Posts by rahlquist

  • Are new APUs planned?

    So honestly, with the success I have had with the "Intel Corporation Ethernet Controller I225-V (rev 03)" card in my APU2 and also the RTL8125B card, and the fact that with IRQ balancing these can easily continue the life of these, I wonder if maybe the I225 should be the next network chip they consider. I dont know what design challenges that would present other than likely needing more power.

  • Cross your fingers about to try a new wireless card.

    And with this adapter; https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B07DZ8SB8X


    I got the Intel I225 M.2 B + M card working. https://smile.amazon.com/IO-CR…SY-PEX24075/dp/B09SRW3RCV


    This adapter worked with the intel nic also https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B07ZKGWNDQ

    Code
    1. 59: 0 3 0 0 PCI-MSI 2621440-edge eth3
    2. 60: 2628 7370 45862 139694 PCI-MSI 2621441-edge eth3-TxRx-0
    3. 61: 79258 3333 13089 70307 PCI-MSI 2621442-edge eth3-TxRx-1
    4. 62: 72587 12703 5020 4520 PCI-MSI 2621443-edge eth3-TxRx-2
    5. 63: 246592 83325 6261 4015 PCI-MSI 2621444-edge eth3-TxRx-3
    8. [ ID] Interval Transfer Bitrate Retr
    9. [ 5] 0.00-10.00 sec 1.58 GBytes 1.36 Gbits/sec 31 sender
    10. [ 5] 0.00-10.00 sec 1.58 GBytes 1.36 Gbits/sec receiver

    You can see the both of the mini PCIe adapters balance their load across the cores which the xhci_hcd driver in openwrt does not try to do for the USB based adapters.


    Performance is crisp and stable. So 2.5Gbps/sec connection, with Wifi 6 on APU2, yes, it can work. :)

  • Cross your fingers about to try a new wireless card.

    Success!


    So with this adapter; https://www.amazon.com/dp/B094YY6KX6


    I can get a 2.5Gbps uplink to my MB8611 cable modem. Which is connecting at just over 1.2Gbps to my broadband connection. The APU can handle the load with a PCIe Mini card because unlike with the usb based solution the IRQ load is spread across all 4 cores of the CPU. This is all with the standard timings. My cores are running around 600mhz at idle.


    Next step is bonding two of the I210's to my Mikrotek switch as a single interface.


  • Cross your fingers about to try a new wireless card.

    So I was able to get both USB Ethernet adapters working. I am currently running without using the onboard Ethernet ports.


    and

    Code
    1. [Tue Jul 5 16:04:19 2022] cdc_ncm 3-1:2.0 eth3: 2500 mbit/s downlink 2500 mbit/s uplink
    2. [Tue Jul 5 17:09:45 2022] cdc_ncm 3-2.3:2.0 eth4: 2500 mbit/s downlink 2500 mbit/s uplink

    Unfortunately I am having issues with my broadband so still not fully able to test my 1.2Gbps service.


    UPDATE

    Wont have broadband fixed till next week (ugh) but I can say that I am hitting a CPU core max out. If I run a speed test they are maxing out at 240Mbps. Core 0 is at 100% cpu.

    I tried stopping and restarting the irqbalance service, futzing with the settings, etc but no matter what I do I cant seem to get irq31 to spread across cores.


    So at the end of the day unless I can get a working 2.5Gbps mini PCIe card it looks like the hope of breaking the 1Gbps barrier on the apu is a lost cause for the average user. Frankly I am starting to look to build a low power Alder lake based router and may just setup my APU as an AP only.


  • Cross your fingers about to try a new wireless card.

    mkopec wrote:

    It should not be a problem, devices without 160MHz support will just fall back to a narrower channel width that they support. I have some non-160MHz clients connected to mine for example.

    So iIt shouldnt but with 160Mhz on it turns out the interface doesnt come up. It's likely the card is not DFC certified for use in the US. So if I select Us region it wont tenable if I choose 160Mhz? Maybe?


    ref: https://www.smallnetbuilder.co…fi-channels-friend-or-foe


    My heatsink mod/update netted me about a 12% drop in temps with the cover on. Not bad, but not great. The layers are the problem I am sure. I may see if I can get a larger copper billet style heatsink that could replace the RF cover and then machine the bottom face so that its just big enough to sit on the IC's and then attach it with thermal epoxy directly. For me that would be a lot of hand filing. Some more details here; https://twitter.com/drahcir_rahl/status/1540722244883808256

  • Cross your fingers about to try a new wireless card.

