How to configure CPU frequency to 2.6GHz and ethernet/WiFi driver questions?

#1

Dears,

I installed Windows 11 arm64 enterprise version (23H2) to the O6 SBC yesterday, and found some driver issues:

  1. CPU frequency is 1.8GHz, not the maximum frequency 2.6GHz;
  2. ethernet driver and A8 WiFi module drvier don’t work;
  3. audio driver also doesn’t.

Here are some questions:

  1. If I want to install Windows 11 arm64 version, which Windows 11 version is good for O6? for instance, Consumer version, Pro version or Enterprise version? 23H2 version or 24H2 version?
  2. How to configure big A720 to 2.6GHz, medium A720 to 2.4GHz, A520 to 1.8GHz?
  3. Do you have windows 11 driver for Realtek ethernet controller and A8 WiFi module?
  4. Do you have windows 11 driver for Audio?
  5. Actually I want to install an AMD GPU to the PCIe slot, what’s your suggestion about the GPUs? 6600 XT is compatible to O6? 7800 XT is compatible to O6?

Thanks for your help in advance!

BR
Clint

#2

Actually I want to install an AMD GPU to the PCIe slot, what’s your suggestion about the GPUs? 6600 XT is compatible to O6? 7800 XT is compatible to O6?

To my knowledge, AMD never released Graphics Card drivers for Windows ARM, therefore you won’t be able to use those GPUs on Windows on any ARM board. You can use them in Linux though, people in nearby topics reported that they made some of them work on Orion.

Probably same goes for Ethernet Controller and WiFi - unless vendor of the chip release drivers for Windows ARM, there is not much you can do to make them run. You can probably use usb-net instead, those are usually supported by Windows out of box.

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#3

Hello Vladimir,

Thanks for your quick response!
As you said, I didn’t find AMD GPU driver for Windows ARM yesterday. After I installing a AMD Radeon RX 550 GPU to O6 PCIe slot, it was recognized as a “Microsoft Basic Display Adapter” in Windows 11 device manager, and the Display Adapter only supports 1920*1080@60Hz.
So it’s difficult to install old GPU to O6 board when you want to use Windows ARM, but for relatively new GPUs, for instance, 7800/7900 XT, may be some GPU suppliers (ASUS, MSI, etc) release drivers for Widnows ARM.

For RTL8126 ethernet controller, I alrealy install the if_re driver succesfully, and it works well, driver link see below:

BUT for the WiFi module, it still doesn’t work.

#4

While I don’t know for windows, but in the BIOS you need to enable ACPI (instead of Device Tree) to expose the ACPI stuff. This should normally expose the CPPC stuff (e.g. cppc_cpufreq in linux) that is used to set the frequency. Normally you should get 2.6 & 2.5 GHz for the biggest cores, and 2.3 & 2.2 for the medium ones (assuming you’ve set the CPU frequency to 2.6 in the BIOS).

#5

Hello Willy,

According to Mario’s test, ACPI CPCC is disabled in the BIOS, so it doesn’t work for using BIOS to configure the frequency of the big, medium A720 cores and the little A520 cores.
By the way, using UEFI shell and load a custermizer bootaa64.efi is a solution, within the bootaa64.efi, configure CPU core frequency, then start Windows ARM.
Yesterday, I launched UEFI shell when startup, tried to use some shell commands to configure CPU frequency, BUT failed.
I still work to configure CPU core frequency manually.

At this moment, O6 is not firmware friendly to Windows, Linux is quite better.

#6

ACPI CPCC is disabled in the BIOS

I’m not sure I’m following. On mine it’s enabled since Linux uses it: loading the cppc_cpufreq driver is what makes my big cores switch from 1.8 to 2.6 GHz. I can of course very well understand that there would remain bugs in the ACPI tables and whatever, but I’m having a hard time getting the “CPPC is disabled in the BIOS” as a generic response since it doesn’t match others’ experience.

#7

It is not up to suppliers, it is up to AMD and Microsoft.

Newer card or not - that doesn’t matter.

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