Problems using nRF7002 with non-nRF MCU

[djgj]

Hello All,
I am trying nRF7002 shield on my non-nRF MCU and i am running the wifi sample app on zephyr (latest version as of today Aug 20)
I get this error most of the time when issuing "wifi" shell commands. however commands are successful 50% of the time.
Has anyone seen this before? should i enable or disable any kconfig for this?

Regards,

djgj

[runsiv]

Hi Djgj

Could you give a bit more information regarding your system? As we can't test for all devices, the test level will be lower on non Nordic hosts. Due to this, there might be compatibility issues with helper libraries, such as the download library.

Regards

Runar

[djgj]

Hi Runar,

We are using RT500 MCU (NXP) as our host MCU. I connected our host MCU with nRF7002 EK via SPI connection. 

I am running the basic WiFi shell application on zephyr:

https://github.com/zephyrproject-rtos/zephyr/tree/main/samples/net/wifi

All other configs are same as used with nRF5340 except the SPI interface part.

While debugging i also noticed this comment which can be related to my issue.
https://github.com/nrfconnect/sdk-nrfxlib/blame/main/nrf_wifi/hw_if/hal/src/hal_interrupt.c#L437

Do you know what this is about and how to mitigate this?

kindly let me know if you need more details.

Regards,

djgj

[Marte Myrvold]

Hi,

Do you have a Nordic DK that you can use as the host MCU to verify whether the issue is caused by using a non-nRF MCU as the host or by an issue with the nRF7002 drivers in upstream Zephyr?

Best regards,
Marte

[djgj]

Hello,
      I didn't see this issue when i tried the same sample with nRF5340 DK and nRF7002 EK. 

do you know on what conditions this might be triggered? 
https://github.com/nrfconnect/sdk-nrfxlib/blame/main/nrf_wifi/hw_if/hal/src/hal_interrupt.c#L437

What connection should i ensure so that nRF7002 does not give wrong addresses?

Regards,
djgj

[Marte Myrvold]

Hi,

I have forwarded this issue internally and will get back to you early next week.

Best regards,
Marte

[Marte Myrvold]

Hi,

The Wi-Fi team does not believe the issue is relevant to https://github.com/nrfconnect/sdk-nrfxlib/blame/main/nrf_wifi/hw_if/hal/src/hal_interrupt.c#L437.

The Invalid memory addresses from the logs seem to be random addresses, which would suggest SPI read corruption. This could indicate SPI connection issues.

What SPI frequency are you using? Would it be possible to try with lower SPI frequencies, such as 2 MHz or even 1 MHz?

Please also specify what you mean by the commands failing 50% of the time. Do the commands both succeed and fail during a single boot or do they succeed during some boots and fail during other boots?

Please also provide logs during the boot, as well as .config and zephyr.dts from the build folder.

Best regards,
Marte

[djgj]

Hi Marte,

Thank you for the response.
I will try to debug from SPI transfer corruption aspect.
I currently running at 8 MHZ, however i tried at 1, 2 MHz too without much success.

I meant with 50% failing is during single boot itself. if i issue the `wifi scan` shell command, it passes around 50% time roughly. but i do keep seeing these invalid addresses always.

I have also attached the requested files.

1856.logs.zip

regards,

djgj