Sun Feb 04, 2024 2:05 am
Is anyone successfully using a Wifi or other network card in the shorter, A/E-keyed m.2 2230 slot of a NanoPC-T6 LTS, the newer variant of this board that's replaced its mini-PCI LTE-modem slot with extra USB ports?
I want to add a third wired Ethernet port to mine, and so bought an i210-based 1Gbps card, one of the first matches for an Amazon search of "i210at m.2" (in case direct links are not allowed here).
So far this card is not being detected by the T6 board at all, not even to the point of appearing in "lspci" output, which shows only the two onboard rtl8125 2.5Gb NICs, and the two RK3588 PCIe root-bridge devices serving them. Also, a DC wattmeter on the T6's 12V input shows no measureable difference in power use, with or without the third NIC m.2 installed.
Do I need to edit the Device Tree, change boot-time options, or otherwise enable the E-keyed m.2 "Wifi" slot before it can be used? Is that slot disabled, powered down, or in some non-PCIe mode by default? I know the RK3588 pins mapped to it can also be set up for USB3, SATA, and other modes, but would have expected PCIe to be enabled for supported Wifi cards. I know that I'll need to compile a kernel driver for the Intel NIC, but even with no driver available, the card should still be detected as a PCI endpoint, no? I don't have any spare m.2 Wifi cards on hand to test in that slot, but could borrow one from a laptop.
So far I've tested with the official Debian Bookworm SD-card image from Friendlyelec's Google Drive (kernel 6.1.25), and also with the Android 12 install that came on my T6's eMMC (kernel 5.10.160). Neither detect the NIC as a valid PCIe device.
Anything else I should try? It's possible this i210 card is simply defective, so I'll attempt to bring it up in an x86 machine later, if only to rule that out.
I want to add a third wired Ethernet port to mine, and so bought an i210-based 1Gbps card, one of the first matches for an Amazon search of "i210at m.2" (in case direct links are not allowed here).
So far this card is not being detected by the T6 board at all, not even to the point of appearing in "lspci" output, which shows only the two onboard rtl8125 2.5Gb NICs, and the two RK3588 PCIe root-bridge devices serving them. Also, a DC wattmeter on the T6's 12V input shows no measureable difference in power use, with or without the third NIC m.2 installed.
Do I need to edit the Device Tree, change boot-time options, or otherwise enable the E-keyed m.2 "Wifi" slot before it can be used? Is that slot disabled, powered down, or in some non-PCIe mode by default? I know the RK3588 pins mapped to it can also be set up for USB3, SATA, and other modes, but would have expected PCIe to be enabled for supported Wifi cards. I know that I'll need to compile a kernel driver for the Intel NIC, but even with no driver available, the card should still be detected as a PCI endpoint, no? I don't have any spare m.2 Wifi cards on hand to test in that slot, but could borrow one from a laptop.
So far I've tested with the official Debian Bookworm SD-card image from Friendlyelec's Google Drive (kernel 6.1.25), and also with the Android 12 install that came on my T6's eMMC (kernel 5.10.160). Neither detect the NIC as a valid PCIe device.
Anything else I should try? It's possible this i210 card is simply defective, so I'll attempt to bring it up in an x86 machine later, if only to rule that out.