Test Intel AX210NGW WiFi 6E M.2 card

[geerlingguy]

I just ordered a WISE TIGER AX210NGW WiFi Card, Wi-Fi 6E 11AX card, and I'm going to see if I can get it working using a similar layout as what I used for the AX200.

The other thing I'd like to see is if I can set it up as an access point and how well it handles that. Apparently the AX200 didn't handle AP mode that well (though I didn't test it at all), and this chipset should handle it better... according to random commenters :)

The WiFi Wiki says the AX210 is supported as of kernel 5.10: https://wireless.wiki.kernel.org/en/users/drivers/iwlwifi — supposedly I could get 2+ Gbps through this chipset. We'll see if that's true with the other hardware I have.

Maybe combine this testing with #56?

Related issues:

• Waveshare PCIe to M.2 E-Key HAT+ (for wireless) #709
• Intel BE200NGW WiFi 7 M.2 Card #670

[paulwratt]

make sure you get the latest kernel fixes for (all) wifi 6 devices

[bcliu430]

I have tried the raspberry pi 5.10.y kernel. I can get it working with the commit (6495fa3) when I tried on 7/28. I just enabled iwlwifi and copied the latest ucode to /lib/firmware.

BTW, thanks for the ax200 video, it helps a lot for me to make progress on ax210 card.

[angelia-gt]

Thanks for your sharing.

[geerlingguy]

It looks like the AX210 firmware requires kernel 5.10+ (which we have), and is available for download here: https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/articles/000005511/wireless.html

I downloaded iwlwifi-ty-59.601f3a66.0.tgz and ran:

$ tar -xvzf iwlwifi-ty-59.601f3a66.0.tgz
$ cd iwlwifi-ty-59.601f3a66.0/
$ sudo cp iwlwifi-*.ucode /lib/firmware
$ sudo reboot

For the driver, it looks like it'll need a recompile.

[bcliu430]

It looks like the AX210 firmware requires kernel 5.10+ (which we have), and is available for download here: https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/articles/000005511/wireless.html

I downloaded iwlwifi-ty-59.601f3a66.0.tgz and ran:

$ tar -xvzf iwlwifi-ty-59.601f3a66.0.tgz
$ cd iwlwifi-ty-59.601f3a66.0/
$ sudo cp iwlwifi-*.ucode /lib/firmware
$ sudo reboot

For the driver, it looks like it'll need a recompile.

Check and see if you have iwlwifi and mvm checked in kernel config. When I did some testing before, not all functionalities are fully implemented, i.e. wifi scanning is working but it does not always scan 6GHz channels. It is not fully supported until kernel 5.13.

[geerlingguy]

Using my cross-compile environment, I recompiled enabling iwlwifi in menuconfig:

Device Drivers
  > Network device support
    > Wireless LAN
      > Intel Wireless WiFi Next Gen AGN - Wireless-N/Advanced-N/Ultimate-N (iwlwifi)
        > Intel Wireless WiFi MVM Firmware support

(I had to check the iwlwifi support to reveal the MVM option).

Also, regarding AP mode for 5/6 Ghz: https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=206469#c2

[geerlingguy]

Before custom kernel:

pi@seaberry:~ $ uname -a
Linux seaberry 5.10.63-v8+ #1459 SMP PREEMPT Wed Oct 6 16:42:49 BST 2021 aarch64 GNU/Linux

After custom kernel:

pi@seaberry:~ $ uname -a
Linux seaberry 5.10.79-v8+ #1 SMP PREEMPT Thu Nov 18 21:53:24 UTC 2021 aarch64 GNU/Linux

And driver loads:

[   10.878198] iwlwifi 0000:12:00.0: enabling device (0000 -> 0002)
[   10.909737] iwlwifi 0000:10:00.0: api flags index 2 larger than supported by driver
[   10.909878] iwlwifi 0000:10:00.0: TLV_FW_FSEQ_VERSION: FSEQ Version: 93.8.63.28
[   10.913151] iwlwifi 0000:10:00.0: loaded firmware version 59.601f3a66.0 ty-a0-gf-a0-59.ucode op_mode iwlmvm
[   11.176677] iwlwifi 0000:10:00.0: Detected Intel(R) Wi-Fi 6 AX210 160MHz, REV=0x420
[   11.494958] iwlwifi 0000:10:00.0: base HW address: 84:5c:f3:f6:e9:29

[geerlingguy]

Wrote up a guide since I do this a lot and confuse myself often: Working with multiple WiFi interfaces on a Raspberry Pi.

And dang... I just realized I don't have any external antennae with the plug size for the AX210. I only have the very-slightly-larger size suitable for things like the U.FL antenna connector on the CM4 itself, or larger WiFi cards.

[geerlingguy]

Just ordered a pair of NGFF / IPEX4 / MHF4 antennae for next-day shipping. Hope they come quickly!