Picore 14.1 poor Wifi after upgrade from 11 (armv6)

[ovacikar]

Greetings,

I am having very poor performance on my RPi Model 1 with USB wifi dongle running 14.1 compared to 11.x (armv6). This is an ethernet to wifi NAT gateway. Issue becomes worse with larger payloads

I can reproduce this using 2 SD cards back and forth using speedtest on the laptop every time. 14.x can only get 0.8 Mbps, whereas on 11.x I get constantly 4 to 5Mbps.

I just run a script to connect to the AP and set up iptables and ip forwarding:

Code: [Select]

#!/bin/sh
sudo wifi.sh -p
sudo udhcpc -i wlan0 -q -o; sudo netstat -rn
sleep 2
sudo iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -o wlan0 -j MASQUERADE
sleep 1
sudo sysctl net.ipv4.ip_forward=1
Any idea where I could focus on?

Things I have checked so far:
1- No errors on dmesg
2- 256 bytes ping to wifi gateway, on 11.x , 2% loss , whereas on 14.x 4 to 5% loss
3- Wanted to try 13.x, but ran into issues with aes_generic module. I found a thread but was not able to install the module, modprobe complained for invalid format
4- tested mtr  with 1200 bytes on macbook:
14.1:

Code: [Select]

sudo /opt/homebrew/sbin/mtr 10.0.0.1 -s 1200 -w -c 50
Start: 2024-01-15T10:52:08-0500
HOST: xxx   Loss%   Snt   Last   Avg  Best  Wrst StDev
  1.|-- 192.168.7.1  0.0%    50    2.3   1.8   1.3   5.2   0.5
  2.|-- 10.0.0.1    16.0%    50   18.6  96.2  11.8 332.6  77.9
11.x:
 

Code: [Select]

sudo /opt/homebrew/sbin/mtr 10.0.0.1 -s 1200 -w -c 50
Start: 2024-01-15T10:56:21-0500
HOST: xxx   Loss%   Snt   Last   Avg  Best  Wrst StDev
  1.|-- 192.168.7.1  0.0%    50    1.7   1.8   1.3   5.1   0.5
  2.|-- 10.0.0.1     2.0%    50    6.2  14.1   4.4  96.1  15.9


Dmesg from 14.1:

Code: [Select]

[  421.561485] usb 1-1.2: new high-speed USB device number 6 using dwc_otg
[  421.693452] usb 1-1.2: New USB device found, idVendor=7392, idProduct=7811, bcdDevice= 2.00
[  421.693508] usb 1-1.2: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
[  421.693535] usb 1-1.2: Product: 802.11n WLAN Adapter
[  421.693558] usb 1-1.2: Manufacturer: Realtek
[  421.693581] usb 1-1.2: SerialNumber: xxxx
[  421.701572] rtl8192cu: Chip version 0x10
[  421.889325] rtl8192cu: Board Type 0
[  421.889747] rtl_usb: rx_max_size 15360, rx_urb_num 8, in_ep 1
[  421.889922] rtl8192cu: Loading firmware rtlwifi/rtl8192cufw_TMSC.bin
[  421.890055] ieee80211 phy1: Selected rate control algorithm 'rtl_rc'
[  421.900908] usb 1-1.2: Direct firmware load for rtlwifi/rtl8192cufw_TMSC.bin failed with error -2
[  421.901091] usb 1-1.2: Direct firmware load for rtlwifi/rtl8192cufw.bin failed with error -2
[  421.901126] rtlwifi: Loading alternative firmware rtlwifi/rtl8192cufw.bin
[  421.901145] rtlwifi: Selected firmware is not available
[  426.034992] rtl8192cu: MAC auto ON okay!
[  426.111127] rtl8192cu: Tx queue select: 0x05
[  426.651557] rtl8192c_common: Polling FW ready fail! REG_MCUFWDL:0x00000006.
[  426.651607] rtl8192c_common: Firmware is not ready to run!
[  433.919978] rtl8192cu: MAC auto ON okay!
[  433.996445] rtl8192cu: Tx queue select: 0x05
[  434.537617] rtl8192c_common: Polling FW ready fail! REG_MCUFWDL:0x00000006.
[  434.537669] rtl8192c_common: Firmware is not ready to run!

[  443.093695] wlan0: authenticate with xx:xx:xx
[  443.094099] wlan0: 80 MHz not supported, disabling VHT
[  443.111092] wlan0: send auth to xx:xx:xx (try 1/3)
[  443.148390] wlan0: authenticated
[  443.151534] wlan0: associate with xx:xx:xx (try 1/3)
[  443.261492] wlan0: associate with xx:xx:xx (try 2/3)
[  443.276458] wlan0: RX AssocResp from xx:xx:xx (capab=0x431 status=0 aid=2)
[  443.387053] wlan0: associated
[  443.413082] IPv6: ADDRCONF(NETDEV_CHANGE): wlan0: link becomes ready
[  443.417822] wlan0: Limiting TX power to 27 (27 - 0) dBm as advertised by xx:xx:xx



[Paul_123]

Personally I don't use realtek product because of issues like this.   You might see if you can find rtl8192cufw_TMSC.bin and load that firmware instead.

[ovacikar]

Thanks, I will give it a try. I have imaged the spare sdcard with picore 12 and wifi is fine. NExt will image 14 again and see

[ovacikar]

Thanks!! with this firmware wifi is back to normal:

Code: [Select]

sudo /opt/homebrew/sbin/mtr 10.0.0.1 -s 1200 -w -c 50
Start: 2024-01-15T12:16:43-0500
HOST: xx   Loss%   Snt   Last   Avg  Best  Wrst StDev
  1.|-- 192.168.7.1  0.0%    50    1.4   1.7   1.3   4.9   0.5
  2.|-- 10.0.0.1     0.0%    50    9.0  14.8   7.1  53.2   9.6

[ovacikar]

Revisiting this, I did a new install of 14.1 (armv6) and could not reproduce so far. I suspect:

a) A stale firmware-rpi-wifi.tcz on my onboot.lst and optional directory.
b) Do not recall if I have downloaded armv7 instead the first time.

[ovacikar]

I gave 14.1 another try and was able to reproduce sluggish wifi.

Then I realized there were separate tcz extensions for firmware, installed firmware-rtlwifi.tcz and moved it up in onboot.lst .

problem solved..