Intel BE200NGW WiFi 7 M.2 Card

[geerlingguy]

Intel's BE200NGW WiFi 7 M.2 Card is an inexpensive gateway into fast up-to-5 Gbps WiFi, using the 360 MHz channel width afforded on the 6 GHz band...

I have ordered a card and hope to test it soon!

Related issues:

• Waveshare PCIe to M.2 E-Key HAT+ (for wireless) #709
• Test Intel AX210NGW WiFi 6E M.2 card #120

[geerlingguy]

Note: A few other users, like @thewade and @wdebowski, have been testing the BE200 on Pi 5 already.

See: #120 (comment)

[geerlingguy]

@thewade got it working on Ubuntu 24.04, and iwlwifi is included out of the box. (So no need for a kernel recompile.)

But on Pi OS, I don't think it is (I can check). If not, have to recompile the kernel with iwlwifi enabled:

 Symbol: IWLWIFI [=n]                                                                                            │   
  │ Type  : tristate                                                                                                │   
  │ Prompt: Intel Wireless WiFi Next Gen AGN - Wireless-N/Advanced-N/Ultimate-N (iwlwifi)                           │   
  │   Location:                                                                                                     │   
  │     -> Device Drivers                                                                                           │   
  │       -> Network device support (NETDEVICES [=y])                                                               │   
  │         -> Wireless LAN (WLAN [=y])                                                                             │   
  │ (1)       -> Intel devices (WLAN_VENDOR_INTEL [=y])                                                             │   
  │   Defined at drivers/net/wireless/intel/iwlwifi/Kconfig:2                                                       │   
  │   Depends on: NETDEVICES [=y] && WLAN [=y] && WLAN_VENDOR_INTEL [=y] && PCI [=y] && HAS_IOMEM [=y] && CFG80211  │   
  │   Selects: FW_LOADER [=y] 

Then you can check dmesg with the WiFi chip connected (dmesg | grep iwlwifi, it should spit out what firmware it's looking for—I think. Otherwise glance inside the git tree for linux-firmware and find the right files.

For example, if you need version 89:

wget https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/firmware/linux-firmware.git/plain/iwlwifi-ty-a0-gf-a0-89.ucode
wget https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/firmware/linux-firmware.git/plain/iwlwifi-ty-a0-gf-a0.pnvm

Stash those two files inside /lib/firmware and reboot.

More info about Intel WiFi firmware: https://wireless.wiki.kernel.org/en/users/Drivers/iwlwifi https://wireless.docs.kernel.org/en/latest/en/users/drivers/iwlwifi.html (note that you can grab more bleeding-edge firmware from that site, it feeds the linux-firmware repo).

[thewade]

I saw your live stream and you mentioned you might want to use the Intel chip in access point mode with 6GHz.

Unfortunately, that might prove to be tricky due to the way regulatory works with Intel cards. In order to determine if you are in a regulatory region that supports the 6GHz band it scans nearby networks to pull the country info from them. The term they use for this is Location Aware Regulatory.

When using the chip in access point mode however it cannot do the scan and the 6GHz band remains locked.

Someone proposed a patch that allows for the scan but it hasn’t been accepted:
http://lists.infradead.org/pipermail/hostap/2024-July/042824.html

Even with the fix it isn’t great solution, cause if there are no nearby wireless networks broadcasting the country info then it will never determine the regulatory region.

I have never tried to build an OpenWRT access point myself. The OpenWRT community might have other tricks and hacks to get around this.

[geerlingguy]

@BennyE posted some info for getting the card up and running in #690, and the card is now up on the site: https://pipci.jeffgeerling.com/cards_network/intel-be200-wifi-7.html

[Archfx]

I was able to get the most out of BE200NGW with CM4 on Debian. I am using RaspAP for the router functionalities. So far so good including the Wifi repeater mode (WiFi Client mode and AP mode at once).

I have documented my process here in my blog if anyone is curious.

[geerlingguy]

I've also noticed over in #709 that the iwlwifi module is now included in Pi OS by default, at least as of January this year, so no need for a kernel recompile, just need the firmware!

See: raspberrypi/linux#6497

A few other notes testing the BE200 on a Pi 5 with the latest Pi OS:

• wavemon didn't recognize the card, but I could compile the latest version myself and it worked
• I had to install firmware version 83 with 6.6.y, and that seemed to work fine: Waveshare PCIe to M.2 E-Key HAT+ (for wireless) #709 (comment)

[geerlingguy]

I've updated the BE200 page with instructions for getting it going more easily with the latest version of Pi OS: https://pipci.jeffgeerling.com/cards_network/intel-be200-wifi-7.html

[geerlingguy]

FYI, this card apparently supports PCIe Gen 4x1 speeds. I benchmarked my connection on Gen 2x1 (5 GT/s, in linked issue on the Waveshare card, at 1.2-1.4 Gbps), and then again with PCIe Gen 3 (via dtparam=pciex1_gen=3 in boot config)... and now I'm touching on 2 Gbps!

