Re: Intel Alder Lake iwlwifi update

From: Kevin Oberman <rkoberman_at_gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2025 00:57:58 UTC
On Sat, Jun 28, 2025 at 8:24 PM Kevin Oberman <rkoberman@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Fri, Jun 27, 2025 at 10:47 PM Kevin Oberman <rkoberman@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> On Fri, Jun 27, 2025 at 3:53 PM Bjoern A. Zeeb <bz@freebsd.org> wrote:
>>
>>> On Fri, 27 Jun 2025, Kevin Oberman wrote:
>>>
>>> > Sorry that this took so long. I finally got around to trying an iperf3
>>> test
>>> > and it looks just about the same my speedtest. I am really surprised
>>> at the
>>> > upload speed. It's about what I was seeing using netspeed, but that is
>>> > about at my max upload of 40M. ifconfig shows media: IEEE 802.11
>>> Wireless
>>> > Ethernet VHT mode 11ac.
>>>
>>> I assume the channel is equally vht/80 and the linuxkpi sysctl would not
>>> show anything else as before.
>>>
>>>
>>> Your Cwnd stays very low.  Can you try UDP as well?
>>>
>>>
>>> A normal TX run here:
>>>
>>> [ ID] Interval           Transfer     Bitrate         Retr  Cwnd
>>> [  5]   0.00-1.01   sec  95.8 MBytes   797 Mbits/sec    0   1.62 MBytes
>>> [  5]   1.01-2.01   sec  99.8 MBytes   836 Mbits/sec    0   1.62 MBytes
>>> [  5]   2.01-3.01   sec  99.6 MBytes   837 Mbits/sec    0   1.62 MBytes
>>> [  5]   3.01-4.01   sec   101 MBytes   842 Mbits/sec    0   1.62 MBytes
>>> [  5]   4.01-5.00   sec  98.6 MBytes   835 Mbits/sec    0   1.62 MBytes
>>> [  5]   5.00-6.00   sec   100 MBytes   839 Mbits/sec    0   1.62 MBytes
>>> [  5]   6.00-7.00   sec   100 MBytes   839 Mbits/sec    0   1.62 MBytes
>>> [  5]   7.00-8.01   sec  94.5 MBytes   790 Mbits/sec    0   1.62 MBytes
>>> [  5]   8.01-9.01   sec   101 MBytes   847 Mbits/sec    0   1.62 MBytes
>>> [  5]   9.01-10.01  sec   100 MBytes   840 Mbits/sec    0   1.62 MBytes
>>> - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
>>> [ ID] Interval           Transfer     Bitrate         Retr
>>> [  5]   0.00-10.01  sec   991 MBytes   831 Mbits/sec    0
>>> sender
>>> [  5]   0.00-10.02  sec   991 MBytes   830 Mbits/sec
>>> receiver
>>>
>>>
>>> And a TX run with retransmit (you can see the recovery):
>>>
>>> [ ID] Interval           Transfer     Bitrate         Retr  Cwnd
>>> [  5]   0.00-1.00   sec  90.2 MBytes   753 Mbits/sec    0   1.62 MBytes
>>> [  5]   1.00-2.03   sec  73.0 MBytes   600 Mbits/sec    0   1.62 MBytes
>>> [  5]   2.03-3.01   sec  49.0 MBytes   417 Mbits/sec  271    313 KBytes
>>> [  5]   3.01-4.00   sec  43.0 MBytes   364 Mbits/sec    0    483 KBytes
>>> [  5]   4.00-5.00   sec  47.0 MBytes   394 Mbits/sec    0    615 KBytes
>>> [  5]   5.00-6.06   sec  58.9 MBytes   466 Mbits/sec    0    729 KBytes
>>> [  5]   6.06-7.01   sec  54.1 MBytes   480 Mbits/sec    0    811 KBytes
>>> [  5]   7.01-8.00   sec  89.4 MBytes   752 Mbits/sec    0    871 KBytes
>>> [  5]   8.00-9.00   sec  98.8 MBytes   829 Mbits/sec    0    914 KBytes
>>> [  5]   9.00-10.01  sec  98.0 MBytes   817 Mbits/sec    0    943 KBytes
>>> - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
>>> [ ID] Interval           Transfer     Bitrate         Retr
>>> [  5]   0.00-10.01  sec   702 MBytes   588 Mbits/sec  271
>>> sender
>>> [  5]   0.00-10.02  sec   702 MBytes   587 Mbits/sec
>>> receiver
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Here's the server side for a -R run (RX as seen from client side):
>>>
>>> [ ID] Interval           Transfer     Bitrate         Retr  Cwnd
>>> [  5]   0.00-1.01   sec  25.4 MBytes   212 Mbits/sec    0    752 KBytes
>>> [  5]   1.01-2.00   sec  23.5 MBytes   198 Mbits/sec    0    795 KBytes
>>> [  5]   2.00-3.00   sec  23.5 MBytes   197 Mbits/sec    0    835 KBytes
>>> [  5]   3.00-4.01   sec  21.9 MBytes   183 Mbits/sec    0    873 KBytes
>>> [  5]   4.01-5.01   sec  22.2 MBytes   187 Mbits/sec    0    908 KBytes
>>> [  5]   5.01-6.00   sec  23.1 MBytes   195 Mbits/sec    0    944 KBytes
>>> [  5]   6.00-7.01   sec  27.0 MBytes   225 Mbits/sec    0    983 KBytes
>>> [  5]   7.01-8.01   sec  23.4 MBytes   196 Mbits/sec    0   1017 KBytes
>>> [  5]   8.01-9.01   sec  23.2 MBytes   195 Mbits/sec    0   1.02 MBytes
>>> [  5]   9.01-10.01  sec  26.4 MBytes   221 Mbits/sec    0   1.13 MBytes
>>> [  5]  10.01-10.01  sec   128 KBytes   606 Mbits/sec    0   1.13 MBytes
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Bjoern A. Zeeb                                                     r15:7
>>>
>>
>> Since both directions were the same, I'll keep it short.
>> Transmit (Upload):
>> [ ID] Interval           Transfer     Bitrate         Jitter
>>  Lost/Total Datagrams
>> [  5]   0.00-10.00  sec  1.25 MBytes  1.05 Mbits/sec  0.000 ms  0/899
>> (0%)  sender
>> [  5]   0.00-10.00  sec  1.25 MBytes  1.05 Mbits/sec  0.275 ms  0/899
>> (0%)  receiver
>> Receive (Download):
>> [ ID] Interval           Transfer     Bitrate         Jitter
>>  Lost/Total Datagrams
>> [  5]   0.00-10.00  sec  1.25 MBytes  1.05 Mbits/sec  0.000 ms  0/898
>> (0%)  sender
>> [  5]   0.00-10.00  sec  1.25 MBytes  1.05 Mbits/sec  0.572 ms  0/898
>> (0%)  receiver
>>
>
> Been too long since I used iperf2 and this is the first time I've used
> iperf3. Forgot to set the bitrate, do it defaulted to 1Mbs.
> Download still sucks.
> [ ID] Interval           Transfer     Bitrate         Jitter    Lost/Total
> Datagrams
> [  5]   0.00-10.00  sec  59.6 MBytes  50.0 Mbits/sec  0.000 ms  0/42824
> (0%)  sender
> [  5]   0.00-10.00  sec  38.8 MBytes  32.5 Mbits/sec  0.403 ms
>  12592/40453 (31%)  receiver
> Upload looks much better:
> [ ID] Interval           Transfer     Bitrate         Jitter    Lost/Total
> Datagrams
> [  5]   0.00-10.00  sec   715 MBytes   600 Mbits/sec  0.000 ms  0/513750
> (0%)  sender
> [  5]   0.00-12.55  sec   715 MBytes   478 Mbits/sec  0.099 ms  0/513750
> (0%)  receiver
>
> Really annoying that the download speed is what I'd like to see improved.
> Router? It's an old ASUS released in 2016.
> --
> Kevin Oberman, Part time kid herder and retired Network Engineer
> E-mail: rkoberman@gmail.com
> PGP Fingerprint: D03FB98AFA78E3B78C1694B318AB39EF1B055683
>
Some things fixed a couple of issues I've had.

