Return-path: Received: from mail-ob0-f174.google.com ([209.85.214.174]:62598 "EHLO mail-ob0-f174.google.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1751754Ab2HIEpD (ORCPT ); Thu, 9 Aug 2012 00:45:03 -0400 Received: by obbuo13 with SMTP id uo13so70453obb.19 for ; Wed, 08 Aug 2012 21:45:03 -0700 (PDT) MIME-Version: 1.0 In-Reply-To: <502281D9.4030109@openwrt.org> References: <1344344772-49459-1-git-send-email-nbd@openwrt.org> <1344344772-49459-2-git-send-email-nbd@openwrt.org> <1344344772-49459-3-git-send-email-nbd@openwrt.org> <1344344772-49459-4-git-send-email-nbd@openwrt.org> <20120808145531.GB2041@vmraj-lnx.qualcomm.com> <502281D9.4030109@openwrt.org> Date: Thu, 9 Aug 2012 10:15:02 +0530 Message-ID: (sfid-20120809_064509_736442_DE10ACC7) Subject: Re: [PATCH 3.6 4/4] ath9k_hw: enable PA linearization From: Mohammed Shafi To: Felix Fietkau Cc: Rajkumar Manoharan , linux-wireless@vger.kernel.org, linville@tuxdriver.com, rodrigue@qca.qualcomm.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Sender: linux-wireless-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: Hi Felix, On Wed, Aug 8, 2012 at 8:42 PM, Felix Fietkau wrote: > On 2012-08-08 4:55 PM, Rajkumar Manoharan wrote: >> On Tue, Aug 07, 2012 at 03:06:12PM +0200, Felix Fietkau wrote: >>> This feature had been disabled in ath9k because the code to support >>> it was incomplete, but now the code is in sync with the internal QCA >>> codebase, so it's time to enable it. >>> >>> On many newer devices, the calibration is assumed to be done with PA >>> linearization enabled. >>> >>> Tests with a particular AR933x device showed that the signal emitted >>> at full power was highly distorted and unreliable with PA linearization >>> disabled. With this patch, the signal becomes clear and stability >>> is improved. >>> >> We faced stability issues with 938x chipsets when paprd is enabled. The commit >> 6f4810101a629b31b5427872a09ea092cfc5c4bd states one of the issue. Even if it >> helps for AR933x, let us enable it only for that chip alone. > That was in January 2011, lots of bugs have been fixed since then, > initvals have been updated, EEPROM code has changed, ... > > The internal QCA codebase enables PAPRD for all AR93xx devices that > support it, meaning non-PAPRD tx receives much less test coverage there. > > While this issue has only been visible on a particular AR933x device, I > believe this is not the only one that's going to be affected, as the > EEPROM of any new device is calibrated for PAPRD-enabled operation. > > If you don't want to enable it now, when do you think would be the right > time to enable it? Before I sent this patch, I did a detailed code > review to make sure that any obvious code discrepancies in PAPRD between > the internal codebase and ath9k are dealt with. > > What else is needed to get this issue sorted out? > i was working on PAPRD for sometime to ensure that it provides a consistent throughput improvement in all the rates. After some amount of testing where i was able to show it gave a considerable throughput improvement in particular MCS rates/particular attenuation only(in the shielded box, varying the attenuation) and i thought/asked for enabling PAPRD. With the open air and with other even in the shielded environment I could not show any consistent improvement in all attenuation. Infact there are some cases where it proved detrimental to the actual throughput, because of some bugs i suppose. Even with our internal code base i saw there are few work arounds to disable it if the PAPRD fails(PAPRD curve ?) and few more issues cropped up because of this feature. We throw in the towel and stopped tracking the changes. But i am not sure of its current status and its effects in our internal code base. As Raj had suggested we can validate the bug in commit id 6f4810101a629b31b5427872a09ea092cfc5c4bd. thanks! -- thanks, shafi