SDIO WiFi card is causing issues to SD card

Hi everyone,

I have recently received my Super Classic Mox (A-G-E) with SDIO WiFi card.

MOX booted for the first time, but later on I had problems to boot. Typically it was hanging in a state where the LED is just turned on. So I decided to flash it from USB but again no luck.

I have used the UART cable to see that there are problems with accessing the SD card:
mmc1: error -110 whilst initialising SD card

It indeed helped to eject and insert the SD card back, but still the MOX booted in 1 case out of 20.

Finaly I have removed the SDIO WiFi card and suddenly the MOX started to work as expected. No issues with start and no issues with flashing from USB.

I was surprised to see, that one of the connectors used by SDIO card is soldered to the USB port and connected by extra wire to one of the chips as pictured below:

Have anyone else seen something like this in his MOX with SDIO WiFi card?

Thanks!

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Seems to be related to various people reporting HW problems with SDIO Wi-Fi module, check this thread or this thread. My device clearly has this hotfix. Given there also seems to be a bad contact somewhere, indeed could imagine this has side effects.

Thanks @dg1sek! Looks like the soldering is indeed a feature. :slight_smile:

BTW: PUTTY is showing some noise when connected over GPIO cable AND SDIO WiFi is disconnected. The noise is represented in the log like this:
ÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿ[ 20.085426] IPv6: ADDRCON†(NETDEV_UP): br-guest_turris: link is not ready

@Jan.H Is this expected behavior?

Could somebody who has a working SDIO Wi-Fi module in his MOX please check what he/she gets as output for the following? To me this looks suspicious…

> root@turris:~# dmesg|grep mwifiex
> [   16.793606] mwifiex_sdio mmc0:0001:1: FW download, write iomem (0) failed @ 0
> [   16.805355] mwifiex_sdio mmc0:0001:1: prog_fw failed ret=0xffffffff
> [   16.811897] mwifiex_sdio mmc0:0001:1: info: _mwifiex_fw_dpc: unregister device

Also, on my MOX “iw phy1 info” doesn’t show anything… seems the whole device driver isn’t coming up correctly. Already tried to reflash the MOX and reset everything, and to reseat the module. Nothing helped. Sigh.

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Here you go:

TurrisOS 4.0, Turris Mox
root@Lisa:~# dmesg | grep mwifiex
[ 20.032400] mwifiex_sdio mmc0:0001:1: WLAN is not the winner! Skip FW dnld
[ 20.401915] mwifiex_sdio mmc0:0001:1: WLAN FW is active
[ 20.438324] mwifiex_sdio mmc0:0001:1: Unknown api_id: 3
[ 20.443728] mwifiex_sdio mmc0:0001:1: Unknown api_id: 4
[ 20.449190] mwifiex_sdio mmc0:0001:1: Unknown GET_HW_SPEC TLV type: 0x217
[ 20.475379] mwifiex_sdio mmc0:0001:1: info: MWIFIEX VERSION: mwifiex 1.0 (16.68.1.p197)
[ 20.483889] mwifiex_sdio mmc0:0001:1: driver_version = mwifiex 1.0 (16.68.1.p197)

2 Likes

Thanks! Now I know where to search…

So… I found the problem.

The connector on the MOX-A board that goes up to the SDIO Wi-Fi board was not soldered!
I only could find that once I removed the PCB from the plastic housing and turned it around. This is what I saw:

Zooming in a bit (sorry for the bad quality):

After putting a bit of fresh clean solder on these pins (luckily these are not so fine and I could do it with my equipment… couldn’t have done it on the finer ones on my own):

And… tataaaam… WiFi-SDIO module now works (and the grep mwifiex gives me the result it should).

Turris guys… you should have word with your factory…

5 Likes

Would be nice to know how many others have had this issue. It didn’t even come to my mind to check something like this before I sent my device to warranty repairs (with awful results).

@dg1sek : many thanks for this feedback
I have the same issue of Wi-Fi pins not soldered on module A of my MOX, which leads to undetected WiFi card.
I’ve sent similar photos to the support, and I’m waiting to have their answer on how to fix that.

I also have the extra wire, but my USB port is not soldered to the connector, and I don’t have SD-Card or USB issues

So I suppose what is needed is “simply” soldering these 5 pins.

Honestly these are easy to solder even for beginners. IMHO you don’t take much risk in just doing that and see if it fixes your problem of the SDIO Wi-Fi being detected or not.

Not sure what you mean by “I also have extra wire but my USB port is not soldered to the connector”???

I believe that is a reference to the images I submitted. There the USB port is somehow soldered to the board.

@Mossroy Am I correct?

Yes, sorry if I was unclear.

What I meant is that I don’t have the soldered USB port that can be seen at the beginning of this post, on https://forum.turris.cz/uploads/default/original/2X/d/dfc1566118d5e619d8aef3d2721ee83aecb292d2.jpeg and https://forum.turris.cz/uploads/default/original/2X/6/605125257c8ecbd921a3a1e81f6234bb483bcdf6.jpeg
But I do have the extra wire that can be seen on https://forum.turris.cz/uploads/default/original/2X/d/dd65a064894c98ca1793685f9bbe365cf0ac935a.jpeg and the pins not soldered that can be seen on https://forum.turris.cz/uploads/default/original/2X/7/7776ed523f565d7d1f204a2fa35a5f7cb09520c4.jpeg

Regarding doing the soldering ourselves, I suppose it voids the warranty, right?

OK thanks for clarifying. The soldering of the PCB against the USB port was not present in mine neither, and the little patch wire was present in mine, so it seems that you have exactly the same hardware as I had. I think the soldering of PCB against USB mainly gives the whole thing more stability so that it doesn’t move plus a better GND connection.
I have no clue if resoldering the 6 pins voids the warranty or not (and I don’t really know what legal warranty actually applies to something you buy over IndieGogo campaign participation) - but it definitely fixes the problem to resolder those pins. (However other problems remain, so maybe you are right being careful with ‘warranty’).

Just for reference, the user @labo discovered the same bad solder joints on her/his device:

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Good news : my Mox A has been fixed by Turris support.
The pins have been soldered properly and the second WiFi card is now detected.

It took around one month with the shipping delays :

  • I sent it on october 18, arrived on october 25
  • It was sent back on november 13, arrived on novembre 20
    I only sent the Mox A module.

Thanks to the support and for the info and user feedback on this forum

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