Thermal monitoring: surface chip thermal meter + health bucket#103
Merged
Conversation
Add a read-only thermal probe across the whole Jaguar family so an
operator can attribute a TX drop to the chip heating up.
The thermal meter (RF[A] reg 0x42, bits [15:10]) was already sampled
inside the 8812A TX-power-tracking loop, but only there: gated to
CHIP_8812, logged at debug, and never surfaced as health. This exposes
it independently of the power-track correction.
- RadioManagementModule::ReadThermalStatus() reads RF[A][0x42] standalone
(no chip gate, no BB-swing write) and pairs it with the EFUSE baseline,
returning a ThermalStatus{raw, baseline, delta, valid}. Works on
8812/8811/8814/8821 (path A is readable on all members).
- ThermalBucket() classifies the delta into cool/warm/hot/critical. The
meter has no calibrated degC transfer function on the AU family (it is
an RF/PA-bias tracking index), so the health signal is deliberately
bucketed rather than presented as a fake temperature.
- RtlJaguarDevice exposes GetThermalStatus() (synchronous, owning-thread
safe) plus an opt-in background poller (start_thermal_poller /
get_thermal_snapshot) mirroring the queue-depth poller, with the same
shared-handle concurrency caveat.
- Demos honour DEVOURER_THERMAL_POLL_MS / DEVOURER_THERMAL_WARN_DELTA and
emit <devourer-thermal> lines; the TX demo reads inline on its own
thread (no USB contention), the RX demo uses the background poller. A
one-shot warn fires when delta crosses the threshold and re-arms on
cooldown.
- tests/thermal_hwcheck.sh: per-chip hardware smoke test.
Jaguar-1 has no automatic hard thermal TX shutdown, so a rising delta is
an early warning that the PA is heating and TX power is being backed off,
not a shutdown-reason readout.
Verified on hardware (8812/8814/8821): meter reads live, delta tracks PA
heat from a cold start through to a warm/hot steady state, and the bucket
+ warn move correctly with physical state. Build green, ctest green.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
josephnef
added a commit
that referenced
this pull request
Jun 26, 2026
…cking bug Adds an absolute TXAGC-index override and a continuous TX-gain ramp to WiFiDriverTxDemo, plus a USRP-backed harness to measure the chip thermal meter (PR #103 probe) against a swept TX gain. Built to answer "does the 8812AU thermal meter degrade over time under sustained TX" — empirically no: SDR-verified ~12-19 dB on-air power swings leave the meter flat (steady-state die temp, not TX-induced PA heating). Driver/demo: - RadioManagementModule: SetTxPowerOverride(idx) forces the per-rate TXAGC index in PHY_SetTxPowerIndexByRateArray (bypassing the EFUSE table); ApplyTxPower() re-runs PHY_SetTxPowerLevel8812 for the current channel (SetMonitorChannel early-returns on an unchanged channel, so it can't re-push TX power mid-session). - RtlJaguarDevice: SetTxPowerOverride / ApplyTxPower / ReadBBReg passthroughs. - txdemo: DEVOURER_TX_PWR_START/STOP/STEP/STEP_MS gain ramp (emits <devourer-txpwr> markers), DEVOURER_TX_GAP_US duty knob, and a gated DEVOURER_TX_PWR_READBACK diagnostic. Bug fix (surfaced by the override + SDR ground truth): - phy_SwBand8812 only updated current_band_type when an actual HW band-switch ran. After init_hw_mlme_ext resets it to BAND_MAX, a same-band channel-set finds the chip already on 2.4G, skips the switch, and leaves the shadow at BAND_MAX permanently. That made bIsIn24G false, so CCK TX power was never re-programmed after init, and BAND_MAX was fed to the thermal pwrtrk and IQK. Fix: set current_band_type = BandToSW unconditionally (the channel's band is authoritative). SDR-confirmed CCK on-air power now tracks the index (-40 -> -21 dBFS over 0..40); 5G still correctly skips CCK; ctest green. Harness (tests/, uv): thermal_gain_sweep.py orchestrator merges <devourer-thermal>/<devourer-txpwr>/SDR streams to CSV + verdicts; sdr_power_probe.py (UHD B200/B210 relative dBFS); run_thermal_gain_sweep.sh. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
This file contains hidden or bidirectional Unicode text that may be interpreted or compiled differently than what appears below. To review, open the file in an editor that reveals hidden Unicode characters.
Learn more about bidirectional Unicode characters
Sign up for free
to join this conversation on GitHub.
Already have an account?
Sign in to comment
Add this suggestion to a batch that can be applied as a single commit.This suggestion is invalid because no changes were made to the code.Suggestions cannot be applied while the pull request is closed.Suggestions cannot be applied while viewing a subset of changes.Only one suggestion per line can be applied in a batch.Add this suggestion to a batch that can be applied as a single commit.Applying suggestions on deleted lines is not supported.You must change the existing code in this line in order to create a valid suggestion.Outdated suggestions cannot be applied.This suggestion has been applied or marked resolved.Suggestions cannot be applied from pending reviews.Suggestions cannot be applied on multi-line comments.Suggestions cannot be applied while the pull request is queued to merge.Suggestion cannot be applied right now. Please check back later.
What
Adds a read-only thermal probe across the whole Jaguar family (RTL8812AU / 8811AU / 8814AU / 8821AU) so an operator can attribute a TX drop to the chip heating up.
The thermal meter (RF path-A reg
0x42, bits[15:10]) was already sampled inside the 8812A TX-power-tracking loop — but only there: gated toCHIP_8812, logged atdebug, and never surfaced as health. This exposes it independently of the power-track correction, on every chip.How
RadioManagementModule::ReadThermalStatus()— reads RF[A]0x42standalone (no chip gate, no BB-swing write) and pairs it with the EFUSE baseline →ThermalStatus{raw, baseline, delta, valid}. Path A is readable on all members.ThermalBucket()— classifiesdeltaintocool/warm/hot/critical. The meter has no calibrated °C transfer function on the AU family (it's an RF/PA-bias tracking index), so the health signal is deliberately bucketed rather than presented as a fake temperature.RtlJaguarDevice—GetThermalStatus()(synchronous, owning-thread safe) plus an opt-in background poller (start_thermal_poller/get_thermal_snapshot) mirroring the existing queue-depth poller, with the same shared-handle concurrency caveat documented.DEVOURER_THERMAL_POLL_MS/DEVOURER_THERMAL_WARN_DELTA, emitting<devourer-thermal>raw=.. baseline=.. delta=.. status=..lines. TX demo reads inline on its own thread (no USB contention); RX demo uses the background poller. A one-shotwarnfires whendeltacrosses the threshold and re-arms on cooldown.tests/thermal_hwcheck.sh— per-chip hardware smoke test.Jaguar-1 has no automatic hard thermal TX shutdown, so a rising
deltais an early warning that the PA is heating and TX power is being backed off — not a shutdown-reason readout.Verification
ctestgreen (stream_stdin_binary).deltatracks PA heat from a cold start (e.g. 8812 colddelta=+0 cool→ sustained TX equilibriumdelta=+10 warm, ~17.5k frames confirmed sending), and the bucket + warn move correctly with physical state (including readingcoolright after a physical detach). An 8811AU rides the same code path automatically (none on the bus to test).🤖 Generated with Claude Code