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June 10, 2025June 10, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

GL.iNet Flint 3 (GL-BE9300) is an affordable tri-band WiFi 7 router with 5 2.5GbE ports

The GL.iNet Flint 3 (codenamed GL-BE9300) is an affordable tri-band WiFi 7 BE9300 router with five 2.5GbE RJ45 ports supporting 10Gbps aggregation, and now available for pre-order for $119 to $159. It follows the lower-end GL.iNet Slate 7 (GL-BE3600) WiFi 7 dual-band travel router introduced a few months ago. The tri-band WiFi 7 router is powered by a 1.5 GHz quad-core Qualcomm processor coupled with 1GB RAM and 8GB eMMC flash for the OS, features a USB 3.0 port for smartphone tethering or cellular dongle, and supports up to 680 Mbps VPN throughput using WireGuard or OpenVPN. Other features include AdGuard Home, failover, load balancing, and more. GL.iNet Flint 3 specifications: CPU – Qualcomm quad-core @1.5 GHz; unamed, but likely Qualcomm IPQ5332 Memory – 1 GB DDR4 Storage – 8 GB eMMC flash Networking WiFi 7 Protocol – IEEE 802.11a/b/g/n/ac/ax/be Wi-Fi Speed – 688Mbps (2.4GHz), 2882Mbps (5GHz), 5765Mbps (6GHz) […]

June 9, 2025June 9, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

Arduino UNO SPE Shield adds Single Pair Ethernet and RS485 to Arduino boards

Arduino UNO SPE Shield adds Single Pair Ethernet (SPE) and RS485 to Arduino UNO and compatible boards, notably the Arduino UNO R4, via a Microchip LAN8651 SPE controller. Single Pair Ethernet relies on just two wires to carry data and power, allowing for much more compact designs and simpler wiring compared to traditional RJ45-based solutions with Cat 5 cables. It especially benefits IoT and IIoT applications for buildings, factories, and process automation. Arduino UNO SPE specifications: Networking – Single Pair Ethernet (SPE) via Microchip LAN8651B1 10BASE-T1S MAC-PHY Ethernet Controller with SPI Data rate: 10 Mbit/s over a single balanced pair T1SP and T1SN available on screw terminal block Dedicated T1S SPE connector Maximum Distance – Supports up to 25 meters in multidrop topology (multiple nodes on a single segment) Up to eight nodes in a multidrop network Serial – RS485 via MaxLinear XR33058 Half duplex RS485 Data rate: 20 Mbit/s […]

June 8, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

ZimaBoard 2 Review – Part 2: An Intel N150 micro server and mini PC tested with ZimaOS, Ubuntu 24.04

We’ve already checked out the hardware of the ZimaBoard 2 micro server in the first part of the review with an unboxing and a teardown of the Intel N150 mini PC, followed by a first boot to ZimaOS and a walk-through of the web dashboard to see what features it had to offer. I’ve now connected two SATA drives to the ZimaBoard 2 and done further testing with ZimaOS, notably checking system information and testing storage and networking performance. I also installed Ubuntu 24.04 on the ZimaBoard 2 for further testing for people preferring to use the system as a mini PC with SATA storage. ZimaOS v1.4.1 update When I connected to the web dashboard again, there was a new update for ZimaOS v1.4.1. Before and after the update is completed, I was shown the change log with new features like a scheduled shutdown function and a list of bug […]

May 27, 2025May 28, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 8 Comments

Chipsee PPC-CM5-156 Review – Part 2: A Raspberry Pi CM5 fanless Panel PC tested with Raspberry Pi OS

We’ve already had a look at the hardware of Chipsee’s 15.6-inch industrial touch panel PC in the first part of the review, before booting it to Raspberry Pi OS. I’ve now had time to test most features of the PPC-CM5-156 panel PC running Raspberry Pi OS, so I’ll report my experience testing performance and most ports of the Raspberry Pi CM5-based system in the second part of the review.

