Slow WiFi on Manjaro Default Image 20.04 for PBP

[SuperUJ]

On a recently flashed PBP with Manjaro KDE Plasma 20.04 (flashed from SD to EMMC installer), my WiFi worked great, 5G gave 150+Mbps download (on par with my other devices).  Then, I did the 300+ package upgrades that Package Manager suggested.  Immediately after the successful upgrades, my 5GHz WiFi download speed dropped to 30Mbps.  Now, 2.4GHz WiFi is faster (about 40Mbps), which is unusual to the wireless settings I have at home.  I reflashed the PBP to confirm.  It happened again.  Wondered if anyone else encountered the same slower WiFi issue.  40Mbps is not bad, but it bugs me that the PBP can't function as expected.  Many thanks in advance for any idea how to up the 5GHz WiFi speed back to normal.

John

[Arwen]

There have been discussions that the WiFi chip heats up. I plan on getting a thermal pad for it eventually.
In some respects, their are some options people could consider;

• Replacement speakers
  
• USB C docking station
  
• USB C power supply
  
• Additional thermal padding for WiFi and around CPU
  

Probably after another 6 months, we will add an upgrade guide to the Pinebook Pro Wiki. Describing each
step separately, (because people may want one and not yet another).

[xmixahlx]

there is a new wifi firmware. presumably less tested. check the firmware date in dmesg.

[SuperUJ]

Thanks for the dmesg suggestion. It seems like the firmware is only a few months old:
[ 10.038083] brcmfmac: brcmf_c_preinit_dcmds: Firmware: BCM4345/9 wl0: Feb 11 2020 11:54:51 version 7.45.96.61 (be7af2d@shgit) (r745790) FWID 01-a41d86bd es7.c5.n4.a3

And from inxi -F, the wireless adapter chipset does not even show:
Network: Message: No ARM data found for this feature.
IF-ID-1: docker0 state: down mac: 02:42:b9:43:98:13
IF-ID-2: wlan0 state: up mac: c0:84:7d:25:39:fa

And Package Manager shows: ap6256-firmware 2020.02-1 (for the ap6256 wifi/bt module) was installed.

[xmixahlx]

i am using the same (new) firmware on debian sid arm64 and don't notice the issue you mentioned, but I have also not been very demanding with wifi lately. i'll check again over here.

i'm also using 5.7-rc7 (+hwaccel patches) and there are some recent changes to brcm. depending on your kernel you may have a different experience:
https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/ker...rep&q=brcm

might want to bring this to the manjaro forum, too. while several of the developers are here occasionally @spikerguy @tsys , their own forums are exceptional.

[spikerguy]

i am using the same (new) firmware on debian sid arm64 and don't notice the issue you mentioned, but I have also not been very demanding with wifi lately. i'll check again over here.

i'm also using 5.7-rc7 (+hwaccel patches) and there are some recent changes to brcm. depending on your kernel you may have a different experience:
https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/ker...rep&q=brcm

might want to bring this to the manjaro forum, too. while several of the developers are here occasionally @spikerguy @tsys , their own forums are exceptional.

Yes we have not updated the kernel to 5.7 yet, Once our kernel developer @tsys  upgrade his branch to 5.7 then we will get it ready for the users. 

Thank you for the reminder.

[xmixahlx]

i figured y'all were.waiting for the next stable release. linus has said 5.7 is expected over the weekend.

[diodelass]

I have been noticing this problem too (for quite a while, I think, maybe ever since 20.02 or so) - on the 5GHz band with good signal conditions, it seems to top out at 54 Mbit/sec, which is the characteristic maximum link speed of 802.11a. This is odd, because even very old 802.11n gear (e.g. my 2008 Thinkpad T500) can easily pull close to 150 Mbit/s, and I recall measuring a throughput very near the maximum single-link capacity for 802.11ac (433 Mbit/sec) shortly after I first obtained my Pinebook Pro. That was with an older, better Comcast wireless access point, though, so I haven't been sure if this was something else on my end that was causing the apparent fallback to 802.11a.

I do feel it bears mentioning that 54 Mbit/s is still plenty for the majority of my needs, and I have other ways (e.g. USB) of transferring data off-platform at high speeds - it's just nice when the hardware works to its full specifications. With fully-functioning 802.11ac support, the Pinebook Pro is actually my fastest wireless device of any class, which is really something.

Anyway, it's good to know that this is a known issue with work being done to improve it. I only wish I had the familiarity with Linux kernel development and device firmware necessary to contribute to this myself.

[nekojet]

Thanks for the dmesg suggestion.  It seems like the firmware is only a few months old:
[   10.038083] brcmfmac: brcmf_c_preinit_dcmds: Firmware: BCM4345/9 wl0: Feb 11 2020 11:54:51 version 7.45.96.61 (be7af2d@shgit) (r745790) FWID 01-a41d86bd es7.c5.n4.a3

And from inxi -F, the wireless adapter chipset does not even show:
Network:   Message: No ARM data found for this feature.
          IF-ID-1: docker0 state: down mac: 02:42:b9:43:98:13
          IF-ID-2: wlan0 state: up mac: c0:84:7d:25:39:fa

And Package Manager shows: ap6256-firmware 2020.02-1 (for the ap6256 wifi/bt module) was installed.

I'm running the same configuration. When I initially installed 20.04 to the eMMC, Wi-Fi worked on both 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz. I didn't test the speed because the first thing I did was an update (sudo pacman -Syu). After the update, it stopped displaying the 5 GHz connection as an option (so that's a slightly different result). 2.4 GHz works fine.

So I'm having that hiccup. If everything worked perfectly I'd never learn anything, so it's all good.

[UPDATE: 2020.05.30]

I started from scratch with the Manjaro ARM 20.04 image, verified that my 5 GHz connection was working (and speedy), configured Pacman to ignore:

ap6256-firmware

then did the full upgrade (sudo pacman -Syu).  This left:

ap6256-firmware 2020.01-1

in place, instead of upgrading to:

ap6256-firmware 2020.02-1

After the upgrade completed, I retained full 5 GHz Wi-Fi functionality (and speed).  Thanks for the clues!

Cheers!