    I've not tested the MT7915 with iperf because I am always happy with anything over 30Mbps on wifi. I cant run at 160Mhz only 2 of my 5 5Ghz clients support it currently. It runs very hot with my case closed (59-74c) so I have ordered a heatsink for it. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07X…dt_b_product_details&th=1 just waiting to replace the cheap TIM inside the RF lids tonight before putting it all together. [Blocked Image: https://i.imgur.com/mJX0rro.jpg]


    Not attached yet just there for the pic.

    [Blocked Image: https://i.imgur.com/HSOO4Vm.png]


    Since obviously they knew it needed to be cooled.


    As for the CPU scaling yeah I run the following script after boot;

    That seems to let the adapter work at 2.5Gbps for data transfer but iperf and iperf3 are still too cpu hungry, also the cdc_ncm driver that its picking by default doesnt provide any data with ethtool, have not figured out how to properly blacklist that driver so it picks the R8152 one instead. The clock speeds shown in htop still drift in the 900Mhz range.


    Code
    1. root@ghost:~# ethtool eth3
    2. Settings for eth3:
    3. Current message level: 0x00000007 (7)
    4. drv probe link
    5. Link detected: yes

  • APU2 successor wishlist

    No matter what comes next, I gotta say, PCEngines is the only real player in the mid-cost range for this type of hardware. The closest competition feature wise are all significantly higher cost or weaker platforms.


    I dont want to name names but the cheapest device I can see that I would willing replace my APU2 with is 549 euro.

  • Cross your fingers about to try a new wireless card.

    Appears the MT7915 has heat issues. With no added cooling some folks are reporting temps in excess of 100c I have heatsinks coming and will report back. Card still working well, just gets hot.


    Mine is currently clocking in at 74c, CPU is at 53c and my cooling for the CPU is stock with the exception of using a copper plate instead of the aluminum ones that come with our cases normally.


    root@ghost:~# sensors

    mt7915_phy1-pci-0400

    Adapter: PCI adapter

    temp1: +74.0°C (high = +120.0°C, crit = +110.0°C)


    k10temp-pci-00c3

    Adapter: PCI adapter

    temp1: +53.2°C (high = +70.0°C)

    (crit = +105.0°C, hyst = +104.0°C)


    acpitz-acpi-0

    Adapter: ACPI interface

    temp1: +53.2°C (crit = +115.0°C)


    mt7915_phy0-pci-0400

    Adapter: PCI adapter

    temp1: +74.0°C (high = +120.0°C, crit = +110.0°C)


    fam15h_power-pci-00c4

    Adapter: PCI adapter

    power1: 2.77 W (interval = 0.01 s, crit = 6.00 W)

  • Cross your fingers about to try a new wireless card.

    Final verdict on the 2.5Gbps usb adapters. If locked to 1Gbps, they function fine if you get the right drivers in place. Let them negotiate to 2.5Gbps and iperf tests only work up to just under 700Mbps. It uses up 100% of the core its running on and limits the bandwidth. I may still try a 2.5Gbps Intel I225 based mini pcie but I am afraid we have just reached some limitations of the platform currently.


    Going to roll back to their current RC and drop this back into production to test the MT7915 for reliability (will be weird to only need 2 antennas vs the 6 I had before. Will update this thread later with results on the MT7915.

    Not sure why I could never get QCA6391 to work. Unless there is broken or funky about its pinout.

  • Cross your fingers about to try a new wireless card.

    Ok so here is where I am with this.

    Two 2.5Gbps usb 3 adapters

    RTL8152 has driver issues in both my openwrt 5.15 based kernel and 5.15 and higher manjaro kernels.
    RTL8169 can work in openwrt and manjaro 5.15 and later, though no extensive testing.
    Two Wifi 6 mini PCIe adapters
    MT7915 "works" with the current OpenWRT OpenWrt 22.03.0-rc1 and my custom roll of 5.15.x but on reboot it is not automatically starting.
    QCA6391 Cant even get it recognized as a device. Since its a pre-production product on a custom PCB, it may have been DOA too. Even so, this would require Ath11k drivers that are not in mainline OpenWRT yet and I had not gotten to getting them working in my build yet.


    I'll be honest, I haven't had this many network issues since win 95 dropped LOL.


    I think of all of it the MT7915 shows a LOT of promise, and should be fine after a few more driver revisions.

  • Cross your fingers about to try a new wireless card.

    Yes the MT7915 works. Some caveats, the speed in AC vs AX modes, avg AC speed is 7-800's
    In AX I cant get it to break 400, yet.

