What's the best firmware for bpi-r4 now, Extreme slow WiFi 7 speed on openwrt snapshot?

Banana Pi Router design BPI-R4(MT7988)
1

Hi everyone,

I’ve tested multiple firmware versions, including the OpenWRT snapshot build, and noticed a significant issue with Wi-Fi speed when using an Qualcomm 8Gen3 client (with BE support) connected to the 5GHz Band 36 at 160MHz (the only 160MHz channel allowed by local regulations). The speed is extremely slow, ranging between 20Mbps and 110Mbps (with noticeable jitter, lag, and packet loss). In comparison, the “MTK 4.0 SDK” firmware achieves over 2000Mbps throughput (See Edit 1).

Testing method:

  1. First, I tested like normal router using NAT.
  2. Then, try bridged the Wi-Fi ports to the SFP+ port, cut NAT

SFP+ linking to an R7525 server running OpenSpeedTest. For reference, the iperf3 from the BPI-R4 to the server showed >9.6Gbps, so the fiber link is confirmed to be fine.

also 80Mhz 40Mhz also tested, it’s slow. 8Gen1 Wifi 6 Phone, Qualcomm 7200 Laptop, also tested, no suprise, SDK 4.0 has >Gbps, and snapshot never push > 200Mbps.

While I understand that open-source drivers might have lower performance, the gap between the OpenWRT snapshot and the MTK 4.0 SDK firmware was far larger than I expected.

Interestingly, the “MTK 4.0 SDK” firmware doesn’t even show BE (it’s detected as AX on the client side), whereas the OpenWRT snapshot does show BE. a bit odd.(See Edit 2)

and the bpi-r4 MTK 4.0 sdk firmware (download from: Banana Pi BPI-R4 - Banana Pi Wiki ) has several luci page contain unknown error about some proxy tool?.. do we have a clean version?

Additionally, I’ve noticed that the MTK 4.0 SDK firmware can occasionally be slow as well, but placing my palm close to the board seems to dramatically improve speed. This led me to suspect internal interference. (For power, I used a Type-C adapter with three-pin grounding from a Lenovo laptop, so I don’t think this is a power supply issue.) Adjusting the antenna placement away from the GPIO pins seems to improve performance. After this adjustment, the MTK 4.0 firmware consistently achieves speeds above 1800Mbps. However, the OpenWRT snapshot firmware remains stuck at just tens of Mbps, even after these tweaks.

I’ve check the forum since wifi performance hasn’t been widely discussed, so I’m curious:

  • What firmware / repo are you using?
  • What has your experience been?
  • What Wi-Fi speeds are you achieving under different firmware versions / build repo?

spent a lot of time just tring to find a better firmware… or repo… Or if no one has encountered this problem, I may need to contact RMA whether there is an abnormality with the board…

Would appreciate any insights or suggestions!

2024-12-01 Edit 1: I found that AX speed is okey now, the problem side is WiFi 7.

2024-12-01 Edit 2: If you set you AP to AX, or encryption not with WPA3, or using a AX client, your probably fine, cause you are using WiFi 6 not 7. You are limited to 2400Mbps HT Speed, not 2880Mbps/+

2

Unfortunately, that’s where the performance is at on mainline OpenWrt with the open-source BE14 driver. We’ll have to wait until it’s mature enough. You can follow the progress at [Banana BPI-R4] Wifi7 status - For Developers - OpenWrt Forum

The official MTK 4.0 SDK firmware is pretty old at this time and likely will never be updated. Nor can it be updated manually.

As for the Qualcomm QNCM865 wireless NIC, I have the same issue of BE not showing up with the latest driver. Reverting to version 3.1.0.1262 (Microsoft Update Catalog) fixed it for me.

1 Like
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Hi Betonmischer,

Thanks for the reply! The thread you linked looks very informative—now add to my watchlist.

Good to know I’m not the only one! :joy::joy:

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I can get almost 1600Mb/s at Wifi LAN, test with danpawlik’s v17-luci-eht-rmandrad branch.

Maybe you can try it?

Test environment:

speedtest host-

JD RE-CP-03(MediaTek MT7986A) OpenWrt SNAPSHOT r27783 with luci-speedtest-web package.

Connect to Mikrotik CRS309 using 2.5G port.

BPI-R4-

Running danpawlik’s v17-luci-eht-rmandrad.

Connect to Mikrotik CRS309 using SFP+ port with 10G Fiber.

test client-

8 Gen2 smartphone connect to BPI-R4 5G band with 160MHz.

Screenshot_2024-10-02-17-24-52-61_3aea4af51f236e4932235fdada7d1643
Screenshot_2024-10-02-17-24-52-61_3aea4af51f236e4932235fdada7d16431240×2772 157 KB

1 Like
5

Hi, thanks for you reply, I tried a few more times and I found:

I can now achieve similar results with immortalwrt firmware (I believe openwrt snapshot as well) but only on WiFi 6 (AX).

If I set the radio to AX or set Encryption to WPA2, it actually create a AX WiFi (5Ghz HT speed only 2400Mbps, not 2880), and I can get ~1.9Gbps on AX @ 5Ghz 36 Band @ 160Mhz now.

but on BE @ WPA3, a true WiFi 7, with BE client, it’s slow ~20Mbps, both 2Ghz@40Mhz nor 5Ghz@160Mhz, something wrong.

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Which tool are you using to test the wifi speeds? Are you just testing wifi to router or wifi to internet?

I can run my numbers as well.

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Hi totkeks,

I found that wifi throughput eats a lot of CPU (Maybe not fully hardware accelerated?), so I run openspeedtest on my standalone server connected to sfp+:

docker run --restart=restart --name openspeedtest -d --net host openspeedtest/latest

And go http://serverIp:3000

docker not required, other choice available(including Windows):

iperf3 also a choice.

8

it is a bit hit and miss with openwrt v17-luci-eht-rmandrad or latest snapshot from openwrt.

problems seen:

  1. slow Wi-Fi speed (as per initial post, I just confirming that I see same problem). Qualcomm FastConnect 6900 Wi-Fi 6E - speeds are around 20Mbits on 2.4g , 5g- 50Mbits, 6g - 40Mbps(160hz channel) iPhone 12 - ~70Mbits on 2.4g ,5g - 200Mbits intel ax201 2.4g - 100Mbits ,5g - 508Mbits
  2. from CPU soft interrupts I can guess that HW offloading is not working. in SDK firmware this issue wasn’t seen

but annoying thing that SDK firmware compilation does not work, at least I hit multiple issue when I was trying to compile SDK image and then just gave up

did anyone had success story with SDK firmware compilation ?

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Good day. I confirm that I have the same problems with the speed in the BE range, on the openwrt forum, respected @rmandrad created a new firmware, where they write about very good speeds in the BE range, but I have not tested it yet. I am waiting for the BE range fixes to appear in the official versions of openwrt, maybe when 24.10 is released?!

10

Good morning, these images work in range BE , as they should, in all countries and all frequencies with the speeds we all expected.

MLO is not available.

But for the rest, wifi 7 works perfectly.

apk-banana-bpi-r4-wifi7

OpenWrt 24.10-SNAPSHOT r28163-c995dd97c7

openwrt-24.10.0-rc2-mediatek-filogic-bananapi_bpi-r4-sdcard.img

Japan-openwrt-24.10.0-rc2-mediatek-filogic-bananapi_bpi-r4-sdcard.img

openwrt-mediatek-filogic-bananapi_bpi-r4-sdcard.IMG.gz

openwrt-24.10.0-rc3