BPI-R4 WiFi range

Banana Pi Router design BPI-R4/BPI-R4 Pro(MT7988)
345

Ok, so I can confirm that with

  • the plastic enclosure installed
  • replacing that thin low-grade pigtailes by RG178-pigtailes, that are routed away from the mPCIe-connectors
  • populating the unused SFP cage with a random module (the cheapest I could get were 2,5€ each)
  • reducing bandwidth from 160MHz to 80MHz (in BE-mode)

grafik
grafik647×809 46.9 KB

I get a really satisfying throughput (/higher usable coverage) for the floor I installed this device for. Thanks a lot for your help!

1 Like
346

Insert a (not used) SFP increases you wifi range (rx level on client/reduce noise)?

347

Doesn’t for me, doesn’t do anything at all tbh

348

I precised my feedback.

It reduces noise for me by 1-2dBi.

349

I observe different noise levels across reboots:

  • high noise values (seen in > 90% of the board boots)
root@bpi-r4:~# iw dev wlan0 survey dump | grep -B1 noise
        frequency:                      2442 MHz [in use]
        noise:                          -88 dBm
--
        frequency:                      5180 MHz [in use]
        noise:                          -75 dBm
root@bpi-r4:~#
  • relatively (as for this HW) low noise values (seen in < 10% of the board boots):
root@bpi-r4:~# iw dev wlan0 survey dump | grep -B1 noise
        frequency:                      2442 MHz [in use]
        noise:                          -88 dBm
--
        frequency:                      5180 MHz [in use]
        noise:                          -83 dBm
root@bpi-r4:~#

worth pointing out:

  • it applies to the 5 GHz band, the noise level for 2.4 GHz is constant between the reboots, I did not test the 6 GHz band as I do not have the antennas for that band,
  • router stands still between the reboots (i.e. nothing changes regarding the router position nor element placement, antennas stand still, connectors and cables too)
  • the different noise levels result in different Rx throughput of the router (obviously higher throughput is observed when the noise level is lower)
  • it is less common to get low noise level value than high noise value (read it as: 1 per ~20 reboots I get low noise while all the others bring high noise value)
  • I’m using the latest mt7996 firmware:
[   14.388511] mt7996e 0000:01:00.0: HW/SW Version: 0x8a108a10, Build Time: 20250904203308a
[   14.627003] mt7996e 0000:01:00.0: WM Firmware Version: ____000000, Build Time: 20250904203304
[   14.676271] mt7996e 0000:01:00.0: DSP Firmware Version: ____000000, Build Time: 20250904202814
[   14.717602] mt7996e 0000:01:00.0: WA Firmware Version: ____000000, Build Time: 20250904203218
  • as for my understanding/knowledge the noise levels are being calculated and reported by the HW/FW, so it is a HW/FW issue
1 Like
350

A question to BPI-R4 Pro early adopters: did you try it with the BE14 NIC, and what’s your noise figures?