BCM5301x WiFi 5GHz Works (?!)

ledes · July 13, 2018, 2:01am

I bought a Netgear R7900 on ebay.

According to this table and
openwrt[dot]org/toh/views/toh_fwdownload?dataflt%5BModel*~%5D=r7900, there are no unsupported functions for this router, and it allows use of the current version.

But according to openwrt.org/inbox/unsupported_features, neither wlan radio is supported by LEDE.

But I was able to enable all radios, see wP7bsYJ%5B1%5D

Here's more info

root@LEDE:~# cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor       : 0
model name      : ARMv7 Processor rev 0 (v7l)
BogoMIPS        : 1987.37
Features        : half thumb fastmult edsp tls
CPU implementer : 0x41
CPU architecture: 7
CPU variant     : 0x3
CPU part        : 0xc09
CPU revision    : 0

processor       : 1
model name      : ARMv7 Processor rev 0 (v7l)
BogoMIPS        : 1993.93
Features        : half thumb fastmult edsp tls
CPU implementer : 0x41
CPU architecture: 7
CPU variant     : 0x3
CPU part        : 0xc09
CPU revision    : 0

Hardware        : BCM5301X
Revision        : 0000
Serial          : 0000000000000000

So, is this router supported or not? I get that I can enable the radio but I don't want to run into limitations later, after the return period expired.

PS: sorry for the formatting - new users can only put 2 links in a post

slh · July 13, 2018, 2:05am

If https://openwrt.org/toh/hwdata/netgear/netgear_r7900 is correct, namely that both of your wlan cards are using the BCM43602 wlan chipset, then the wlan cards are fullmac based and use the brcmfmac driver, this should make the wlan support full-featured (in terms of support, including the 5 GHz band, and performance).

The situation is vastly different for softmac based broadcom chipsets starting with LP-PHY/ N-PHY and basically everything newer; while b43 has gained some 5 GHz capabilities, there is no support for HT (so performance is limited to <= 54 MBit/s) and stability for the current chipsets neither something to write home about.

ledes · July 13, 2018, 2:13am

ok! so how do i find out which WLAN chipset is on this router? the usual lshw etc are not supported by LEDE's implementation of linux

slh · July 13, 2018, 2:21am

dmesg and/ or lspci (if installed, non-default, otherwise traversing sysfs manually), to a lesser extent lsmod.

ledes · July 13, 2018, 3:40am

am I good to go?

# dmesg | grep brcm
[    5.578186] 17 bcm47xxpart partitions found on MTD device brcmnand.0
[    5.584565] Creating 17 MTD partitions on "brcmnand.0":
[   15.245102] usbcore: registered new interface driver brcmfmac
[   15.256695] brcmfmac 0000:01:00.0: enabling device (0140 -> 0142)
[   15.582198] brcmfmac 0000:01:00.0: Direct firmware load for brcm/brcmfmac43602-pcie.txt failed with error -2
[   15.764099] brcmfmac: brcmf_c_preinit_dcmds: Firmware version = wl0: Sep 18 2015 03:30:01 version 7.35.177.56 (r587209) FWID 01-6cb8e269
[   15.779896] brcmfmac: brcmf_cfg80211_reg_notifier: not a ISO3166 code (0x30 0x30)
[   15.830260] brcmfmac 0001:03:00.0: enabling device (0140 -> 0142)
[   16.002829] brcmfmac 0001:03:00.0: Direct firmware load for brcm/brcmfmac43602-pcie.txt failed with error -2
[   16.204350] brcmfmac: brcmf_c_preinit_dcmds: Firmware version = wl0: Sep 18 2015 03:30:01 version 7.35.177.56 (r587209) FWID 01-6cb8e269
[   16.220789] brcmfmac: brcmf_cfg80211_reg_notifier: not a ISO3166 code (0x30 0x30)
[   16.247116] brcmfmac 0001:04:00.0: enabling device (0140 -> 0142)
[   16.401799] brcmfmac 0001:04:00.0: Direct firmware load for brcm/brcmfmac43602-pcie.txt failed with error -2
[   16.604303] brcmfmac: brcmf_c_preinit_dcmds: Firmware version = wl0: Sep 18 2015 03:30:01 version 7.35.177.56 (r587209) FWID 01-6cb8e269
[   16.620267] brcmfmac: brcmf_cfg80211_reg_notifier: not a ISO3166 code (0x30 0x30)

