networking News - Page 3 of 53 - CNX Software

October 20, 2025October 20, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 22 Comments

$165 Banana Pi BPI-R4 Pro board offers 2x 10GbE SFP+ cages, 7x 10GbE/2.5GbE/GbE RJ45 ports, WiFi 7 support

The Banana Pi BPI-R4 Pro is a new router board based on MediaTek Filogic 880 (MT7988A) Cortex-A73 SoC offering two 10GbE SFP+ cages/RJ45 ports combos, four 2.5GbE RJ45 ports, two Gigabit Ethernet interfaces, and optional WiFi 7 support via the Banana Pi BPI-R4-MIC-BE14 dual mini PCIe module. As its name implies, it’s a Pro/upgraded version of the Banana Pi BPI-R4 board first introduced in 2023, which doubles the memory to 8GB DDR4, doubles the SPI flash’s capacity to 256MB, and adds a few networking ports, M.2 expansion slots for a total of six, and a few other minor features highlighted in bold in the specifications below. Banana Pi BPI-R4 Pro specifications: SoC – MediaTek MT7988A (Filogic 880) quad-core Arm Corex-A73 processor @ 1.8GHz with AI-powered packet accelerator called TOPS (Tunnel Offload Processor System) System Memory – 8GB DDR4 Storage 8GB eMMC flash 256MB SPI NAND Flash MicroSD card slot 2x […]

October 15, 2025October 16, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 22 Comments

Orange Pi 6 Plus – CIX P1 SBC offers up to 64GB LPDDR5 memory, 45 TOPS of AI performance

Orange Pi 6 Plus Heatsink fan cooling solution

We wrote about the Orion O6N Nano-ITX SBC yesterday, mentioning that the Orange Pi 6 Plus was in the works. The good news is that the CIX P1 (CD8180/CD8180) single board from Orange Pi is now available on AliExpress for $223.90 with 16GB RAM and $268.89 with 32GB RAM, including a heatsink with fan, and a 100W USB-C port adapter. It’s the smallest CIX P1 board we’ve covered so far, but it still packs of lot of features including up to 64GB LPDDR5, two M.2 Key-M sockets for storage and/or AI accelerators, one M.2 Key-E socket for WiFi and Bluetooth, dual 5GbE networking, five displays interfaces via HDMI, DP, USB-C, and eDP, two 4-lane camera interfaces, and more. Orange Pi 6 Plus specifications: SoC – Cix P1 (Codename: CD8180 or CD8160) 12-core DynamIQ processor 4x Cortex‑A720 big cores @ up to 2.6 GHz 4x Cortex‑A720 medium cores @ up to […]

October 5, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 11 Comments

Easily add 80+ Mbps Ethernet to microcontrollers with WIZ630io QSPI RJ45 module

WIZnet WIZ630io is a small module featuring an RJ45 jack and a W6300 controller supporting up to 80+ Mbps Ethernet over QSPI @ 150 MHz. As a reminder, the W6300 features 64KB of SRAM for 8 sockets, each with a 4KB TX/RX buffer by default. It is notably found in the WIZnet W6300-EVB-Pico2 development board powered by a Raspberry Pi RP2350 MCU. The WIZ630io allows you to easily add Ethernet to any RP2350 board or other microcontroller with a SPI or QSPI interface. WIZnet WIZ630io specifications: W6300 QSPI Ethernet controller Host Interface – High-speed QSPI (MODE 0/3), system bus with 2 address signals & 8-bit data Internal 32KB SRAM for Tx/ Rx buffers (64KB in total) 8x independent sockets with 64KB Memory 10BaseT / 10BaseTe / 100BaseTX Ethernet PHY Integrated Auto negotiation (Full and half-duplex, 10 and 100-based) Auto-MDIX only on Auto-Negotiation Mode IP Fragmentation not supported Hardwired TCP/IP protocols […]

September 27, 2025September 26, 2025 by Debashis Das - 13 Comments

Fing Agent Raspberry Pi Kit – An all-in-one Raspberry Pi 4-based network monitoring solution

