Re: b43: ac rev1 captured packets with ampdu

From: Alessio Ferri <alessio.ferri@mythread.it>
To: "andreas.wendleder" <andreas.wendleder@proton.me>
Cc: "b43-dev@lists.infradead.org" <b43-dev@lists.infradead.org>,
	"linux-wireless@vger.kernel.org" <linux-wireless@vger.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: b43: ac rev1 captured packets with ampdu
Date: Sun, 11 Oct 2026 18:42:53 +0200	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <20261011184253.5997a984@fedora> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <waSj3jvDuNtKDHP_lrLDt-1KAgv7xgyvTwKtdnXv18FPaVH12yRZk0f-bVfrApfaHnsALsEpipfhkgv0UvRQdMPiyj_tmKRVMwg1G5jDZmg=@proton.me>

Il giorno Sat, 10 Oct 2026 14:15:51 +0000
"andreas.wendleder" <andreas.wendleder@proton.me> ha scritto:

> Hi Alessio,
> 
> On the TX gain: that fits. In the basement (-70 dBm) index 64 carries
> no HT frame at all, index 20 works, index 0 is worse again. The reset
> value was just far too quiet. I now use index 20, inside the range
> the stock power loop ran at here (0x14–0x26), until I have power
> control.
> 
> RX aggregation works too. It only needed accepting the session in
> ampdu_action; the microcode deaggregates and sends the block acks.
> Both directions aggregated: about 30 Mbit/s up and 20 down at -70
> dBm, against 13 and 10 at legacy rates.
> 
> On the RCAL timeout: that run was your unmodified head without my
> logging, so no added delays. I can rerun it and send the full dmesg.
> 
> On the PHY words: yes, these are writes of the hybrid 6.30.223 wl on
> the MacBookAir6,1, from my MMIO trace at 2.4 GHz: 0x1739 = 0, 0x016b
> = 0, 0x0175 = 0, 0x03c4 = 0x0668, and in channel setup 0x0197 =
> 0x0014, 0x0198 = 0x0010. Bluetooth is plausible, the board has
> BTCOEXIST set.
> 
> Thanks, Andreas

Hi Andreas,

I managed to get HT20/HT40 working, i also fixed two bugs that may have
been the cause for the failure of my driver in your hardware: 
- first i had wrongly gated an operation over "only once per boot"
  while in fact it was necessary on any restart, even in hot restarts.
  I never catched it on unit testing. 
- second i was using 9xx ucode layout for initvals, so both my 7xx and
  your 8xx ucode were using invalid values. My just happen to work with
  no-ht mode, but it was pure luck. Once i fixed it and stopped
  polluting a beacon bit it the transmission work fine with 10 mbits up
  and down.

I also added some bits to test BT coexistence.

Next i'll tackle VHT20/VHT40/VHT80 and then ampdu.

I am really excited that the work is finally coming together and i
really want to hope that broadcom ac rev1 generation will be the best
supported by b43.

Alessio

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