On what settings is the 5 GHz band working?!

Discussion in 'ZIDOO X6 Pro' started by neamielu, May 14, 2016.

  1. neamielu

    neamielu Member

    I've seen another thread discussing this issue, but I have another question, unanswered there.
    Can you please, whoever is using the 5GHz band with his X6, to reveal the settings you are using? I am using an Asus RT AC1200G+ and X6 is only seeing the 2,4 GHz band.
    I am using latest firmware and no additional wifi software installed (I considered is useless, since the device is not seeing the 5 GHz SSID).
    The router is next to the player, so the distance is not an issue. I am using it with wired connection, but I was interested to use it under 5 GHz band.
    I have already tested various router settings with no results, but a Lenovo tablet which I own is using flawless all the settings I tried on the high band.

    Anticipated thanks for any answers.
     
  2. pjm

    pjm Member

    Using a Netgear wireless access point here, it has 2 different 5Ghz bands.
    My Zidoo's connect to the second band with no problems (so channels 149 and 153)
    Using WPA2-PSK [AES] security

    [​IMG]
     
    Last edited: May 14, 2016
  3. neamielu

    neamielu Member

    thanks, @pjm, it looks I did it after I saw your low channel setting, mine worked after I selected 80 MHz bandwidth and channel 40. I hope it will be useful for other Asus owners in my area (in Europe the allowed channels are from 40 to 140, it may vary by country).
    Capture.JPG
     
  4. freeroc

    freeroc Active Member

    Glad to see your problem resolved by yourself.
     
  5. neamielu

    neamielu Member

    @freeroc still is a pitty these tricky infos are not gathered in a wiki page or in a local tips and tricks dedicated page.. the system itself is not very handy for everyone, one needs quite a bit of computer skills to solve all kind of things related to proper functioning..
     
  6. freeroc

    freeroc Active Member

    Yes,that's why we run this forum. Other users could find the answer after you resolved it and posted it here. Many users like you are contributing here , you are Zidoo's HERO---LEIFENG in Chinese!;)
     
  7. moreaki

    moreaki New Member

    I can't get the X6 PRo motivated at all to connect or even see the 5 GHz band, no matter the settings I try. I can select bandwidth between 20 and 40 MHz on my router, and the channels between 36 and 140. After hours of trying in vain, I give up. Going back to the very slow 2.4 GHz mode :(. It is completely beyond me why we still haven't generally solved the wifi connectivity issues in 2016. All my other devices work totally fine.
     
  8. neamielu

    neamielu Member

    @moreaki sorry to tell you but the band working in my environment with zidoo x6 wasn't working with all the others, so, since my router is near player I preferred to link it by cable, so yeah, be 5mhz band is pretty messed up in zidoo.. but you can see up the settings working for mine.
     
  9. PacoRabanne

    PacoRabanne Well-Known Member Beta test group

  10. Keith Williams

    Keith Williams New Member

    How do you check if X6 pro is using 5ghz or 2.4 ghz signal. Thanks
     
  11. moreaki

    moreaki New Member

    @PacoRabanne : Thanks for the idea, however after installing and fiddling around with the three potential settings in all possible combinations, the Zidoo X6 Pro still does not even try to see the now 3 different 5GHz SSIDs I have access to from three different sources with three different brands of wireless routers. In my case, I would say that either the wireless module is broken or the driver is really bad. I have no time to investigate this, but certainly it is going to be my last box from this otherwise interesting . I have the money to buy from other offers. Wireless is no rocket science anymore.

    @neamielu : Wired connection is not possible in my setup and frankly, I didn't buy this box for its wired capabilities. I have tried your settings to no avail, besides the 80MHz, which is not available on the routers I have access to.

    Out of personal interests, I have bought a Tenda AC18 router (https://www.aliexpress.com/item/Ten...-Band-Gigabit-Wi-Fi-Repeater/32734943937.html), which I will test as well, but otherwise I will just have to live with an excuciatingly slow 2.4 GHz connection with a roughly 4-10 Mbit/s throughput. If at least that bloody thing was stable. Putting the wireless router in close vicinity has only marginal influence on the throughput. My other devices (Androids, MBP, iPhones, etc) do not have the slightest issue with wifi connectivity and throughput.

    When it comes to USB speed, it's also quite slow, or at least with the devices I have tried. Most of my USB drives are high quality drives. There is a throughput variance that is not negligible hinting towards a subpar SoC USB pin PLL configuration in the kernel setup. The whole box is just not finished yet in my opinion, and is probably targetted for the low/mid-segment customers.
     
    Last edited: Oct 24, 2016
  12. moreaki

    moreaki New Member

    @Keith Williams : In my case, I removed the 2.4 GHz broadcasting on my wifi router. There was simply no signal pick-up anymore. As soon as I enabled the 2.4 GHz again, the box picks it up.
     
    Last edited: Oct 25, 2016
  13. nice159

    nice159 Active Member

    I totally agree. Its like - so we can't make this box work right, lets create another one.
     
  14. PacoRabanne

    PacoRabanne Well-Known Member Beta test group

    Checked on my router itself. It shows it in a clear way:
    upload_2016-10-24_23-30-46.png
    Don't you trust me?
     
