Which Firmware to use for STA (999.x crashes...)

[Ben Greear]

On 05/01/2015 09:21 AM, richard mayers wrote:
> Sorry for not providing details, I wanted to focus more in the
> firmware crash. Therefore you recommend me to use the Candela
> firmware. If I just want to run throughput, delay, and fairness
> measurements do you think is okay not using the kernel provided by
> them ?.


You mean firmware not provided by them?

I'd be happy to see comparisons between my CT firmware and others,
but if official firmware just crashes, then I guess you cannot do
that.

If you can crash CT firmware, let me know...I have a chance of
fixing it.  I have no chance of fixing upstream firmware, but
maybe you can get some help from QCA folks.

With UDP, we often see > 700Mbps throughput, but most of these
types of tests we do in isolation chambers cabled up.

Over-the-air is probably more like 600Mbps in a clean environment.

You typically have to increase kernel socket buffers to get best
throughput, and CPU on the host starts to matter at those speeds
as well.

Antenna matter a lot...just play around with it.

Thanks,
Ben

> 
> Anyway, for the throughput I do as follows:
> 
> Tool : Iperf. (iperf -c server_ip -b 1000M -i 1)
> Protocol : UDP
> Channel : Over the air, with three antennas.
> AP: hostapd, channel 149, 80Mhz. With the same kernel, driver,
> firmware, and NIC than the Station.
> STA: I get the maximum throughput with MCS = 5/6, when I go further to
> 7-9 the throughput drops dramatically to 50Mbit/s.
> 
> I think the antennas should be separated each other 12 cm, I am wrong
> ? can this have a high impact on the throughput ?
> 
> Richard
> 
> 2015-05-01 17:52 GMT+02:00 Ben Greear <greearb at candelatech.com>:
>> Candela firmware should work just fine for stations.
>>
>> And, when reporting throughput, you should also provide details
>> about how you tested (tool, protocol, over-the-air or not, AP
>> involved, etc).
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Ben
>>
>>
>> On 05/01/2015 08:38 AM, richard mayers wrote:
>>> Hi everyone!
>>>
>>> I need to do some 802.11ac measurements. For that I am using the
>>> Compex wle900vx.
>>>
>>> I had a set up in which everything was working quite well, however I
>>> had a maximum throughput of 380Mbits/s ( with all the debug options
>>> enabled )
>>>
>>> In this first set up I had been using ubuntu 14.04 LTS, kernel version
>>> 3.16, for the driver I used the latest stable backport (3.19) and
>>> finally as a firmware the commercial firmware from Candela Tech
>>> (latest version) in both the AP and STA.
>>>
>>> However, I read in the wiki that the latest firmware version for AP is
>>> the 10.2.4.48, and the Stations should use 999.999.0.63. For this
>>> second set up I changed almost everything:
>>>
>>> - Upgraded kernel to 4.0.1
>>> - Backported drivers from the git Modinfo output -> (backported from
>>> Linux (v3.2-rc1-243765-ga2ff7c6) using backports
>>> backports-20150424-2-g982)
>>>
>>> AP : 10.2.4.48 firmware
>>> STA : Following the wiki : 999.999.0.63
>>>
>>> During boot the firmware is loaded without any problem:
>>>
>>> ath10k_pci 0000:0c:00.0: qca988x hw2.0 (0x4100016c, 0x043202ff) fw
>>> 999.999.0.636 api 2 htt 2.1 wmi 1 cal otp max_sta 16
>>>
>>> However when I associate with the AP, the firmware crashes.
>>>
>>> [11831.954992] ath10k_pci 0000:0c:00.0: firmware crashed! (uuid n/a)
>>> [11831.955031] ath10k_pci 0000:0c:00.0: qca988x hw2.0 (0x4100016c,
>>> 0x043202ff) fw 999.999.0.636 api 2 htt 2.1 wmi 1 cal otp max_sta 16
>>> [11831.955039] ath10k_pci 0000:0c:00.0: debug 0 debugfs 0 tracing 0
>>> dfs 0 testmode 0
>>> [11831.957059] ath10k_pci 0000:0c:00.0: firmware register dump:
>>> [11831.957068] ath10k_pci 0000:0c:00.0: [00]: 0x4100016C 0x00000000
>>> 0x009C4521 0x00000000
>>> [11831.957076] ath10k_pci 0000:0c:00.0: [04]: 0x009C4521 0x00060530
>>> 0x00000019 0x00955A00
>>> [11831.957084] ath10k_pci 0000:0c:00.0: [08]: 0x00306862 0x00000000
>>> 0x0040CC94 0x00000020
>>> [11831.957091] ath10k_pci 0000:0c:00.0: [12]: 0x00000000 0x00000000
>>> 0x00958360 0x0095836B
>>> [11831.957098] ath10k_pci 0000:0c:00.0: [16]: 0x80991091 0x0040AD94
>>> 0x0043155C 0x00000000
>>> [11831.957106] ath10k_pci 0000:0c:00.0: [20]: 0x0000FFFF 0x00000000
>>> 0x0043155C 0x00000000
>>> [11831.957114] ath10k_pci 0000:0c:00.0: [24]: 0x809A0978 0x0040AD94
>>> 0x00439484 0xC1A18834
>>> [11831.957121] ath10k_pci 0000:0c:00.0: [28]: 0x809AD1A2 0x0040ADE4
>>> 0x00439484 0x0043FB1C
>>> [11831.957129] ath10k_pci 0000:0c:00.0: [32]: 0x809B35A3 0x0000001A
>>> 0x00440A50 0x0000000E
>>> [11831.957136] ath10k_pci 0000:0c:00.0: [36]: 0x00000000 0x00000000
>>> 0x00000000 0x00000000
>>> [11831.957143] ath10k_pci 0000:0c:00.0: [40]: 0x00000000 0x00000000
>>> 0x00000000 0x00000094
>>> [11831.957151] ath10k_pci 0000:0c:00.0: [44]: 0x00439DC8 0x00000000
>>> 0x00000000 0x00400000
>>> [11831.957158] ath10k_pci 0000:0c:00.0: [48]: 0x809AE0B4 0x0040AE04
>>> 0x00400000 0x0043FB1C
>>> [11831.957166] ath10k_pci 0000:0c:00.0: [52]: 0x00000001 0x00000000
>>> 0x00423410 0x00400000
>>> [11831.957173] ath10k_pci 0000:0c:00.0: [56]: 0x809AE17E 0x0040AE44
>>> 0x0040FE6C 0x0040D310
>>> [11832.046908] ath10k_pci 0000:0c:00.0: failed to synchronize monitor
>>> vdev 1 stop: -108
>>> [11832.046915] ath10k_pci 0000:0c:00.0: failed to stop monitor vdev: -108
>>>
>>>  I have seen that in the past a lot of people had problems with this
>>> firmware but since years have passed maybe the way of solving have
>>> evolved.
>>>
>>> Apart from that I also got the 00:03:07:12:34:56 MAC address issue.
>>>
>>> Any ideas guys? Should I use the candelatech firmware for the stations ?
>>> Richard
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> ath10k mailing list
>>> ath10k at lists.infradead.org
>>> http://lists.infradead.org/mailman/listinfo/ath10k
>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Ben Greear <greearb at candelatech.com>
>> Candela Technologies Inc  http://www.candelatech.com
>>
> 


-- 
Ben Greear <greearb at candelatech.com>
Candela Technologies Inc  http://www.candelatech.com