Re: [PATCH] Bluetooth: btusb: Lower passive lescan interval on Marvell 88W8897

[Marcel Holtmann <marcel@holtmann.org>]

Hi Jonas,

>>> The Marvell 88W8897 combined wifi and bluetooth card (pcie+usb version)
>>> is used in a lot of Microsoft Surface devices, and all those devices
>>> suffer from very low 2.4GHz wifi connection speeds while bluetooth is
>>> enabled. The reason for that is that the default passive scanning
>>> interval for Bluetooth Low Energy devices is quite high on Linux
>>> (interval of 60 msec and scan window of 30 msec, see le_scan_interval
>>> and le_scan_window in hci_core.c), and the Marvell chip is known for its
>>> bad bt+wifi coexisting performance.
>>> 
>>> So decrease that passive scan interval and make the scan window shorter
>>> on this particular device to allow for spending more time transmitting
>>> wifi signals: The new scan interval is 250 msec (0x190 * 0.625 msec) and
>>> the new scan window is 6.25 msec (0xa * 0.625 msec).
>>> 
>>> This change has a very large impact on the 2.4GHz wifi speeds and gets
>>> it up to performance comparable with the Windows driver, which seems to
>>> apply a similar quirk.
>>> 
>>> The scan interval and scan window length were tested and found to work
>>> very well with a bunch of Bluetooth Low Energy devices, including the
>>> Surface Pen, a Bluetooth Speaker and two modern Bluetooth headphones.
>>> All devices were discovered immediately after turning them on. Even
>>> lower values were also tested, but these introduced longer delays until
>>> devices get discovered.
>>> 
>>> Signed-off-by: Jonas Dreßler <verdre@v0yd.nl>
>>> ---
>>> drivers/bluetooth/btusb.c | 15 +++++++++++++++
>>> 1 file changed, 15 insertions(+)
>>> 
>>> diff --git a/drivers/bluetooth/btusb.c b/drivers/bluetooth/btusb.c
>>> index 60d2fce59a71..05b11179c839 100644
>>> --- a/drivers/bluetooth/btusb.c
>>> +++ b/drivers/bluetooth/btusb.c
>>> @@ -59,6 +59,7 @@ static struct usb_driver btusb_driver;
>>> #define BTUSB_WIDEBAND_SPEECH	0x400000
>>> #define BTUSB_VALID_LE_STATES   0x800000
>>> #define BTUSB_QCA_WCN6855	0x1000000
>>> +#define BTUSB_LOWER_LESCAN_INTERVAL	0x2000000
>>> #define BTUSB_INTEL_BROKEN_INITIAL_NCMD 0x4000000
>>> 
>>> static const struct usb_device_id btusb_table[] = {
>>> @@ -356,6 +357,7 @@ static const struct usb_device_id blacklist_table[] = {
>>> 	{ USB_DEVICE(0x1286, 0x2044), .driver_info = BTUSB_MARVELL },
>>> 	{ USB_DEVICE(0x1286, 0x2046), .driver_info = BTUSB_MARVELL },
>>> 	{ USB_DEVICE(0x1286, 0x204e), .driver_info = BTUSB_MARVELL },
>>> +	{ USB_DEVICE(0x1286, 0x204c), .driver_info = BTUSB_LOWER_LESCAN_INTERVAL },
>>> 
>>> 	/* Intel Bluetooth devices */
>>> 	{ USB_DEVICE(0x8087, 0x0025), .driver_info = BTUSB_INTEL_COMBINED },
>>> @@ -3813,6 +3815,19 @@ static int btusb_probe(struct usb_interface *intf,
>>> 	if (id->driver_info & BTUSB_MARVELL)
>>> 		hdev->set_bdaddr = btusb_set_bdaddr_marvell;
>>> 
>>> +	/* The Marvell 88W8897 combined wifi and bluetooth card is known for
>>> +	 * very bad bt+wifi coexisting performance.
>>> +	 *
>>> +	 * Decrease the passive BT Low Energy scan interval a bit
>>> +	 * (0x0190 * 0.625 msec = 250 msec) and make the scan window shorter
>>> +	 * (0x000a * 0,625 msec = 6.25 msec). This allows for significantly
>>> +	 * higher wifi throughput while passively scanning for BT LE devices.
>>> +	 */
>>> +	if (id->driver_info & BTUSB_LOWER_LESCAN_INTERVAL) {
>>> +		hdev->le_scan_interval = 0x0190;
>>> +		hdev->le_scan_window = 0x000a;
>>> +	}
>>> +
>> you can not do it this way. Modifying hci_dev internals from within the driver is not acceptable.
>> Regards
>> Marcel
> 
> 
> hmm okay, it seems to me that the intention of your commit bef64738e3fb87eabc6fbeededad0c44ea173384 was to allow configuring it on a per controller basis, also btusb changes a bunch of other hci_dev properties? Given that we also have to match by usb-id, I don't think there's another place to do that other than the usb driver, or is there?

you can change most defaults via mgmt commands.

The things the a driver should set in hci_dev is really limited and it only affects its ability to run as a transport driver. It shouldn’t deal with anything that is actually HCI upper layer operation.

Regards

Marcel