Activating Afterburner (125Mbps) on the recent wl-500g units

**Oleg** · 01-11-2004, 19:33

Well, yet another piece of information.

The utility above does not work with bcm4712 based units (wrt54g v2.0), so probably most have just downloaded it, tried to run and thinked this utility is a fake. Very Happy

Further investigation using the info provided by Kaloz (thanks!) showed, that 4712 does not have a srom mapped to the PCI, instead flags showed that 4306 on the silicon backplane bus. But according to broadcom sources it's not possible to access srom this bus. Shocked

With help of Kaloz, I've discovered, that instead boardflags are stored in the nvram.
For his board boardflags == 0x0188, I've suggested him to turn magic afterburner bit with

Code:

nvram set boardflags=0x0388
nvram commit

and reload the wl.o module. And magically, wl.o has enabled afterburner on his wrt54g v2.0:

Code:

<Kaloz> @OpenWrt:/# wl gmode 6
<Kaloz> eth1: Invalid argument
<Kaloz> gmode   Set the 54g Mode (LegacyB|Auto||GOnly|BDeferred|Performance|LRS|Afterburner)
<Kaloz> but openwrt uses the afterburner drivers anyway :)
<oleg__> ok, try setting boardflags to 0x0388, commit changes and reload wl.o
<Kaloz> lol
<Kaloz> @OpenWrt:/# wl gmode 6
<Kaloz> @OpenWrt:/# wl gmode
<Kaloz> 54g Mode is 54g Afterburner (6)
<oleg__> cool.
<oleg__> afterburner demystified.

No utility required for bcm4712 devices.

P.S. Note to James of sveasoft - consider sending us a few bucks before adding this to your new cool firmware and authoring this at sveasoft forums.

**Styno** · 01-11-2004, 20:07

Just discovered my unit supports Afterburner as well, so I'm going for it. But first a question though:
Do the nvram settings survive a firmware up/downgrade or restore to factory settings? Or do you have to set them everytime a new firmware is uploaded?

**Oleg** · 01-11-2004, 20:18

Originally Posted by Styno

Just discovered my unit supports Afterburner as well, so I'm going for it. But first a question though:
Do the nvram settings survive a firmware up/downgrade or restore to factory settings? Or do you have to set them everytime a new firmware is uploaded?

wl500g, wlhdd and wrt54g before 2.0 uses separate srom for this, so you need to do this once.

**Styno** · 01-11-2004, 20:28

Originally Posted by Oleg

wl500g, wlhdd and wrt54g before 2.0 uses separate srom for this, so you need to do this once.

Perhaps I misunderstand you, but I was mentioning the nvram settings. These are stored in the WL-500g flash. So how about these settings?

Hmm, just did the upgrade using 'b43_srom.mips' which seemed to go well but after reboot I checked for status and it returnes:

Code:

[wl500g]$wl gmode
54g Mode is 54g Auto (1)

[wl500g]$ nvram get wl_afterburner
auto

Is this correct?

**Oleg** · 01-11-2004, 20:40

Originally Posted by Styno

Perhaps I misunderstand you, but I was mentioning the nvram settings. These are stored in the WL-500g flash. So how about these settings?

ok, now i see. yes, you need to do this after each firmware upgrade.

Hmm, just did the upgrade using 'b43_srom.mips' which seemed to go well but after reboot I checked for status and it returnes:

Code:

[wl500g]$wl gmode
54g Mode is 54g Auto (1)

[wl500g]$ nvram get wl_afterburner
auto

Is this correct?

try dumping srom - is it correct? Also, check wl0_afterburner.
You can turn afterburner on using

Code:

wl gmode 6

to see if it supported.

**Styno** · 01-11-2004, 20:55

Originally Posted by Oleg

try dumping srom - is it correct?

Code:

/tmp/harddisk/wlan/b43_srom.mips 14e44320
Found pci device 14e44320 at /proc/bus/pci/01/02.0@0x40002000
Enabling device...
Device memory mapped ok
SROM CRC ok

0000  4001 0000 120f 1043 4320 8000 0002 0002
0008  17f0 1800 0000 0000 ffff ffff ffff ffff
0010  ffff ffff ffff ffff ffff ffff ffff ffff
0018  ffff ffff ffff ffff ffff ffff ffff ffff
0020  ffff ffff ffff ffff 000e a690 7ec8 ffff
0028  ffff ffff ffff ffff ffff ffff 3015 11b0
0030  fb98 fe4f ffff ffff 003c ffff ffff ffff
0038  003e 020f ffff 0000 0000 0000 0000 f501

This seems ok to me.