  15. moreaki

    moreaki New Member

    Out of curiosity, I decided to have a peek at my X6 Pro (not having worked with embedded systems for over 10 years, or Linux for that matter, I had little hopes that I would even be able to get sufficient access). Rooted the bloody thing, installed adb wireless and conntected to the box using adb. After getting used to being back in the tech world, I started tracking down why iwconfig, wpa_cli, and other non-netlink communicating control tools for the wireless stack refuse to work. Now, my /init.connectivity.rc reads:

    Code:
    # for wifi
        # mt7601u
        chmod 0644 /system/lib/modules/mtprealloc7601Usta.ko
    
    Still no hint at the control device, and the old (2008?) firmware did not reveal anything interesting either. Now, reading up on said device (http://www.mediatek.com/en/products/connectivity/wifi/broadband/usb/mt7601u/), I get the impression that this chip is only capable of 2.4GHz, which combined with a half-assed driver (pre kernel 3.19.0 there was no clean driver for this chip, and V1.0.40 is shipping 3.10.0 as kernel) might suggest a 5GHz capability, but one only really can connect to 2.4GHz. Scanning and monitoring modes are not supported. Funny enough, the first SoC chip module with similar wifi capabilities but clear 5GHz support is called MT7610U (http://www.mediatek.com/en/products/connectivity/wifi/broadband/usb/mt7610u/). MT7610U and MT7601U are very close, so who knows, they might have mixed them up during manufacturing.

    At least it would have explained, why on my box I cannot get any signal scan in the 5GHz range from the X6 Pro. But, this was probably another chip used in previous Zidoo boxes. Let's drop that conspiracy theory for a moment.

    Now, a couple of lines down the road, I find the following entries:

    Code:
    ########## kernel version >= 3.10.x ##########
    service wpa_supplicant /system/bin/wpa_supplicant \
      -iwlan0 -Dnl80211 -c/data/misc/wifi/wpa_supplicant.conf \
      -I/system/etc/wifi/wpa_supplicant_overlay.conf \
      -e/data/misc/wifi/entropy.bin -g@android:wpa_wlan0
      class main
      socket wpa_wlan0 dgram 660 wifi wifi
      disabled
      oneshot
    
    service p2p_supplicant /system/bin/wpa_supplicant \
      -iwlan0 -Dnl80211 -c/data/misc/wifi/wpa_supplicant.conf \
      -I/system/etc/wifi/p2p_supplicant_overlay.conf \
      -puse_p2p_group_interface=1p2p_device=1 \
      -m/data/misc/wifi/p2p_supplicant.conf \
      -e/data/misc/wifi/entropy.bin -g@android:wpa_wlan0
      class main
      socket wpa_wlan0 dgram 660 wifi wifi
      disabled
      oneshot
    ########## kernel version >= 3.10.x ##########
    
    Actually checking my real hardware, I get:

    Code:
    root@rk3368_box:/ # grep . /sys/class/net/wlan0/device/{device,vendor}
    /sys/class/net/wlan0/device/device:0x4335
    /sys/class/net/wlan0/device/vendor:0x02d0
    
    So, my Zidoo X6 Pro's SDIO wifi chip, a BCM4335, ought to be supported by a FullMac (MLME enabled in driver) implementation in the kernel shipped by V1.0.40, accessible via netlink. This also means, we can forget about iwconfig and other related tools to force signals and bands.

    A quick test using the bcm related dhdutil confirms my findings:

    Code:
    root@rk3368_box:/ # uname -a
    Linux localhost 3.10.0 #34 SMP PREEMPT Thu Aug 25 16:00:45 CST 2016 aarch64 GNU/Linux
    root@rk3368_box:/ # dhdutil -i wlan0 dump
    Dongle Host Driver, version 1.201.59.4 (r506368)
    Compiled in drivers/net/wireless/bcmdhd on Aug 25 2016 at 15:57:30
    
    pub.up 1 pub.txoff 0 pub.busstate 2
    pub.hdrlen 52 pub.maxctl 10256 pub.rxsz 1746
    pub.iswl 1 pub.drv_version 0 pub.mac 94:a1:a2:81:7c:95
    pub.bcmerror 0 tickcnt 1631776
    dongle stats:
    tx_packets 261677 tx_bytes 41624188 tx_errors 0 tx_dropped 0
    rx_packets 149557 rx_bytes 55732079 rx_errors 0 rx_dropped 0
    multicast 9123
    bus stats:
    tx_packets 261682  tx_dropped 0 tx_multicast 156481 tx_errors 0
    tx_ctlpkts 116977 tx_ctlerrs 0
    rx_packets 149562 rx_multicast 9123 rx_errors 0
    rx_ctlpkts 116977 rx_ctlerrs 0 rx_dropped 0
    rx_readahead_cnt 0 tx_realloc 0
    
    Protocol CDC: reqid 51441
    
    Bus SDIO structure:
    hostintmask 0x000000f0 intstatus 0x00000000 sdpcm_ver 4
    fcstate 0 qlen 0 tx_seq 35, max 67, rxskip 0 rxlen 0 rx_seq 135
    intr 1 intrcount 376047 lastintrs 0 spurious 0
    pollrate 0 pollcnt 0 regfails 0
    
