MT7615 on x86/64 - does not load firmware

Banana Pi Router design
1

I know this is a Banana Pi forum, but maybe someone can help anyway.

I am using a BPI-MT7615 mini pcie card in a Futro 940 (Intel Celeron J5005) and trying to get it working with OpenWRT. The card is detected but does not load the existing firmware from /lib/firmware/mediatek/.

Same problem with OpenWRT (23.05.5) as well as with Xubuntu 24.04.

Available firmware files:

/lib/firmware/mediatek# ls -al

drwxr-xr-x    2 root     root          4096 Dec  9 15:59 .
drwxr-xr-x    6 root     root          4096 Sep 23 12:34 ..
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root        122644 Sep 23 12:34 mt7615_cr4.bin
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root        457992 Sep 23 12:34 mt7615_n9.bin
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root         11102 Sep 23 12:34 mt7615_rom_patch.bin

dmesg and lspci:

# dmesg | grep mt76

[    8.821026] mt7615e 0000:02:00.0: enabling device (0000 -> 0002)
[    8.831067] mt7615e 0000:02:00.0: Invalid MAC address, using random address 0a:3b:0e:ae:53:43
[    8.843397] mt7615e 0000:02:00.0: registering led 'mt76-phy0'
[    8.961338] mt7615e 0000:02:00.0: Firmware is not ready for download

# lspci

02:00.0 Unclassified device [0002]: MEDIATEK Corp. MT7615E 802.11ac PCI Express Wireless Network Adapter

Thanks, Klaus

2

have you built driver as module to be loaded AFTER root filesystem is mounted?

3

Good point. The driver module are installed via the openwrt package kmod-mt7615e. I tried to manually remove the kernel module and load it again:

rmmod mt7615e
modprobe mt7615e

For a moment, it looked much better:

[    9.119677] mt7615e 0000:02:00.0: enabling device (0000 -> 0002)
[    9.129696] mt7615e 0000:02:00.0: Invalid MAC address, using random address 22:2f:c2:76:60:4e
[    9.142153] mt7615e 0000:02:00.0: registering led 'mt76-phy0'
[    9.249645] mt7615e 0000:02:00.0: HW/SW Version: 0x8a108a10, Build Time: 20180518100604a
[    9.297083] mt7615e 0000:02:00.0: N9 Firmware Version: _reserved_, Build Time: 20200814163649
[    9.319475] mt7615e 0000:02:00.0: CR4 Firmware Version: _reserved_, Build Time: 20190415154149

But after I rebooted and tried the process again, same problem:

[   66.655275] mt7615e 0000:02:00.0: Invalid MAC address, using random address 42:dd:32:40:5a:9a
[   66.668466] mt7615e 0000:02:00.0: registering led 'mt76-phy1'
[   66.749027] ieee80211 phy1: Selected rate control algorithm 'minstrel_ht'
[   66.749046] ieee80211 phy1: copying sband (band 1) due to VHT EXT NSS BW flag
[   66.750016] mt7615e 0000:02:00.0: Firmware is not ready for download

Don’t know why it worked just one time.

4

maybe the card needs a bit more time to get stable? can you after reboot again unload module and reload it?

5

I have tried it manually several times after a reboot. No chance.

Maybe a power consumption issue? I use the card in a ngff m.2 slot with an adapter.

6

Okay apparently the kernel module must be removed before a reboot. Now it seems that the firmware is loaded properly on boot. Interesting behavior.

@frank-w

I have read in another thread that if I want to increase the TX power to 20dBm I have to load a custom eeprom and patch the kernel module first so that the custom eeprom file can be loaded?

7

Afair yes…i updated a patch loading eeprom from a file,but where to get this file what you have to change there idk