Transient slow Ethernet on Orange Pi Win (A64)

[rm_]

Basically, just did 3 consecutive runs of iperf3, and they look like this.

And it is not cpufreq, since setting it to performance on all CPU cores does not affect things.

Using the current stable Debian image with kernel 6.1.30. Any ideas?

$ iperf3 -c 192.168.103.156
Connecting to host 192.168.103.156, port 5201
[  4] local 192.168.0.101 port 58758 connected to 192.168.103.156 port 5201
[ ID] Interval           Transfer     Bandwidth       Retr  Cwnd
[  4]   0.00-1.00   sec  27.3 MBytes   229 Mbits/sec    0    201 KBytes       
[  4]   1.00-2.00   sec  26.4 MBytes   222 Mbits/sec    0    195 KBytes       
[  4]   2.00-3.00   sec  26.3 MBytes   221 Mbits/sec    0    195 KBytes       
[  4]   3.00-4.00   sec  26.3 MBytes   220 Mbits/sec    0    204 KBytes       
[  4]   4.00-5.00   sec  26.3 MBytes   220 Mbits/sec    0    206 KBytes       
[  4]   5.00-6.00   sec  26.0 MBytes   218 Mbits/sec    0    218 KBytes       
[  4]   6.00-7.00   sec  26.2 MBytes   220 Mbits/sec    0    198 KBytes       
[  4]   7.00-8.00   sec  26.3 MBytes   221 Mbits/sec    0    204 KBytes       
[  4]   8.00-9.00   sec  26.3 MBytes   220 Mbits/sec    0    181 KBytes       
[  4]   9.00-10.00  sec  25.7 MBytes   216 Mbits/sec    0   5.66 KBytes       
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
[ ID] Interval           Transfer     Bandwidth       Retr
[  4]   0.00-10.00  sec   263 MBytes   221 Mbits/sec    0             sender
[  4]   0.00-10.00  sec   261 MBytes   219 Mbits/sec                  receiver

iperf Done.


$ iperf3 -c 192.168.103.156
Connecting to host 192.168.103.156, port 5201
[  4] local 192.168.0.101 port 49032 connected to 192.168.103.156 port 5201
[ ID] Interval           Transfer     Bandwidth       Retr  Cwnd
[  4]   0.00-1.00   sec  27.8 MBytes   233 Mbits/sec    0    232 KBytes       
[  4]   1.00-2.00   sec  26.1 MBytes   219 Mbits/sec    0    204 KBytes       
[  4]   2.00-3.00   sec  26.3 MBytes   221 Mbits/sec    0    235 KBytes       
[  4]   3.00-4.00   sec  26.6 MBytes   223 Mbits/sec    0    204 KBytes       
[  4]   4.00-5.00   sec  25.9 MBytes   217 Mbits/sec    0    198 KBytes       
[  4]   5.00-6.00   sec  26.2 MBytes   219 Mbits/sec    0    209 KBytes       
[  4]   6.00-7.00   sec  26.3 MBytes   221 Mbits/sec    0    232 KBytes       
[  4]   7.00-8.00   sec  27.0 MBytes   227 Mbits/sec    0    368 KBytes       
[  4]   8.00-9.00   sec  59.2 MBytes   497 Mbits/sec    0    260 KBytes       
[  4]   9.00-10.00  sec   112 MBytes   938 Mbits/sec    0    255 KBytes       
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
[ ID] Interval           Transfer     Bandwidth       Retr
[  4]   0.00-10.00  sec   383 MBytes   322 Mbits/sec    0             sender
[  4]   0.00-10.00  sec   379 MBytes   318 Mbits/sec                  receiver

iperf Done.

$ iperf3 -c 192.168.103.156
Connecting to host 192.168.103.156, port 5201
[  4] local 192.168.0.101 port 44610 connected to 192.168.103.156 port 5201
[ ID] Interval           Transfer     Bandwidth       Retr  Cwnd
[  4]   0.00-1.00   sec   116 MBytes   974 Mbits/sec    0    286 KBytes       
[  4]   1.00-2.00   sec   112 MBytes   939 Mbits/sec    0    280 KBytes       
[  4]   2.00-3.00   sec   112 MBytes   937 Mbits/sec    0    280 KBytes       
[  4]   3.00-4.00   sec   112 MBytes   938 Mbits/sec    0    283 KBytes       
[  4]   4.00-5.00   sec   112 MBytes   938 Mbits/sec    0    277 KBytes       
[  4]   5.00-6.00   sec   112 MBytes   938 Mbits/sec    0    283 KBytes       
[  4]   6.00-7.00   sec   112 MBytes   938 Mbits/sec    0    283 KBytes       
[  4]   7.00-8.00   sec   112 MBytes   938 Mbits/sec    0    277 KBytes       
[  4]   8.00-9.00   sec   112 MBytes   938 Mbits/sec    0    277 KBytes       
[  4]   9.00-10.00  sec   112 MBytes   938 Mbits/sec    0    288 KBytes       
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
[ ID] Interval           Transfer     Bandwidth       Retr
[  4]   0.00-10.00  sec  1.10 GBytes   942 Mbits/sec    0             sender
[  4]   0.00-10.00  sec  1.09 GBytes   938 Mbits/sec                  receiver

iperf Done.