# dmesg | grep bcm
[    5.578186] 17 bcm47xxpart partitions found on MTD device brcmnand.0
[    5.688527] bgmac_bcma: Broadcom 47xx GBit MAC driver loaded
[    5.694535] bcma: bus0: Found chip with id 53010, rev 0x00 and package 0x00
[    5.701591] bcma: bus0: Core 0 found: ChipCommon (manuf 0x4BF, id 0x800, rev 0x2A, class 0x0)
[    5.710279] bcma: bus0: bcma_of_get_irq() failed with rc=-22
[    5.710290] bcma: bus0: Core 1 found: Chipcommon B (manuf 0x4BF, id 0x50B, rev 0x01, class 0x0)
[    5.719123] bcma: bus0: bcma_of_get_irq() failed with rc=-22
[    5.719133] bcma: bus0: Core 2 found: DMA (manuf 0x4BF, id 0x502, rev 0x01, class 0x0)
[    5.727202] bcma: bus0: Core 3 found: GBit MAC (manuf 0x4BF, id 0x82D, rev 0x05, class 0x0)
[    5.735704] bcma: bus0: Core 4 found: GBit MAC (manuf 0x4BF, id 0x82D, rev 0x05, class 0x0)
[    5.744204] bcma: bus0: Core 5 found: GBit MAC (manuf 0x4BF, id 0x82D, rev 0x05, class 0x0)
[    5.752724] bcma: bus0: Core 6 found: GBit MAC (manuf 0x4BF, id 0x82D, rev 0x05, class 0x0)
[    5.761170] bcma: bus0: Core 7 found: PCIe Gen 2 (manuf 0x4BF, id 0x501, rev 0x01, class 0x0)
[    5.769788] bcma: bus0: Core 8 found: PCIe Gen 2 (manuf 0x4BF, id 0x501, rev 0x01, class 0x0)
[    5.778452] bcma: bus0: Core 9 found: PCIe Gen 2 (manuf 0x4BF, id 0x501, rev 0x01, class 0x0)
[    5.787123] bcma: bus0: bcma_of_get_irq() failed with rc=-22
[    5.787134] bcma: bus0: Core 10 found: ARM Cortex A9 core (ihost) (manuf 0x4BF, id 0x510, rev 0x01, class 0x0)
[    5.797266] bcma: bus0: Core 11 found: USB 2.0 (manuf 0x4BF, id 0x504, rev 0x01, class 0x0)
[    5.805751] bcma: bus0: Core 12 found: USB 3.0 (manuf 0x4BF, id 0x505, rev 0x01, class 0x0)
[    5.814251] bcma: bus0: bcma_of_get_irq() failed with rc=-22
[    5.814262] bcma: bus0: Core 13 found: SDIO3 (manuf 0x4BF, id 0x503, rev 0x01, class 0x0)
[    5.822590] bcma: bus0: bcma_of_get_irq() failed with rc=-22
[    5.822602] bcma: bus0: Core 14 found: I2S (manuf 0x4BF, id 0x834, rev 0x03, class 0x0)
[    5.830755] bcma: bus0: bcma_of_get_irq() failed with rc=-22
[    5.830765] bcma: bus0: Core 15 found: ARM Cortex A9 JTAG (manuf 0x4BF, id 0x506, rev 0x01, class 0x0)
[    5.840235] bcma: bus0: bcma_of_get_irq() failed with rc=-22
[    5.840246] bcma: bus0: Core 16 found: Denali DDR2/DDR3 memory controller (manuf 0x4BF, id 0x507, rev 0x01, class 0x0)
[    5.851096] bcma: bus0: bcma_of_get_irq() failed with rc=-22
[    5.851106] bcma: bus0: Core 17 found: ROM (manuf 0x4BF, id 0x508, rev 0x01, class 0x0)
[    5.859254] bcma: bus0: Core 18 found: NAND flash controller (manuf 0x4BF, id 0x509, rev 0x01, class 0x0)
[    5.868962] bcma: bus0: bcma_of_get_irq() failed with rc=-22
[    5.868976] bcma: bus0: Core 19 found: SPI flash controller (manuf 0x4BF, id 0x50A, rev 0x01, class 0x0)
[    5.878503] bcma: bus0: Flash type not supported
[    5.911193] bcma: bus0: Using SPROM revision 11 provided by platform.
[    5.911462] bgmac_bcma bcma0:3: Found PHY addr: 30 (NOREGS)
[    5.917060] bgmac_bcma bcma0:3: Support for Roboswitch not implemented
[    5.923627] bgmac_bcma bcma0:3: Invalid MAC addr: 00:00:00:00:00:00
[    5.929927] bgmac_bcma bcma0:3: Using random MAC: 3a:b3:7b:ef:47:da
[    5.944157] bgmac_bcma bcma0:4: Found PHY addr: 30 (NOREGS)
[    5.949752] bgmac_bcma bcma0:4: Support for Roboswitch not implemented
[    5.956329] bgmac_bcma bcma0:4: Invalid MAC addr: 00:00:00:00:00:00
[    5.962640] bgmac_bcma bcma0:4: Using random MAC: 4e:f9:f7:3b:3f:0e
[    5.970591] bgmac_bcma bcma0:5: Found PHY addr: 30 (NOREGS)
[    5.976194] bgmac_bcma bcma0:5: Support for Roboswitch not implemented
[    5.984356] bgmac_bcma bcma0:6: Unsupported core_unit 3
[    5.989625] bgmac_bcma: probe of bcma0:6 failed with error -524
[    6.100220] pcie_iproc_bcma bcma0:7: PCI host bridge to bus 0000:00
[    6.113440] pcie_iproc_bcma bcma0:7: link: UP
[    6.280214] pcie_iproc_bcma bcma0:8: PCI host bridge to bus 0001:00
[    6.293419] pcie_iproc_bcma bcma0:8: link: UP
[    7.980219] pcie_iproc_bcma bcma0:9: PCI host bridge to bus 0002:00
[    7.993427] pcie_iproc_bcma bcma0:9: PHY or data link is INACTIVE!
[    7.999621] pcie_iproc_bcma bcma0:9: no PCIe EP device detected
[    8.005631] pcie_iproc_bcma bcma0:9: PCIe controller setup failed
[    8.012766] bcm47xx-wdt bcm47xx-wdt.0: BCM47xx Watchdog Timer enabled (30 seconds, Software Timer)
[    8.021793] bcma: bus0: Bus registered
[    9.048171] bcm_ns_usb3 18105000.usb3-phy: Registered Broadcom Northstar USB 3.0 PHY driver
[   11.870166] bgmac_bcma bcma0:3 eth0: Link is Up - 1Gbps/Full - flow control off
[   18.870329] bgmac_bcma bcma0:3 eth0: Link is Up - 1Gbps/Full - flow control off