  • Cross your fingers about to try a new wireless card.

    mkopec wrote:

    So, did it work alright? :)


    If it works fine, and if you provided some details, we could add it to the list of supported Wi-Fi cards in the official documentation

    Life got busy, I plan on working with it tomorrow. I had a lot of trouble getting a custom openwrt compile done that would include the proper drivers and firmware for the QCA6391 I will give it a shot though. I also picked up a "WiFi 6 Mediatek MT7915 2T2R" card that the drivers should already be in the main branch.


    Also will be testing two usb3 to 2.5Gbps Ethernet adapters.

    Killer E3100 USB-C 3.1 to RJ-45 2.5Gbps Ethernet Adapter (100123) Realtek R8169 based

    ASUS 2.5G Ethernet USB Adapter (USB-C2500) Realtek R8152 based


    My broadband is 1.2Gbps speed so would like to use one of the above for uplink to my APU2D4. If I can get 1.2Gbps to it, I can live with 1Gbps out over Ethernet and having wifi. Or I may just bond two of the APU2's ports to my switch. Or maybe 1 usb adapter and one of these https://www.amazon.com/IO-CRES…-Converter/dp/B094YY6KX6/


    Will post some results tomorrow.

  • APU3 PCI Express slot

    Hello,

    Are the PCI Express side slot connectors on all APU3 enabled and able to be used with proper connection, or do they have to be special ordered? Considering picking up one.


    If I read the system specs right, that should be equivalent to a PCIe x1 2.0 slot so limited to 500MB/s ?

  • APU2 successor wishlist

    While I agree/disagree with some of the thoughts here, since this is a wish list I am going to stick to that.


    CPU is a struggle here, not a ton of good SOC from AMD recently.

    https://www.cpubenchmark.net/c…A6-9220C/4156vs2473vs3455

    Compares the GX-412hc vs the 9220c and a low power 5700U (15w) ryzen. With the Ryzen costs would be more due to needing more support components I would think?


    Ram ECC please. 4GB should be fine


    Network Config 1 (likely cheaper)

    1 SFP+ cage 82599EN

    3x Intel I225 2.5G


    Network Config 2 (higher power(13.6 W), expensive)

    Intel X557-AT4 (4 10Gbps ports)


    Network Config 3 (compromise of above)

    Intel X557-AT2 (2 10 Gbps ports)

    2x Intel I225 2.5G


    2 Mini PCIe w/ 1 connected to sim and the other connected with UART support for cards like QCA6391 so BT could be supported. Enhance power handling to spec max for these slots


    1x SATA


    1x M.2


    Optional side connect like APU3 for PCIe expansion with a PCIe x4 slot.


    2 USB 2.x internal header

    2 USB 3.x external ports

    TPM

    RTC

    Hardware Watchdog

    Serial console

  • APU4D4 Supply voltage range

    Some devices are more tolerant. With the shortage of parts for these boards and them being generally hard to get now..


    Something along this line may do what you need. https://www.amazon.com/Convert…ransformer/dp/B08D8L79TS/


    That's not a referral or a recommendation, just a suggested starting point. With buck to lower voltage and boost to raise it when it drops (like during cold cranking) it may protect the device from;


    Key on (+12v), start boot-->engine crank, voltage(+10v) drop, APU shuts back off>post crank(+13.8-14v) power up again.


    Good luck! These apu would make a great mobile vehicle AP/Router.

  • Cross your fingers about to try a new wireless card.

    So currently I am running 2 AEX-QCA9880-NX, one for 2.4ghz bands and one for 5.0ghx bands in my apu2d4.


    I just received a AEX-QCA6391-NX1 that I want to see if I can get working under OpenWRT. The BT portion of the card wont work at all in the APU2 slots because the needed UART connections either run to the sim card or to the unpopulated sim. I may try an adapter later that will allow it just for grins.


    Hoping this isn't too power hungry. Looks like max power draw is under 700ma.


    Would be so nice to free up a slot. :)

  • APU4D4 Supply voltage range

    I would not advise exceeding 12v. That said based on p14-15 of the schematic.

    The 3.3v reg APW8713A by spec can take up to 28v in

    The 5v reg APW8715a by spec can take up to 28v in

    But that is just 2 components.


    Without digging more I am willing to bet it was designed with parts with a bit of range. The problem is will it produce the proper output with a higher input? Not sure.


    If it were me I would make certain to keep it at 12. I am assuming you have an application where it would be easier to feed it more. A cheap $10-20 buck/boos converter could take 8-40v in and turn it into 12V within 1.5% or tighter if you dig for a good one and pay a smidge more. If you were looking to do POE then there are splitters that will get it down to 12v/2a just like the original AC adapters.