BCM4321 (b43) on AppleTV (1st gen)

BCM4321 (b43) on AppleTV (1st gen)

[Dag Wieers]

Hi,

For the OpenELEC project I am looking into getting better performance out 
of the b43 driver on the AppleTV (1st gen) device . The website reports 
the driver can do 802.11n (albeit on 2.4Ghz only), however using kernel 
3.7.5 (and earlier) I cannot get more than 3 MB/sec out of it (usually 
much less).

Here's the information of the device from the PCI bus:
----
02:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4321 802.11a/b/g/n (rev 05)
         Subsystem: Apple Inc. Device 008c
         Physical Slot: 1
         Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 16
         Memory at 22100000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K]
         Capabilities: [40] Power Management version 3
         Capabilities: [58] Vendor Specific Information: Len=78 <?>
         Capabilities: [e8] MSI: Enable- Count=1/1 Maskable- 64bit+
         Capabilities: [d0] Express Endpoint, MSI 00
         Capabilities: [100] Advanced Error Reporting
         Capabilities: [13c] Virtual Channel
         Capabilities: [160] Device Serial Number 4a-7a-12-ff-ff-27-00-23
         Capabilities: [16c] Power Budgeting <?>
         Kernel driver in use: b43-pci-bridge
         Kernel modules: wl
----

And the output of iwconfig:
----
wlan0     IEEE 802.11bg  ESSID:"zelfbestuur"
           Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.462 GHz  Access Point: 74:44:01:8D:90:5E
           Bit Rate=54 Mb/s   Tx-Power=20 dBm
           Retry  long limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
           Encryption key:off
           Power Management:off
           Link Quality=63/70  Signal level=-47 dBm
           Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
           Tx excessive retries:33  Invalid misc:1987   Missed beacon:0
----

The device's bit rate never exceeds 54 MB/s while other wireless devices 
have iwconfig report e.g. IEEE 802.11abgn on the same netwerk:
----
wlan0     IEEE 802.11abgn  ESSID:"zelfbestuur"
           Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.462 GHz  Access Point: 74:44:01:8D:90:5E
           Bit Rate=130 Mb/s   Tx-Power=15 dBm
           Retry  long limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
           Encryption key:off
           Power Management:off
           Link Quality=55/70  Signal level=-55 dBm
           Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
           Tx excessive retries:4867638  Invalid misc:22386   Missed beacon:0

03:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation Centrino Advanced-N 6205 (rev 34)
         Subsystem: Intel Corporation Centrino Advanced-N 6205 AGN
         Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 45
         Memory at f1400000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=8K]
         Capabilities: [c8] Power Management version 3
         Capabilities: [d0] MSI: Enable+ Count=1/1 Maskable- 64bit+
         Capabilities: [e0] Express Endpoint, MSI 00
         Capabilities: [100] Advanced Error Reporting
         Capabilities: [140] Device Serial Number 8c-70-5a-ff-ff-c3-f2-64
         Kernel driver in use: iwlwifi
         Kernel modules: iwlwifi
----

Is there anything I can do to troubleshoot ? Are there any module 
parameters that could help ?

I have to mention that the device's interrupt is shared with the nvidia 
driver.
----
  16:    6374726   IO-APIC-fasteoi   b43, nvidia
----

And that the kernel has been compiled using:
----
CONFIG_B43=m
CONFIG_B43_SSB=y
CONFIG_B43_PCI_AUTOSELECT=y
CONFIG_B43_PCICORE_AUTOSELECT=y
CONFIG_B43_PIO=y
CONFIG_B43_PHY_N=y
CONFIG_B43_PHY_LP=y
CONFIG_B43_PHY_HT=y
CONFIG_B43_LEDS=y
CONFIG_B43_DEBUG=y
----

If the above can be trimmed down for this type of device I'd like to hear 
that as well (e.g. I am not sure if we need PIO or LEDS in this case).

PS I am also interested in any power management capabilities the 
device has and that we could enable when the device is idle, since the 
system lacks proper power management capabilities by itself 
(suspend/hibernate) and seems to have a limited ACPI implementation.

Thanks in advance for any insights,
-- 
-- dag wieers, dag@wieers.com, http://dag.wieers.com/
-- dagit linux solutions, info@dagit.net, http://dagit.net/

[Any errors in spelling, tact or fact are transmission errors]

Re: BCM4321 (b43) on AppleTV (1st gen)

[Dag Wieers]

On Fri, 8 Feb 2013, Dag Wieers wrote:

> For the OpenELEC project I am looking into getting better performance out of 
> the b43 driver on the AppleTV (1st gen) device . The website reports the 
> driver can do 802.11n (albeit on 2.4Ghz only), however using kernel 3.7.5 
> (and earlier) I cannot get more than 3 MB/sec out of it (usually much less).

