Intel BE200NGW WiFi 7 M.2 Card #670
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Note: A few other users, like @thewade and @wdebowski, have been testing the BE200 on Pi 5 already. See: #120 (comment) |
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@thewade got it working on Ubuntu 24.04, and But on Pi OS, I don't think it is (I can check). If not, have to recompile the kernel with Then you can check For example, if you need version Stash those two files inside More info about Intel WiFi firmware: |
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I saw your live stream and you mentioned you might want to use the Intel chip in access point mode with 6GHz. Unfortunately, that might prove to be tricky due to the way regulatory works with Intel cards. In order to determine if you are in a regulatory region that supports the 6GHz band it scans nearby networks to pull the country info from them. The term they use for this is Location Aware Regulatory. When using the chip in access point mode however it cannot do the scan and the 6GHz band remains locked. Someone proposed a patch that allows for the scan but it hasn’t been accepted: Even with the fix it isn’t great solution, cause if there are no nearby wireless networks broadcasting the country info then it will never determine the regulatory region. I have never tried to build an OpenWRT access point myself. The OpenWRT community might have other tricks and hacks to get around this. |
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@BennyE posted some info for getting the card up and running in #690, and the card is now up on the site: https://pipci.jeffgeerling.com/cards_network/intel-be200-wifi-7.html |
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I've also noticed over in #709 that the iwlwifi module is now included in Pi OS by default, at least as of January this year, so no need for a kernel recompile, just need the firmware! A few other notes testing the BE200 on a Pi 5 with the latest Pi OS:
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geerlingguy
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Mar 3, 2025
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I've updated the BE200 page with instructions for getting it going more easily with the latest version of Pi OS: https://pipci.jeffgeerling.com/cards_network/intel-be200-wifi-7.html |
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FYI, this card apparently supports PCIe Gen 4x1 speeds. I benchmarked my connection on Gen 2x1 (5 GT/s, in linked issue on the Waveshare card, at 1.2-1.4 Gbps), and then again with PCIe Gen 3 (via Even bidirectional gets consistently over 1 Gbps with PCIe Gen 3 speeds: Very impressive! |
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Checking monitor mode at Ryan Ziolko's suggestion: Full capabilities via Click to show ALL the adapter details in Linux on the Pi via `iw list`See also this note from Intel support:
From the thread Is it possible to enable monitor mode on linux for wifi the 6ghz frequency band on the AX210?. |
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First off great news that iwlwifi is now part of the Raspberry OS kernel. That will make things so much easier. As for the firmware itself does Raspberry Pi OS have the Debian package firmware-iwlwifi. That package would be the easiest way to get the firmware. I would only suggest reviewing the dmesg logs and copying files yourself if module still fails to load after installing that package, or it you have a need for firmware newer then the package provides. As for monitor mode, I fought for that issue a long time myself. The thing to know about Intel is that it won't unlock the 6GHz band unless it determines it is in the correct regulatory region. The feature they have to determine the region is called Location Aware Regulatory and it cannot be disabled. The way it works is it scans nearby access points and looks at the 802.11d country information in the wireless beacons. If you have no nearby access points with the country being broadcast in the beacons, it will unable to determine the region and the 6GHz band will remain locked. For client mode this isn't much of an issue as the access point you are connecting to is likely broadcasting this. For monitor mode this can be an issue because as far as I know the device does not do active scans in monitor mode, and without those scans it will be unable to determine the region. It is even more problematic in access point mode, cause it is also not doing the scans by default, and even if you use a hack to enable the scans there is a chance you are trying to deploy an access point somewhere there are no other access points around. If the steps your provided for monitor mode are reliable that is great, but for myself when I last tested changing the interface mode was causing the regulatory region to get reset. To make it work reliably I created a separate monitor interface based on the physical interface, did a scan with the main interface, and only then I would put the monitor up and the main interface down. Basically: If you are having trouble, I would suggest trying the above. Anyways keep of the good work. I am excited to see the progress you are making! |
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@thewade - It looks like https://www.raspberryconnect.com/raspbian-packages/76-raspbian-kernel-packages |
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Tried the package instead of direct firmware download: At this point, I get the 'firmware not found' message again in And after reboot... It looks like many of the firmware files are installed, but not the two needed for the BE200: It looks like According to @thewade's comment here, |
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Indeed; Bookworm's https://packages.debian.org/bookworm/all/firmware-iwlwifi/filelist It contains the following versions for the AX210: |
geerlingguy
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Mar 12, 2025
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The version of the iwlwifi firmware that is supported is related to the Linux kernel. When you update the kernel often you need to download new firmware. For a typical distro I would expect their various firmware packages to align with the supported kernel. It doesn't have to be the exact file either. For iwlwifi you can have multiple firmware files and it will automatically pick the best version that is supported with the kernel. You might be able to open a bug against Debian to add the files. For Ubuntu they maintain their own linux-firmware package and in the past I had opened a bug to request they add updated firmware for iwlwifi. Debian is more strict on open source then Ubuntu, so they might also be less interested in maintaining these packages. |
Yeah, I had run I'm not sure where the packages are built for Pi OS, I believe it's a separate place than Debian proper (Debian 12 is a bit further behind on the kernel—it's default is 6.1...). |
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Regarding performance, you might be able to use Multi-Link Operation (MLO) to improve performance by spreading the connection over multiple bands at once (e.g. 5GHz/6GHz). From what I read online it should work with Intel and linux kernel 6.11+ and a wireless router that support the feature: Haven't had a chance to test it myself yet. |
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@thewade - In my preliminary testing, I was not able to see a difference with MLO on my 5/6 GHz be setup: #709 (comment) Not sure what else to try, it could be something that is kind of 'magic', as I can't find a way to force it to try more than one channel at a time. Or maybe |
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Intel's BE200NGW WiFi 7 M.2 Card is an inexpensive gateway into fast up-to-5 Gbps WiFi, using the 360 MHz channel width afforded on the 6 GHz band...
I have ordered a card and hope to test it soon!
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