Intel BE200 WiFi 7 cards locked to 14th gen CPU and Z790 chipset

likeabatterycar · 2 years ago

Classic Hacker News. Some guy posts likely incorrect random speculation, and the comments are full of even more speculation.

The truth is Intel makes two versions of most of their WiFi cards: the normal version, and a "low cost" version where some of the internal components are missing and those functions instead offloaded to the Intel chipset on the motherboard.

Sort of like the "WinModems" of WiFi cards.

If you want one that works, buy the correct version.

opello · 2 years ago

It sure looks to me like "Some guy" got the "random speculation" right in this case.

The link shows the BE200 as the "M.2: PCIe*, USB" type in the highlighted Intel Ark screenshot. In contrast to the "WinModem" version you're conflating this with, which should say "M.2: CNVio2" (or similar) like the AX210 and AX211 pair.

BE200: https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/sku/230078/...

AX210: https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/sku/204836/...

AX211: https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/sku/204837/...

The BE200 should be like the AX210. The "WinModem" variant should be BE201 like the AX211.

Edit: I guess I should say that I don't know if "may be locked via Firmware" is a reasonable conclusion, just that the correlation is present, and the assumption of interface compatibility (given an M.2 slot with PCIe and USB).

jeffbee · 2 years ago

Why are we "assuming" interface compatibility? I have an Asus mobo that refuses to boot with a Western Digital SSD in the first M.2 slot, when and only when using a 13th-generation Core CPU, unless the Intel ME has been updated past a minimum revision. I think it is quite likely that PC platform firmware has huge tables of device quirks that are necessary to bring up the machine.

p_l · 2 years ago

Classic Hacker News.

Posting includes exactly that information, explicitly ruling out that the card is "low cost" CNViO RF module according to specification provided by intel - yet a post will ignore that :)

jauntywundrkind · 2 years ago

To be fair, many people can no longer read Twitter threads. But yeah.

rpns · 2 years ago

I think there is something going on, as the BE200 is E keyed rather than A+E keyed like the AX210. It physically won't fit in the slot in my AMD laptop where I previously installed an AX210.

seabrookmx · 2 years ago

What's also funny is they've been doing this for many years. I assumed it was common knowledge by now.

p_l · 2 years ago

It's also explicitly discussed in the post and checked for.

shlorn · 2 years ago

To me its a bit surprising the platform wont even POST, seems a bit more like a problem with the platform than the PCIe card no?

buildbot · 2 years ago

No, I have a Camera Link PCIE card that causes any system I put it into not to boot. So it could be the card. But also, AMD firmware is...interesting... based on my experiences with Epyc motherboards.

KirillPanov · 2 years ago

Not really; link training and initialization for PCIe devices is really complex. A lot of motherboard bootware, even from reputable vendors, tends to handle obscure conditions by simply rebooting or locking up.

I wouldn't be surprised if there were certain steps where they simply forgot to include any sort of timeout, meaning the device can hang the boot process by simply not responding at the right moment.

pengaru · 2 years ago

https://nitter.net/ghost_motley/status/1721646985688601023

rekoil · 2 years ago

https://libredirect.github.io/

birdman3131 · 2 years ago

So what pin do we need to tape over this time?

darklycan51 · 2 years ago

Conspiracy theory but it's pretty funny how CPUs would work for years while GPUs would get (rightfully so) outdated fairly fast.

Now suddenly CPUs do this weird force upgrade with obscure features, and even Microsoft forcing people to upgrade with stuff like TPM that the vast majority do not care about.

Wouldn't surprise me if Windows 12 next year announces that it will only support intel cpus from 12th gen and forward and ryzen 7000 and forward.

It might really be time to migrate to linux on my non work pc

jeffbee · 2 years ago

Rando owns some dodgy PCs that won't POST with this card installed. Don't leap to conclusions.

rosebud67 · 2 years ago

works like a charm in M.2 wifi slot on i7-7700 w/ Asrock Z270M Extreme4

rosebud67 · 2 years ago

netsh wlan show drivers

Interface name: Wi-Fi

    Driver                    : Intel(R) Wi-Fi 7 BE200 320MHz
    Vendor                    : Intel Corporation
    Provider                  : Intel
    Date                      : 9/6/2023
    Version                   : 23.0.5.7
    INF file                  : oem75.inf
    Type                      : Native Wi-Fi Driver
    Radio types supported     : 802.11b 802.11g 802.11n 802.11a 802.11ac 802.11ax 802.11be
    FIPS 140 mode supported   : Yes
    802.11w Management Frame Protection supported : Yes
    Hosted network supported  : No
    Authentication and cipher supported in infrastructure mode:
                                Open             None
                                Open             WEP-40bit
                                Open             WEP-104bit
                                Open             WEP
                                WPA-Enterprise   TKIP
                                WPA-Enterprise   CCMP
                                WPA-Personal     TKIP
                                WPA-Personal     CCMP
                                WPA2-Enterprise  TKIP
                                WPA2-Enterprise  CCMP
                                WPA2-Personal    TKIP
                                WPA2-Personal    CCMP
                                Open             Vendor defined
                                WPA3-Personal    CCMP
                                Vendor defined   Vendor defined
                                WPA3-Enterprise 192 Bits GCMP-256
                                OWE              CCMP
                                WPA3-Enterprise  CCMP
                                WPA3-Enterprise  TKIP
    Number of supported bands : 3
                                2.4 GHz [ 2412 MHz - 2472 MHz]
                                5 GHz [ 5180 MHz - 5885 MHz]
                                6 GHz [ 5955 MHz - 7115 MHz]
    IHV service present       : Yes
    IHV adapter OUI           : [00 00 00], type: [00]
    IHV extensibility DLL path: C:\WINDOWS\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\netwtw6e.inf_amd64_71f8441d5224dfab\IntelIHVRouter12.dll
    IHV UI extensibility ClSID: {00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000}
    IHV diagnostics CLSID     : {00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000}
    Wireless Display Supported: Yes (Graphics Driver: Yes, Wi-Fi Driver: Yes)

tedunangst · 2 years ago

How does the wifi firmware know what cpu you're running?

bestouff · 2 years ago

How do you think that "cat /proc/cpuinfo" works ?

Edit: to be clear, the PCIe BIOS subsystem runs some firmware on the host CPU.