RF Test Tool Bins & Older ESP32 Chips?

[tpayne03]

Hi,

I have two older ESP32 development boards with versions of the ESP32 chip that are at least two years old.
One version of the board is an older Sparkfun ESP32 Thing board and another an ESP32-WROOM module based HiLetGo board.
I'm able to successfully load the "ESP32_RF_TEST_BIN_V1.5.0_20190812.bin" on to each board. (Yes, I had to go look up the pin toggling order again).
However on both boards, neither respond to the RF test commands even though the RF test tool GUI says the bin is loaded successfully.
The ESP32-WROOM module is really flaky and I did get it to once send out the WiFi test command; the SparkFun board is really consistent to load and enter into the test mode but does not respond to commands. (I am verifying in front of a spectrum analyzer, etc.).
Is there a point on different revision of the ESP32 test bins, that they would not work on older chips?
I have clients with various RF test tool issues with these chips and I'm trying to write a testing guide and address any "gotchas" in terms of hardware and the test tools.

Thanks,
-Tim

[ESP_Angus]

Hi Tim,

The WROOM based board should work, the Sparkfun board may have some issues with recent RF test bin because it uses a 26MHz crystal and we no longer recommend this - basically all other ESP32 devices use 40MHz crystals already, the Sparkfun is the only common board with 26MHz.

Are you able to open a serial terminal window and post the boot messages from either board?