SFP cages (either a DAC or a transceiver will work) will make the biggest impact on noise level. A heatsink on top of the cages won’t help, but will come in handy should you ever use 10G copper transceivers. Also, route the pigtails away from the mini-PCIe connectors, try a different Wi-Fi channel and don’t use the bandwidth of 160 or 320 MHz if you don’t have a need for it.

[ssdnvv]

Is there a difference in which pigtails I deploy?

[SpectreDev]

You’ll want to use 20cm RG178 cables

[ssdnvv]

So with all those measures the area coverage becomes acceptable?

[SpectreDev]

Better than stock for sure

[platanopi]

Wow, you’ve been much luckier than me with your hardware, haha.

Mine came with a broken EEPROM, which makes it practically useless out of the box.

What a disaster. What a waste of time and money this thing is to get functional Wi-Fi.

[platanopi]

That’s the first thing that comes to mind, I know haha.

But I see that the BE19000 is much larger than the BE14, so I don’t think it would fit in the box that my BPI-R4 came in.

Also, I think the R4 Pro is much more over-engineered. Which already raises doubts because Banana Pi is already struggling with the current hardware…

[paladzin (Andrew)]

@platanopi

Mine came with a broken EEPROM, which makes it practically useless out of the box

its easy, patch eeprom and take this regulatory.db and regulatory.db.p7 to /lib/firmware then iw reg reload and start playing with wireless config. i tested patched be14 looks the same, good vs bad eeprom (-test) 20db power

[ssdnvv]

You use 10 antennas, did you include a 5G-modem?

[paladzin (Andrew)]

yes, im using Fibocom FM350-GL