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How to disable XR819 Wi-Fi completely?


lopau

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Does anyone know if the Zero's on board WiFi chip XR819 can be disabled? The RJ45 is disabled by default, so there must be a way to disable the XR819 - right?

Any thought appreciated.

Edited by tkaiser
Splitted off from 'Orange Pi Zero went to the market' thread
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Huh? Ethernet isn't disabled by default and Wi-Fi can be disabled -- see post #37 in this very same thread here (also remove the xradio... occurences from /etc/modules to prevent warnings in dmesg output)

 

Oh, my bad. Re WiFi, is there a way to disable it completely. That is, even during boot. My reading is that 

(sleep 60 && echo 000 >/proc/driver/wifi-pm/power) &

can only be executed in shell. I wonder if there's a way to have it disabled before the shell is loaded (perhaps in BIOS?).

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Wi-Fi isn't active until the driver is loaded. So by removing stuff from /etc/modules you ensure that Wi-Fi is disabled. The above command just ensures that the Wi-Fi chip is cut off from power. A hardware 'solution' is possible too: https://forum.armbian.com/index.php/topic/759-tutorial-i2s-on-orange-pi-h3/page-2

 

But isn't the WiFi chip powered (and perhaps radiating?) even before the driver is loaded? The driver shouldn't power the chip though - right?

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It's off by default: https://github.com/igorpecovnik/lib/blob/master/config/fex/orangepizero.fex#L566 -- so why don't you simply follow the advise to edit /etc/modules and are happy having disabled Wi-Fi then?

 

Sure. I'm just learning and trying to see what's off and what's not. Looking at that FEX, how do you tell that PA20 is the port for the WiFi chip?

 

I'm not sure if I'm understanding it right, but if it was disabled shouldn't module_power0_vol (power0 voltage?) be 0 instead?

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So if you really want to use I2S on this board the best option would be to unsolder R69 and use one of its pads.

Hi

 

I'm looking at how the WiFi chip is powered but I'm slightly confused. You said to unsolder R69, but is there a resistor across it though? Isn't it just 2 pads? Same for R66.

 

You'd want to solder the wire only to the pad on the positive side too - right?

 

RP4xTUo.png

 

Is WIFI-POWER-EN in the schematic PA20?

 

Thanks

Edited by tkaiser
Moved away from I2S Tutorial thread
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There is a lot of choice in the Orange family.

Why don't you choose a board without WIFI ?

My opinion is that WIFI on a SBC is a bad idea except ,of course,in the tablet case.

USB dongles are much easier to install in a good signal / little interference place.

Easy to disable too :)

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Sure. I just like the Zero's small size. If I'm understanding @tkaiser correctly, disabling a module in the fex switches off the component completely. That is, at no point in time the component is powered up. But how does this actually work on low level? Is XR819's power line an output of the SoC? So the fex strictly defines the state of the power line?

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Also if you remove U56 (the LDO for wifi) that conveniently leaves you that pin (PCM0_DOUT) spare to use for its' god-given purpose, that is, driving WS2812B leds (for example).  The Allwinner I2S hardware is dope- it has its own PLL so you can overclock it to crazy speeds (e.g. 100mbs)

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On 1/22/2017 at 6:02 PM, tkaiser said:

Wi-Fi isn't active until the driver is loaded. So by removing stuff from /etc/modules you ensure that Wi-Fi is disabled. 

Yes - /etc/modules is the best way to disable the modules permanently.

For disable it temporarly @lopau could use the follwing commands in /etc/rc.local or in a shell-script:
 

ifconfig wlan0 down
rmmod xradio_wlan
rmmod mac80211
rmmod cfg80211

 

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