I wanted to add the kernel boot messages:

----
root ~ # dmesg | grep b43
[    2.902696] b43-phy0: Broadcom 4321 WLAN found (core revision 12)
[    2.976740] b43-phy0: Found PHY: Analog 5, Type 4 (N), Revision 2
[    2.976772] b43-phy0 debug: Found Radio: Manuf 0x17F, Version 0x2055, Revision 4
[    3.038609] Registered led device: b43-phy0::tx
[    3.040268] Registered led device: b43-phy0::rx
[    3.040433] Registered led device: b43-phy0::radio
[    4.736728] b43-phy0: Loading firmware version 508.1084 (2009-01-14 01:32:01)
[    4.807784] b43-phy0 debug: Chip initialized
[    4.808074] b43-phy0 debug: 64-bit DMA initialized
[    4.808142] b43-phy0 debug: QoS enabled
[    4.833456] b43-phy0 debug: Wireless interface started
[    4.833526] b43-phy0 debug: Adding Interface type 2
[    7.837659] b43-phy0 debug: Using hardware based encryption for keyidx: 0, mac: 74:44:01:8d:90:5e
[    7.838009] b43-phy0 debug: Using hardware based encryption for keyidx: 1, mac: ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
----

Kind regards,
-- 
-- dag wieers, dag@wieers.com, http://dag.wieers.com/
-- dagit linux solutions, info@dagit.net, http://dagit.net/

[Any errors in spelling, tact or fact are transmission errors]

Re: BCM4321 (b43) on AppleTV (1st gen)

[Larry Finger]

On 02/07/2013 05:01 PM, Dag Wieers wrote:
> And that the kernel has been compiled using:
> ----
> CONFIG_B43=m
> CONFIG_B43_SSB=y
> CONFIG_B43_PCI_AUTOSELECT=y
> CONFIG_B43_PCICORE_AUTOSELECT=y
> CONFIG_B43_PIO=y
> CONFIG_B43_PHY_N=y
> CONFIG_B43_PHY_LP=y
> CONFIG_B43_PHY_HT=y
> CONFIG_B43_LEDS=y
> CONFIG_B43_DEBUG=y
> ----
>
> If the above can be trimmed down for this type of device I'd like to hear that
> as well (e.g. I am not sure if we need PIO or LEDS in this case).
>
> PS I am also interested in any power management capabilities the device has and
> that we could enable when the device is idle, since the system lacks proper
> power management capabilities by itself (suspend/hibernate) and seems to have a
> limited ACPI implementation.

As no one else seems to be responding, I'll try.

In the configuration, you certainly do not need PIO or LEDS. For that particular 
device, you also do not need PHY_LP, as that is strictly an 802.11g PHY. As to 
power-management capabilities, there are no configurable parameters.

What throughput do you get with Broadcom-wl with your setup? That will give you 
an idea of the potential performance of the device. As the equivalent of wl was 
used for the reverse engineering, that will certainly be the upper limit of what 
b43 can do. Only if the RE was perfect could we match that result.

Larry

Re: BCM4321 (b43) on AppleTV (1st gen)

[Jonas Gorski]

On 8 February 2013 00:01, Dag Wieers <dag@wieers.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> For the OpenELEC project I am looking into getting better performance out of
> the b43 driver on the AppleTV (1st gen) device . The website reports the
> driver can do 802.11n (albeit on 2.4Ghz only), however using kernel 3.7.5
> (and earlier) I cannot get more than 3 MB/sec out of it (usually much less).

b43 currently cannot do 802.11n, it is limited 802.11g speed - it
certainly can use 802.11n capable cards, but it can only operate them
at 802.11g mode, and there 3 MB/sec seems quite good.

Regards
Jonas

BCM4321 (b43) on AppleTV (1st gen)

[Dag Wieers]

On Wed, 3 Apr 2013, Rafa? Mi?ecki wrote:

> It's terribly late reply, but only recently I've time to plug in my
> old BCM4321/BCM4322 cards and test them. There were few regressions
> affecting BCM4322, but nothing BCM4321 related (there are many
> differences between them).
>
> In my env I can't get more than 22Mb/s using my BCM4322. It's
> 2,75MB/s, so your 3MB/s is even better result than mine. The problem
> is that b43 doesn't support 802.11n features, so it can't work any
> faster. Values around 2-3MB/s is maximum you can get from 802.11g.

I can see from the access point that it often indicates the system to be 
connected at 54Mbps, but I never seem to get that throughput. However the 
numbers I indicate are SFTP transfers with some overhead, but also 
buffering (so it usually starts off quite fast and then the number drops 
rapidly). Not very scientific so it might as well be 2.75MB/s :)


> I plan to add support for new devices, then 5GHz, then maybe I'll take
> a look at 802.11n standard. So unfortunately there's a long way before
> we can support higher speeds :(

If it helps, I can offer two of this mini PCI adapters to any developer 
interested in improving the support of the BCM4321.