$ iperf3 -c 10.0.2.15
Connecting to host 10.0.2.15, port 5201
[  5] local 10.0.2.245 port 33668 connected to 10.0.2.15 port 5201
[ ID] Interval           Transfer     Bitrate         Retr  Cwnd
[  5]   0.00-1.00   sec   194 MBytes  1.63 Gbits/sec    0   3.13 MBytes       
[  5]   1.00-2.00   sec   219 MBytes  1.84 Gbits/sec    0   3.13 MBytes       
[  5]   2.00-3.00   sec   220 MBytes  1.85 Gbits/sec    0   3.32 MBytes       
[  5]   3.00-4.00   sec   220 MBytes  1.85 Gbits/sec    0   3.32 MBytes       
[  5]   4.00-5.00   sec   211 MBytes  1.77 Gbits/sec    0   3.32 MBytes       
[  5]   5.00-6.00   sec   206 MBytes  1.73 Gbits/sec    0   3.54 MBytes       
[  5]   6.00-7.00   sec   219 MBytes  1.84 Gbits/sec    0   3.54 MBytes       
[  5]   7.00-8.00   sec   220 MBytes  1.85 Gbits/sec    0   3.54 MBytes       
[  5]   8.00-9.00   sec   238 MBytes  1.99 Gbits/sec    0   3.54 MBytes       
[  5]   9.00-10.00  sec   238 MBytes  1.99 Gbits/sec    0   3.54 MBytes       
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
[ ID] Interval           Transfer     Bitrate         Retr
[  5]   0.00-10.00  sec  2.13 GBytes  1.83 Gbits/sec    0             sender
[  5]   0.00-10.00  sec  2.13 GBytes  1.83 Gbits/sec                  receiver

Even bidirectional gets consistently over 1 Gbps with PCIe Gen 3 speeds:

$ iperf3 -c 10.0.2.15 --bidir
Connecting to host 10.0.2.15, port 5201
[  5] local 10.0.2.245 port 33504 connected to 10.0.2.15 port 5201
[  7] local 10.0.2.245 port 33512 connected to 10.0.2.15 port 5201
[ ID][Role] Interval           Transfer     Bitrate         Retr  Cwnd
[  5][TX-C]   0.00-1.00   sec   171 MBytes  1.44 Gbits/sec    0   2.79 MBytes       
[  7][RX-C]   0.00-1.00   sec  18.0 MBytes   151 Mbits/sec                  
[  5][TX-C]   1.00-2.00   sec   180 MBytes  1.51 Gbits/sec    0   2.97 MBytes       
[  7][RX-C]   1.00-2.00   sec  35.3 MBytes   296 Mbits/sec                  
[  5][TX-C]   2.00-3.00   sec   124 MBytes  1.04 Gbits/sec    0   2.97 MBytes       
[  7][RX-C]   2.00-3.00   sec  57.1 MBytes   480 Mbits/sec                  
[  5][TX-C]   3.00-4.00   sec   104 MBytes   870 Mbits/sec    0   2.97 MBytes       
[  7][RX-C]   3.00-4.00   sec  72.3 MBytes   607 Mbits/sec                  
[  5][TX-C]   4.00-5.00   sec   149 MBytes  1.25 Gbits/sec    0   3.37 MBytes       
[  7][RX-C]   4.00-5.00   sec  59.6 MBytes   500 Mbits/sec                  
[  5][TX-C]   5.00-6.00   sec   168 MBytes  1.41 Gbits/sec    0   3.37 MBytes       
[  7][RX-C]   5.00-6.00   sec  56.1 MBytes   471 Mbits/sec                  
[  5][TX-C]   6.00-7.00   sec   156 MBytes  1.31 Gbits/sec    0   3.37 MBytes       
[  7][RX-C]   6.00-7.00   sec  65.6 MBytes   550 Mbits/sec                  
[  5][TX-C]   7.00-8.00   sec   161 MBytes  1.35 Gbits/sec    0   3.37 MBytes       
[  7][RX-C]   7.00-8.00   sec  62.7 MBytes   526 Mbits/sec                  
[  5][TX-C]   8.00-9.00   sec   156 MBytes  1.31 Gbits/sec    0   3.37 MBytes       
[  7][RX-C]   8.00-9.00   sec  65.2 MBytes   547 Mbits/sec                  
[  5][TX-C]   9.00-10.00  sec   155 MBytes  1.30 Gbits/sec    0   3.37 MBytes       
[  7][RX-C]   9.00-10.00  sec  69.5 MBytes   583 Mbits/sec                  
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
[ ID][Role] Interval           Transfer     Bitrate         Retr
[  5][TX-C]   0.00-10.00  sec  1.49 GBytes  1.28 Gbits/sec    0             sender
[  5][TX-C]   0.00-10.00  sec  1.49 GBytes  1.28 Gbits/sec                  receiver
[  7][RX-C]   0.00-10.00  sec   563 MBytes   472 Mbits/sec                  sender
[  7][RX-C]   0.00-10.00  sec   562 MBytes   471 Mbits/sec                  receiver

iperf Done.

Very impressive!