Re: New laptop: AC 9461/9560: iwm or iwlwifi?

On Fri, 28 Oct 2022, Andrea Venturoli wrote:

> Hello.
>
> I have a StarLite laptop where I installed 13.1, but I can't seem to make 
> WiFi work.
>
> It features the following chip:
>> iwm0@pci0:0:12:0:       class=0x028000 rev=0x06 hdr=0x00 vendor=0x8086 
>> device=0x31dc subvendor=0x8086 subdevice=0x0264
>>     vendor     = 'Intel Corporation'
>>     device     = 'Gemini Lake PCH CNVi WiFi'
>>     class      = network
>
>
> By default, as can be seen, iwm attaches to it and recognizes it as 9560:
>> iwm0: <Intel(R) Dual Band Wireless AC 9560> mem 0x91118000-0x9111bfff at 
>> device 12.0 on pci0
>> iwm0: hw rev 0x310, fw ver 34.3125811985.0, address 20:1e:88:78:ac:3a
>
> Then it spits out a lot of debug info and ends up nagging with repeated 
> "iwm0: could not initiate scan".
>
>
>
> So I put 'devmatch_blocklist="if_iwm"' in rc.conf, in order to try iwlwifi: 
> strangely, it attachs but thinks this is an AC 9461!
>
>> iwlwifi0: Detected Intel(R) Wireless-AC 9461, REV=0x312
>
> Then, like iwm, it spits out a lot of errors and the network does not work.

That is also not good but something I can help with working on.


> Before digging in it more deeply:
> _ can anyone tell for sure what this card is? 9461 or 9560?

It likely is a 9461.  There's a bunch of exceptions to various chipsets
incl. the 9560, which iwlwifi is aware off, which determine the correct
version beyond PCI IDs.


> _ what should I use? iwm? iwlwifi? Anything else?

I would suggest to start with iwlwifi in this case.  Could you please
share the full iwlwifi parts from a bootverbose, as this is peculiar
case I haven't had much feedback on in the last year.  Also to help
with your problems mentioned above.



> _ is this expected to work on 13.1? Do I really need to upgrade to stable? 
> Could I cherry-pick something in order to deviate the least from release?

You should go to stable/13 (or main).  13.1-R will not make you happy
and/or I'll likely not be able to help much on anymore.


> I know a lot of work has been going on and I've seen many info through the 
> mailing lists and on the wiki. However, I find it hard to recap all these 
> info. Sorry.

Sorry about that.  Yes there is a lot of things to sort out still;  as
those settle, hopefully it'll be easier to give a good status.

Lots of joy,
/bz

-- 
Bjoern A. Zeeb                                                     r15:7