    Additional counters:
    tx_sderrs 0 fcqueued 261682 rxrtx 0 rx_toolong 0 rxc_errors 0
    rx_hdrfail 0 badhdr 0 badseq 135
    fc_rcvd 4, fc_xoff 2, fc_xon 2
    rxglomfail 0, rxglomframes 2372, rxglompkts 7370
    f2rx (hdrs/data) 1130025 (767643/362382), f2tx 364117 f1regs 752066
    
    Rx: pkts/f2rd 0.13, pkts/f1sd 0.19, pkts/sd 0.07, pkts/int 0.39
    Rx: glom pct 4.92, pkts/glom 3.10
    Tx: pkts/f2wr 0.71, pkts/f1sd 0.34, pkts/sd 0.23, pkts/int 0.69
    Total: pkts/f2rw 0.27, pkts/f1sd 0.54, pkts/sd 0.18, pkts/int 1.09
    
    dpc_sched 0 host interrupt not pending
    blocksize 128 roundup 128
    clkstate 3 activity 0 idletime 5 idlecount 0 sleeping 0
    
    Very good, now at least I know how to brick that bloody bastard box! Knowing it is a BCM4335, I checked the shipped firmware versus the one that ought to be there:

    Code:
    root@rk3368_box:/ # ls -l /system/etc/firmware/*bcm*
    -rw-r--r-- root     root       400662 2008-08-01 14:00 fw_bcm43241b4_ag.bin
    -rw-r--r-- root     root       400662 2008-08-01 14:00 fw_bcm43241b4_ag_apsta.bin
    -rw-r--r-- root     root       400662 2008-08-01 14:00 fw_bcm43241b4_ag_p2p.bin
    -rw-r--r-- root     root       218460 2008-08-01 14:00 fw_bcm4330.bin
    -rw-r--r-- root     root       237848 2008-08-01 14:00 fw_bcm4330_apsta.bin
    -rw-r--r-- root     root       366498 2008-08-01 14:00 fw_bcm43341b0_ag.bin
    -rw-r--r-- root     root       366498 2008-08-01 14:00 fw_bcm43341b0_ag_apsta.bin
    -rw-r--r-- root     root       366498 2008-08-01 14:00 fw_bcm43341b0_ag_p2p.bin
    -rw-r--r-- root     root       541314 2008-08-01 14:00 fw_bcm4339a0_ag.bin
    -rw-r--r-- root     root       541314 2008-08-01 14:00 fw_bcm4339a0_ag_apsta.bin
    -rw-r--r-- root     root       541314 2008-08-01 14:00 fw_bcm4339a0_ag_p2p.bin
    -rw-r--r-- root     root       336323 2008-08-01 14:00 fw_bcm43438a0.bin
    -rw-r--r-- root     root       309352 2008-08-01 14:00 fw_bcm43438a0_apsta.bin
    -rw-r--r-- root     root       336323 2008-08-01 14:00 fw_bcm43438a0_p2p.bin
    -rw-r--r-- root     root       590300 2008-08-01 14:00 fw_bcm4354a1_ag.bin
    -rw-r--r-- root     root       590300 2008-08-01 14:00 fw_bcm4354a1_ag_apsta.bin
    -rw-r--r-- root     root       590300 2008-08-01 14:00 fw_bcm4354a1_ag_p2p.bin
    
    Does not look like an appropriate firmware is about.

    Hence, my suspicion is that we're blessed with a potentially working 5GHz SDIO wifi adapter on the X6 Pro, however that neighter the appropriate driver nor the appropriate firmware are shipped with the Zidoo V1.0.x (x<=40) firmware releases. On top of that, I can find the following hint regarding the broadcom wifi devices (albeit only the softmac and not the fullmac drivers):

    At least this would confirm why some people on this forum reported issues with certain channels.

    Can anybody confirm my findings?

    The next steps would involve:
    What a waste of time ... but at least I got to delve into technology again :).
     
    Last edited: Oct 25, 2016
    nice159 likes this.
  16. PacoRabanne

    PacoRabanne Well-Known Member Beta test group

    Your extraordinarily deep analysis confirm a suspect I had in the past looking for so different issues reported from different X6 Pro owner: any single one device may be HW different from others.
    Maybe a little, but different.
    This is usual even in very famous android devices (Samsung docet).
    But Zidoo never confirmed this. And is a real pity. Why hiding this?
    Is not a bad habit, but request more effort releasing a new FW.

    Indeed, moreaki , you have done a huge debug task for Zidoo, they must thank you soooooooooo much!
     
  17. warren_wh

    warren_wh Active Member Staff Member Zidoo TECH Supporter

    Hi,Moreaki.
    Thank you very much for your in-depth analysis, in fact, ZIDOO_X6 Pro uses the Broadcom AP6335 dual-band WIFI.
     
  18. PacoRabanne

    PacoRabanne Well-Known Member Beta test group

    So, will Zidoo solve this issue?
    Simple and easy to answer question.
     

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