Intel Wi-Fi 7 BE200 - Working?

User Support Hardware Issues
1

Has anyone tried this or another Wi-Fi 7 wireless card yet? Supposed to work in Linux kernel 6.5+

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2

Using the Qualcomm WIFI7 QCNCM865 module. Haven’t got it to work yet.

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3

Just installed 4.2.0 today on a new system with the latest kernel and the Intel BE200 wasn’t recognized.

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4

Submitted this item on github (the Qubes group is incredible, but probably not psychic).

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5

marmarek provided an incredibly quick response and recommended using the more up-to-date Fedora in place of Debian for sys-net. Took out the AX200, did as he suggested and the BE200 was immediately detected. Not stable, so reloaded Qubes but still having stability issues (works on the order of minutes). Hopefully updates will solve and trying them now.

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6

Unfortunately Fedora didn’t work for me either but I’ll keep on checking until it works. I also reverted back to the stable kernel anyway. I was getting random logoffs, reboots and browser crashes.

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7

Fedora updates haven’t help - BE200 only stays up a couple minutes before crashing sys-net. The log has some odd comments, such as invalid SW command, and my motherboard states the M.2 uses Intel CNVi where the BE200 does not. Using a AX200 also w/o CNVi that runs for longer than the Be200 without crashing for now and ordered a AX201 with CNVi to see if that fixes it.

CNVi or CNVio (“Connectivity Integration”, Intel Integrated Connectivity I/O interface) is a proprietary connectivity interface by Intel

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8

Weird. I had the AX200 or 201 on debian minimal without issues.

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9

I am questioning the health of this AX200 card as I’ve had issues with Qubes running Debian or Fedora as sys-net and on another system using Debian or Devuan. Another AX200 card in another Qubes system has been flawless. With that said the BE200 is completely unstable on Fedora, but I have seen some reports of a memory write issue being addressed in an upcoming Fedora 6.8 kernel. None of this is Qubes related, but since it gets me to the internet it’s still important.

If the AX201 works I’ll use it until kernel 6.8-something comes along and try the BE200 again.

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10

Not to provide inaccurate info on kernel-latest being unstable previously, but I think all my crashes are due to some RAM I bought. It just occurred to me to test them and they failed. Good thing I don’t submit bugs.

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11

I get that. I’ve been updating my systems with ECC-capable setups for that reason, though true DDR5 ECC UDIMM are hard to find if you don’t want to use an ECC RDIMM server board, such as on my ASUS W680-ACE (DDR5 notch is in a different location!).

My AX200 card had internal faults and I tossed it. Getting back to the Intel BE200 on Qubes the error I was getting on Fedora sys-net was “Microcode SW error detected. Restarting 0x0.” A temporary fix was found with a 6.8 kernel on Fedora 39, so those using Qubes will want to wait for that.

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The Linux kernel 6.5+ is expected to provide better support for newer hardware, including Wi-Fi 7 cards. But since Wi-Fi 7 is still pretty new, support may still be developing. Future kernel changes may make things better. Learn more about WiFi 7 here: https://www.tp-link.com/ph/support/faq/3991/

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13

Maybe we’ll see some Qubes-certified business hardware, like mobile workstations and server/workstations. If Dasharo decides to use some of this (maybe something like a Dell Precision Laptop/Workstation) for their coreboot projects we can see that. (This isn’t in the works AFAIK. Just a reminder that if you want this type of thing, then ask. You might not be the only one.)

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14

I’ve just installed Qubes R4.2.3 on a Dell Precision 5690 (equipped with a Intel® Wi-Fi 7 BE200). Not recognized by sys-net, and I have iwlwifi driver errors.

The latest version of the package firemware-iwlwifi is 20230210-05, about 18months old.

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15

Are you using Debian for your sys-net? Fedora generally has newer firmware packages.

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16

Yes I’m using Debian for sys-net.

I’ve setup APT pinning, in order to get a newer version of the package firmware-wilwifi (in testing) than the one in stable.

Here is the procedure, YMMV. All of this happen in the template of your sys-net (debian-12-xfce for me).

  1. Update the file /etc/apt/sources.list and add the testing line:
    deb https://deb.debian.org/debian testing main contrib non-free-firmware
  2. Create the file /etc/apt/preferences.d/99-custom-prefs with the following content:
    Package: *
Pin: release a=stable
Pin-Priority: 700

Package: *
Pin: release a=testing
Pin-Priority: 650
    Basically, we are telling apt to give a higher priority to packages in stable than the packages in testing. Without this file, all of our packages would switch to their version on the testing repo.
  3. Run the apt update command to fetch the package list
  4. Install the package firmware-iwlwifi from the testing repos with this command:
    apt-get -t testing install firmware-iwlwifi
  5. Restart the sys-net Qube.

Your wireless card should be detected by now.

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17

I’m curious how this goes. My BE200 card worked fine when using a live Debian and Arch USB stick, but when I used Qubes it was not detected. I found if I removed the nVidia card the BE200 worked fine on Qubes. I also learned if I tried an Asus Hyper M.2 expansion card in either slot 1 or 2 the Hyper worked fine, but the BE200 was no longer detected. BE200 equipment conflict appears Qubes-specific on my platform (Asus W680-ACE).

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18

Instead of testing repo, I’d recommend adding backports one: Instructions

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19

Have you tried enabling the bookworm-backports and installing firmware-iwlwifi from there?

sudo apt install -t bookworm-backports firmware-iwlwifi

it seems like the backports version of that package is from august 2024, instead of being 18 months old like its non-backport version.

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20

Thanks for the suggestions :wink:

I’ve switched to the backports, and luckily, the packages are the same versions (for now).
Thanks for the info!