slh · July 13, 2018, 3:49am

/lib/firmware/brcm/brcmfmac43602-pcie.txt seems to be missing, which might -or might not- be a problem (I think it is), this file usually contains the model specific initialization values necessary for the wlan chipset.

ledes · July 13, 2018, 7:51pm

can anyone confirm this is a problem? i'm getting 60% of the DL speed and 20% of the UL speed (compared to wired), and my Intel AC 8260 client is only 6 feet from the router (RSSI for the AC signal is around -35, which is should be great signal)

ledes · July 13, 2018, 9:05pm

I manually added an empty file in that spot. I now get

[   15.385070] usbcore: registered new interface driver brcmfmac
[   15.396648] brcmfmac 0000:01:00.0: enabling device (0140 -> 0142)
[   15.724732] brcmfmac 0000:01:00.0: firmware, attempted to load /lib/firmware/brcm/brcmfmac43602-pcie.txt, but failed with error -22
[   15.736642] brcmfmac 0000:01:00.0: Direct firmware load for brcm/brcmfmac43602-pcie.txt failed with error -22

Error is 22 instead of 2. What should this file contain? it's just text it's probably easy to fix, no?

slh · July 13, 2018, 9:37pm

no, it's not.

ledes · July 13, 2018, 11:09pm

do you think it could be related the the wifi degraded performance?