 

Upload has the same problem, except it will ramp up from as low as 50 Mbit to very unstable 500-700.

 

$ iperf3 -c 192.168.103.156 -R
Connecting to host 192.168.103.156, port 5201
Reverse mode, remote host 192.168.103.156 is sending
[  4] local 192.168.0.101 port 47082 connected to 192.168.103.156 port 5201
[ ID] Interval           Transfer     Bandwidth
[  4]   0.00-1.00   sec  5.73 MBytes  48.1 Mbits/sec                  
[  4]   1.00-2.00   sec  5.30 MBytes  44.5 Mbits/sec                  
[  4]   2.00-3.00   sec  5.30 MBytes  44.4 Mbits/sec                  
[  4]   3.00-4.00   sec  5.92 MBytes  49.7 Mbits/sec                  
[  4]   4.00-5.00   sec  6.22 MBytes  52.2 Mbits/sec                  
[  4]   5.00-6.00   sec  5.87 MBytes  49.2 Mbits/sec                  
[  4]   6.00-7.00   sec  5.08 MBytes  42.6 Mbits/sec                  
[  4]   7.00-8.00   sec  6.05 MBytes  50.7 Mbits/sec                  
[  4]   8.00-9.00   sec  5.69 MBytes  47.7 Mbits/sec                  
[  4]   9.00-10.00  sec  6.27 MBytes  52.6 Mbits/sec                  
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
[ ID] Interval           Transfer     Bandwidth       Retr
[  4]   0.00-10.00  sec  60.2 MBytes  50.5 Mbits/sec    0             sender
[  4]   0.00-10.00  sec  57.7 MBytes  48.4 Mbits/sec                  receiver

iperf Done.
$ iperf3 -c 192.168.103.156 -R
Connecting to host 192.168.103.156, port 5201
Reverse mode, remote host 192.168.103.156 is sending
[  4] local 192.168.0.101 port 55344 connected to 192.168.103.156 port 5201
[ ID] Interval           Transfer     Bandwidth
[  4]   0.00-1.00   sec  5.72 MBytes  47.9 Mbits/sec                  
[  4]   1.00-2.00   sec  5.70 MBytes  47.9 Mbits/sec                  
[  4]   2.00-3.00   sec  57.5 MBytes   482 Mbits/sec                  
[  4]   3.00-4.00   sec  76.8 MBytes   644 Mbits/sec                  
[  4]   4.00-5.00   sec  65.5 MBytes   550 Mbits/sec                  
[  4]   5.00-6.00   sec  85.4 MBytes   717 Mbits/sec                  
[  4]   6.00-7.00   sec  77.8 MBytes   653 Mbits/sec                  
[  4]   7.00-8.00   sec  88.6 MBytes   743 Mbits/sec                  
[  4]   8.00-9.00   sec  81.0 MBytes   680 Mbits/sec                  
[  4]   9.00-10.00  sec  78.3 MBytes   657 Mbits/sec                  
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
[ ID] Interval           Transfer     Bandwidth       Retr
[  4]   0.00-10.00  sec   626 MBytes   525 Mbits/sec    0             sender
[  4]   0.00-10.00  sec   623 MBytes   522 Mbits/sec                  receiver

iperf Done.

 

[rm_]

Tried a development image with kernel 6.4.1, the problem is still present.

Also, Orange Pi Prime is affected in the same way.

Edited July 13, 2023 by rm_

[rm_]

Tested with a vanilla Debian image by johang using kernel 6.1.38, and the problem is not present there.

Edited August 21, 2023 by rm_

[Gunjan Gupta]

Thanks for reporting the issue. I will take a look for Orange PI Prime and revert back to you

[Gunjan Gupta]

@rm_ We have found the reason for the issue. It seems to be cause by sun8i-a33-mbus kernel module which provides dynamic frequency scaling for ram i.e if the system is not under too much load, the driver will lower ram frequency to save some power. I tried modifying the driver to see if a higher value for minimum frequency can solve the issue, but even though that works when testing on a running system, it doesn't work on boot. So as a workaround, I am going to disable this driver in the kernel config and raise a PR. Until the fix is merged, as a workaround follow these steps to mitigate the issue on your system

 

Edit the /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf file. Feel free to create it if it doesn't exist. Add the following line to it

blacklist sun8i-a33-mbus

You might also have to run the following command to make sure driver is not loaded from initramfs

sudo update-initramfs -c -k all

Your device should work fine after reboot

[Gunjan Gupta]

Fix is merged. Should work better once newer kernel is available via repository. Meanwhile you can use the above workaround.