> P.S.
> I suggest Cc-ing b43 mailing list in the future ;)

Done :)

Thanks for the feedback,
-- 
-- dag wieers, dag at wieers.com, http://dag.wieers.com/
-- dagit linux solutions, info at dagit.net, http://dagit.net/

[Any errors in spelling, tact or fact are transmission errors]

Re: BCM4321 (b43) on AppleTV (1st gen)

[Dag Wieers]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: TEXT/PLAIN, Size: 1494 bytes --]

On Wed, 3 Apr 2013, Rafał Miłecki wrote:

> It's terribly late reply, but only recently I've time to plug in my
> old BCM4321/BCM4322 cards and test them. There were few regressions
> affecting BCM4322, but nothing BCM4321 related (there are many
> differences between them).
>
> In my env I can't get more than 22Mb/s using my BCM4322. It's
> 2,75MB/s, so your 3MB/s is even better result than mine. The problem
> is that b43 doesn't support 802.11n features, so it can't work any
> faster. Values around 2-3MB/s is maximum you can get from 802.11g.

I can see from the access point that it often indicates the system to be 
connected at 54Mbps, but I never seem to get that throughput. However the 
numbers I indicate are SFTP transfers with some overhead, but also 
buffering (so it usually starts off quite fast and then the number drops 
rapidly). Not very scientific so it might as well be 2.75MB/s :)


> I plan to add support for new devices, then 5GHz, then maybe I'll take
> a look at 802.11n standard. So unfortunately there's a long way before
> we can support higher speeds :(

If it helps, I can offer two of this mini PCI adapters to any developer 
interested in improving the support of the BCM4321.


> P.S.
> I suggest Cc-ing b43 mailing list in the future ;)

Done :)

Thanks for the feedback,
-- 
-- dag wieers, dag@wieers.com, http://dag.wieers.com/
-- dagit linux solutions, info@dagit.net, http://dagit.net/

[Any errors in spelling, tact or fact are transmission errors]

BCM4321 (b43) on AppleTV (1st gen)

[Rafał Miłecki]

2013/4/3 Dag Wieers <dag@wieers.com>:
> On Wed, 3 Apr 2013, Rafa? Mi?ecki wrote:
>
>> It's terribly late reply, but only recently I've time to plug in my
>> old BCM4321/BCM4322 cards and test them. There were few regressions
>> affecting BCM4322, but nothing BCM4321 related (there are many
>> differences between them).
>>
>> In my env I can't get more than 22Mb/s using my BCM4322. It's
>> 2,75MB/s, so your 3MB/s is even better result than mine. The problem
>> is that b43 doesn't support 802.11n features, so it can't work any
>> faster. Values around 2-3MB/s is maximum you can get from 802.11g.
>
>
> I can see from the access point that it often indicates the system to be
> connected at 54Mbps, but I never seem to get that throughput. However the
> numbers I indicate are SFTP transfers with some overhead, but also buffering
> (so it usually starts off quite fast and then the number drops rapidly). Not
> very scientific so it might as well be 2.75MB/s :)

54Mb/s is 6,75MB/s, but you'll never reach that speed on 802.11g. No
matter what card, what driver :) 3MB/s is probably sth around the
maximum speed *in practice*. I was doing my tests with "iperf".


>> I plan to add support for new devices, then 5GHz, then maybe I'll take
>> a look at 802.11n standard. So unfortunately there's a long way before
>> we can support higher speeds :(
>
>
> If it helps, I can offer two of this mini PCI adapters to any developer
> interested in improving the support of the BCM4321.

I've tons of N-PHY (and not only) devices around, so don't really need
any donate of that devices. I just have to find time for this.

-- 
Rafa?

Re: BCM4321 (b43) on AppleTV (1st gen)

[Rafał Miłecki]

2013/4/3 Dag Wieers <dag@wieers.com>:
> On Wed, 3 Apr 2013, Rafał Miłecki wrote:
>
>> It's terribly late reply, but only recently I've time to plug in my
>> old BCM4321/BCM4322 cards and test them. There were few regressions
>> affecting BCM4322, but nothing BCM4321 related (there are many
>> differences between them).
>>
>> In my env I can't get more than 22Mb/s using my BCM4322. It's
>> 2,75MB/s, so your 3MB/s is even better result than mine. The problem
>> is that b43 doesn't support 802.11n features, so it can't work any
>> faster. Values around 2-3MB/s is maximum you can get from 802.11g.
>
>
> I can see from the access point that it often indicates the system to be
> connected at 54Mbps, but I never seem to get that throughput. However the
> numbers I indicate are SFTP transfers with some overhead, but also buffering
> (so it usually starts off quite fast and then the number drops rapidly). Not
> very scientific so it might as well be 2.75MB/s :)

54Mb/s is 6,75MB/s, but you'll never reach that speed on 802.11g. No
matter what card, what driver :) 3MB/s is probably sth around the
maximum speed *in practice*. I was doing my tests with "iperf".


>> I plan to add support for new devices, then 5GHz, then maybe I'll take
>> a look at 802.11n standard. So unfortunately there's a long way before
>> we can support higher speeds :(
>
>
> If it helps, I can offer two of this mini PCI adapters to any developer
> interested in improving the support of the BCM4321.

I've tons of N-PHY (and not only) devices around, so don't really need
any donate of that devices. I just have to find time for this.

-- 
Rafał