Should QCA9984 wireless performance be similar to stock firmware?

Hardware Questions and Recommendations
1

Hello! I just flashed my new R7800 to OpenWRT 18.06.1 and while I love the SQM and software packages, I'm surprised to see wireless performance quite a bit worse than on the stock Netgear firmware or Voxel's mod... with all applicable settings the same, and with the same client/locations/etc.

Is this normal, or am I doing something wrong?

I'm running iperf3 between a wired client and a Macbook Pro (3x3 BCM4331, connected to 5GHz) and seeing about half the throughput I did on stock firmware in the same test locations (including ~2 feet apart), and my desktop seems to be dropping packets and barely works. Congestion seems pretty similar according to the wifianalyzer app and I'm on the same bands. Any tips?

root@Raven-R7800:~# uci show wireless
wireless.radio0=wifi-device
wireless.radio0.type='mac80211'
wireless.radio0.hwmode='11a'
wireless.radio0.path='soc/1b500000.pci/pci0000:00/0000:00:00.0/0000:01:00.0'
wireless.radio0.htmode='VHT80'
wireless.radio0.channel='40'
wireless.radio0.country='US'
wireless.radio0.legacy_rates='1'
wireless.default_radio0=wifi-iface
wireless.default_radio0.device='radio0'
wireless.default_radio0.network='lan'
wireless.default_radio0.mode='ap'
wireless.default_radio0.ssid='redacted'
wireless.default_radio0.encryption='psk2'
wireless.default_radio0.key='redacted'
wireless.radio1=wifi-device
wireless.radio1.type='mac80211'
wireless.radio1.channel='11'
wireless.radio1.hwmode='11g'
wireless.radio1.path='soc/1b700000.pci/pci0001:00/0001:00:00.0/0001:01:00.0'
wireless.radio1.htmode='HT20'
wireless.radio1.country='US'
wireless.radio1.legacy_rates='1'
wireless.default_radio1=wifi-iface
wireless.default_radio1.device='radio1'
wireless.default_radio1.network='lan'
wireless.default_radio1.mode='ap'
wireless.default_radio1.ssid='redacted'
wireless.default_radio1.encryption='psk2'
wireless.default_radio1.key='redacted'
2

Hi try:
option encryption 'psk2+ccmp'
Ad this line in /etc/config/wireless
In LUCI > Wireless > Edit your radio > Wireless Security then set Cipher to Force CCMP (AES)

3

No effect :slight_smile: It was already CCMP only, I think:

Mode: Master | SSID: Redacted
BSSID: redacted
Encryption: WPA2 PSK (CCMP)
Channel: 40 (5.200 GHz)
Tx-Power: 23 dBm
Signal: -71 dBm | Noise: -110 dBm
Bitrate: 498.3 Mbit/s | Country: US

4

I see ~45 MByte/s over 5 GHz (VHT80, link speed negotiated at 866 MBit/s) for >4 GB files served from LAN over http, both cores fully loaded (nbg6817); distance ~1.5m.

5

What is the Tx-Power in stock? Try dropping it down to 20 to see if it is rf noise.
Do you have more routers swished on in the house? WIFI is a pane when it comes interference!

6

Good idea. I believe the stock firmware defaults to 100%. Switching to 20dbm seemed to make things slightly worse.

There's an AP that pops in and out on channel 42 in wifianalyzer from a nearby building, but there's nothing else on in this one. I think that was true when I tested stock too.

One strange thing is that the speed fluctuates pretty wildly sometimes. At my desk, where I was getting a consistent ~550mb/s (iperf3 -P 5) on stock, I just got

338 Mbits/sec
298 Mbits/sec
3.10 Mbits/sec
250 Kbits/sec
234 Kbits/sec
593 Kbits/sec
276 Mbits/sec

7

I don't know what could be making your speeds fluctuate that much! Sorry I have to go out now. It's my birthday and my wife is taking me out for breakfast. I will get back to you later and i will have a think about what it could be wile i am out.

8

No worries, happy birthday! Have fun :slight_smile:

1 Like
9

Hi I have bin asking around. You could try out a firmware update for your ath10k radio.
try copying
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kvalo/ath10k-firmware/master/QCA9984/hw1.0/3.6/firmware-5.bin_10.4-3.6-00144

to /lib/firmware/ath10k/QCA9984/hw1.0/firmware-5.bin

and rebooting might be worth testing

md5sum /lib/firmware/ath10k/QCA9984/hw1.0/firmware-5.bin
64fc6aaf82c17c12291f12fae9530a8e

Make a backup of your firmware by saving it to your computer and if it does not work you can just put it back.
Best way I find of doing this is by using WinSCP. After swapping the firmware don't forget to reboot as the firmware is loaded on bootup. Good luck.