Originally Posted by Oleg

Also, check wl0_afterburner.

This seems ok too as it returns:

Code:

nvram get wl0_afterburner
auto

Originally Posted by Oleg

You can turn afterburner on using

Code:

wl gmode 6

to see if it supported.

This returns an error:

Code:

eth2: Invalid argument
gmode   Set the 54g Mode (LegacyB|Auto||GOnly|BDeferred|Performance|LRS|Afterburner )

But this seems to work, but what does the result mean?:

Code:

wl gmode Afterburner 
gmode   Set the 54g Mode (LegacyB|Auto||GOnly|BDeferred|Performance|LRS|Afterburner )

Which seems to be ok, but I still get:

Code:

wl gmode
54g Mode is 54g Auto (1)

**Oleg** · 01-11-2004, 21:14

Post an output for the

Code:

wl revinfo

**Styno** · 01-11-2004, 21:40

Originally Posted by Oleg

Post an output for the

Code:

wl revinfo

Code:

vendorid: 0x14e4
deviceid: 0x4320
radiorev: 0x22050000
chipnum: 0x4306
chiprev: 0x3
corerev: 0x5
boardid: 0x120f
boardvendor: 0x1043
boardrev: 0x15
driverrev: 0x1030200
ucoderev: 0x1180015
bus: 0x1

Edit: Antiloop asked me to do:

Code:

wl cap
ap sta afterburner

which shows that afterburner is enabled I think

Thanks Oleg and Antiloop

**Oleg** · 02-11-2004, 07:25

Originally Posted by Styno

Edit: Antiloop asked me to do:

Code:

wl cap
ap sta afterburner

which shows that afterburner is enabled I think

Thanks Oleg and Antiloop

Well, you probably has non-afterburner client associated to your wl500g.

**Wesleyrpg** · 03-11-2004, 01:46

hi, how are you?

i'm a newbie, actually this is my first post so please be nice. I bought a WL-500 the other day and had absoulutely no problems upgrading the WL-500g to afterburner mode.

The only problem is how do i know/test the mini-pci card built into my laptop, to see if it supports this 'afterburner' mode and if so how do i upgrade the mini pci card itself?

The mini-pci card is based on the Intel 2200BG chipset?

Many thanks

Adam

**Antiloop** · 03-11-2004, 08:21

Originally Posted by Wesleyrpg

hi, how are you?

i'm a newbie, actually this is my first post so please be nice. I bought a WL-500 the other day and had absoulutely no problems upgrading the WL-500g to afterburner mode.

The only problem is how do i know/test the mini-pci card built into my laptop, to see if it supports this 'afterburner' mode and if so how do i upgrade the mini pci card itself?

The mini-pci card is based on the Intel 2200BG chipset?

Many thanks

Adam

no need to greet eachother (see faq) we greet everytime already by being at the board

anyway the intel card is not 'speedbooster' or 'afterburner' capable, and thus not supporting 125mbit mode.

**Styno** · 03-11-2004, 08:29

Originally Posted by Wesleyrpg

...
The mini-pci card is based on the Intel 2200BG chipset?
...

Afterburner only works with certain broadcom chipsets. It aint gonna work on your Intel card.

**Wesleyrpg** · 03-11-2004, 13:06

i done a bit more research today on the intel 2200BG chipset, and you guys are right, afterburner definately aint going to happen with this card, which brings me to a few more questions.

1. Is there any noticable difference between 54M and 125M?

2. Does anyone know where i can get a mini-pci card that supports this 'afterburner' mode, and also supports two antennas?

Thanks

**Spacejam** · 08-11-2004, 17:03

Originally Posted by Oleg

With help of Kaloz, I've discovered, that instead boardflags are stored in the nvram.
For his board boardflags == 0x0188, I've suggested him to turn magic afterburner bit with
nvram set boardflags=0x0388
nvram commit
and reload the wl.o module. And magically, wl.o has enabled afterburner on his wrt54g v2.0:

Hi Oleg, Just want to know the command to reload wl.o??
Thanks. Oh..I'm using WRT54G v2.0

**Spacejam** · 08-11-2004, 18:28

I have try running the command below...1 and 2 work fine..
3.How to reload wl.o? Any command to reload wl.o?

1. nvram set boardflags=0x0388
2. nvram commit
3. reload wl.o ???

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