1. I can now associate with a 5g network even though a 2.4g is available.
It also shows up in  "list aps" output.
wlan0: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 1500
options=0
ether 70:a8:d3:df:3c:de
inet 192.168.1.5 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 192.168.1.255
inet6 fe80::72a8:d3ff:fedf:3cde%wlan0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x3
groups: wlan
ssid xxxxxx_5G channel 157 (5785 MHz 11a vht/80+) bssid c0:89:ab:60:ae:63
regdomain FCC country US authmode WPA2/802.11i privacy ON
deftxkey UNDEF AES-CCM 3:128-bit AES-CCM ucast:128-bit txpower 17
bmiss 7 mcastrate 6 mgmtrate 6 scanvalid 60 ampdutx -ampdurx
ampdulimit 64k ampdudensity 4 -amsdutx amsdurx shortgi -ldpctx ldpcrx
-uapsd vht vht40 vht80 vht160 -vht80p80 wme roaming MANUAL
parent interface: iwlwifi0
media: IEEE 802.11 Wireless Ethernet VHT mode 11ac
status: associated
nd6 options=23<PERFORMNUD,ACCEPT_RTADV,AUTO_LINKLOCAL>

2. Using the same router that would only associate with TKIP, now AES-CCM
works with no issues.

So two issues seem to be fixed.

Still a problem with poor download speeds. Using either Ookla Speedtest or
iperf3, I get excellent upload speed (100M on my Frontier connection) but
only 40M download. I get faster upload on my lan, but download still is
limited to about 40M.
-- 
Kevin Oberman, Part time kid herder and retired Network Engineer
E-mail: rkoberman@gmail.com
PGP Fingerprint: D03FB98AFA78E3B78C1694B318AB39EF1B055683