PPC-CM5-156 panel PC system info and sbc-bench.sh benchmark

Let’s check the features of the PPC-CM5-156 panel PC using the inxi utility:

May 26, 2025June 3, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 22 Comments

NanoPi M5 – A Rockchip RK3576 SBC with HDMI, dual GbE, M.2 NVMe and SDIO WiFi sockets, UFS 2.0 storage support

It feels like everybody is now launching hardware based on the Rockchip RK3576 SoC, the little brother of the RK3588 with Cortex-A72/A53 cores instead of Cortex-A76/A55 cores, 4K video output, and a mid-range Mali-G52 GPU, while keeping most of the same interfaces. FriendlyELEC has now joined the fray with the NanoPi M5 SBC equipped with up to 4GB LPDDR4x or 16GB LPDDR5, sockets for a UFS module and an M.2 NVMe SSD, HDMI 2.0 and MIPI DSI display interfaces, two MIPI CSI camera connectors, two gigabit Ethernet ports, a 3.5mm audio jack, two USB 3.0 ports, a 30-pin GPIO header, and more. NanoPi M5 specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3576 CPU – Octa-core CPU with 4x Cortex-A72 cores at 2.2 GHz, 4x Cortex-A53 cores at 2.0 GHz GPU – Arm Mali-G52 MC3 GPU with support for OpenGL ES 1.1, 2.0, and 3.2, OpenCL 2.0, and Vulkan 1.2 NPU – 6 TOPS […]

May 22, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 31 Comments

Realtek RTL8127, RTL8159, and RTL8261C will power low-cost, efficient 10 Gbps Ethernet cards, USB adapters, and switches

Realtek showcased RTL8126, RTL8157, and RTL8251B 5 Gbps Ethernet solutions at Computex 2023, and the first Realtek RTL8126 5 Gbps Ethernet PCIe and M.2 adapters were introduced in 2024, shortly followed by RTL8157 5GbE USB 3.2 adapters. The company has now unveiled upgraded solutions for 10 Gbps Ethernet networking at Computex 2025 with the RTL8127 10GbE PCIe controller and variants, the RTL8159 10GbE USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 controller, and the RTL8261C PHY for 10GbE switches. Realtek RTL8127 10GbE PCIe NIC Realtek RTL8127 specifications: Ethernet – 10Mps, 100Mps, 1000Mps, 2500Mps, 5000Mps, and 10Gbps Host interface – PCIe Gen4 Features Modern standby Self loopback diagnostic Hardware ECC and CRC Power consumption – 1.95 Watts Package – 9×9 mm QFN88 The Realtek RTL8127 will be found in PCIe and M.2 cards, or directly soldered on motherboards or CPEs. The good news is the low power consumption, which should make cooling easier and cheaper […]

May 22, 2025May 21, 2025 by Debashis Das - No Comments

Protectli Vault Pro VP2430 – An Intel N150 fanless network appliance with four 2.5GbE ports, four video outputs

Vault Pro VP2430 A compact, fanless network appliance

The Protectli Vault Pro VP2430 is a compact, Intel Processor N150-based fanless network appliance designed for firewall, router, and virtualization applications in home labs, small businesses, and edge deployments. The system supports up to 64GB DDR5-4800 memory via a single SO-DIMM slot and features various storage options, including a 32GB onboard eMMC flash, an M.2 2280 NVMe SSD slot, and a SATA 3.0 interface for 2.5″ SSDs. It comes with four 2.5GbE Intel I226-V Ethernet ports and includes video outputs via HDMI 2.0, DisplayPort 1.2, and two USB-C with DisplayPort functionality. It also features M.2 slots for WiFi and 4G/5G modem, to work with the module, there is also a Nano SIM slot. Additionally, it has multiple internal headers, including GPIO, COM, SATA, and eSPI for expansion. On top of that, the system supports both AMI and coreboot BIOS options, and TPM 2.0 for security, making it ideal for secure […]

May 15, 2025June 8, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

ZimaBoard 2 micro server review – Part 1: Unboxing, teardown, and ZimaOS interface

We’ve just received a review sample of the ZimaBoard 2 micro server and mini PC powered by an Intel Processor N150 “Twin Lake” CPU. The system features two 2.5 Gbps Ethernet ports, two SATA III ports, two USB 3.1 ports, and a miniDP video port supporting 4K resolution. IceWhale Technology provided us with the ZimaBoard 2 model 832 prototype with 8GB RAM and 32GB eMMC flash preloaded with the ZimaOS operating system for review. In this article, we will unbox the device and its accessories, perform a teardown, and boot the micro server with the pre-installed ZimaOS and check the web dashboard. In the second part of the review, we will test ZimaOS in more detail, run some benchmarks since it’s our first Twin Lake mini PC, install an Ubuntu virtual machine, test the SATA ports and PCIe 3.0 x4 slot, and more. ZimaBoard 2 unboxing We received a package […]