Fing Agent Raspberry Pi 4 Kit, network monitoring

Fing has recently introduced the “Fing Agent Raspberry Pi Kit“, also called “Fing Agent plug-and-play Raspberry Pi 4 kit”, for its Fing Agent network monitoring system, which can be considered a follow-up to the earlier Fingbox hardware released in 2017. While Fingbox was a custom appliance based on Ubuntu Core, the new kit uses a Raspberry Pi, making it easier to set up and use in a home or small office network. The kit includes a Raspberry Pi 4 Model B (2GB) in an aluminium case, a 32GB microSD card with Fing Agent preinstalled, a USB-C power supply with adapters, and a Cat 5e Ethernet cable. Once connected to the router, it works with the Fing app, desktop, or web to monitor devices, track uptime and speed, detect intrusions, and send alerts about unusual activity. It also supports device blocking, presence detection, and diagnostics, such as port scans and vulnerability checks. Making it […]

September 24, 2025 by Kumpee Teeravech - 10 Comments

Particle Tachyon Review – A Qualcomm QCM6490 Edge AI and 5G cellular SBC tested with Ubuntu

Hello, today I’m going to review the Particle Tachyon SBC designed for high-performance edge AI, IoT, and connectivity applications. Powered by the Qualcomm QCM6490 platform with an octa-core Kryo CPU, an Adreno GPU, and a Hexagon DSP. The board also integrates robust wireless options, including 5G, Wi-Fi 6E, and Bluetooth 5.2. The Particle Tachyon adopts the Raspberry Pi form factor and provides various I/O interfaces, such as a 40-pin GPIO header compatible with Raspberry Pi HATs, along with expansion options for sensors and peripherals. It also includes a Qwiic connector for SparkFun and Adafruit integrations, as well as MIPI-CSI/DSI connectors for cameras and displays. Particle Tachyon Unboxing The parcel was shipped from Hong Kong and arrived with all the expected components. Inside the package, I found a single-cell 3.7 V LiPo battery with a 3-pin JST-PH connector, the main Tachyon board, a small welcome card, and an additional microphone audio […]

September 7, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Beelink EQi13 Pro Review – Part 3: Ubuntu 24.04 on an Intel Core i5-13500H mini PC

Beelink EQi13 Pro mini PC review Ubuntu 24.04

We’ve already checked out the hardware of the Beelink EQi13 Pro in the first part of the review, and followed up with a detailed review of the Intel Core i5-13500H mini PC running Windows 11 Pro. We’ve now taken the time to test the Beelink EQi13 Pro with Ubuntu 24.04 to find out how well (or not) it performs on Linux. We will specifically report our experience testing features, running benchmarks, checking out the SSD and USB ports, evaluating Gigabit Ethernet and WiFi 6 networking performance, and finally stress testing the mini PC, before measuring the fan noise and power consumption of the mini PC under Linux. Ubuntu 24.04 installation Since the plan is to install Ubuntu 24.04 LTS alongside Windows 11 in a dual-boot configuration, we shrank the Windows 11 partition to about half its size before inserting a USB drive prepared with the Ubuntu 24.04 ISO to start […]

September 5, 2025September 7, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Beelink EQi13 Pro Review – Part 2: A mid-range Intel Core i5-13500H mini PC tested with Windows 11 Pro

Beelink EQi13 Pro mini PC review windows 11

We’ve already checked out the specifications, gone through an unboxing and a teardown, and booted the Beelink EQi13 Pro mini PC to Windows 11 Pro in the first part of the review. Since then, we’ve had more time to test the Intel Core i5-13500H 12-core/16-thread Raptor Lake mini PC with Windows 11 Pro in detail. So we’ll now report our experience with features testing, benchmarks, Ethernet and WiFi performance evaluation, 4K and 8K YouTube video playback, and measurements of fan noise and power consumption for the Beelink EQi13 Pro mid-range mini PC. Software overview and features testing After performing all updates, the System->About window confirms the Beelink EQi13 Pro is equipped with an Intel Core i5-13500H CPU with 32GB RAM running Windows 11 Pro version 24H2, build 26100.2033. HWiNFO 64 utility provides more information about the Intel Core i5-13500H 12-core (4P+E) /16-thread (8P+8E) Raptor Lake-H processor, the AZW BQ motherboard, […]

September 5, 2025September 6, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 23 Comments

Realtek RTL8127 10GbE PCIe cards and M.2 modules are starting to show up for $35 and up

Realtek introduced the RTL8127 10GbE to PCIe NIC at Computex 2025 last May as a low-power, low-cost 10Gbps Ethernet solution for PCIe and M.2 networking cards with an estimated price of around $30 to $40. The good news is that 10GbE PCIe and M.2 cards are now available for sale, just not always at the expected price points. Let’s have a look at some of the options available. Auvidea M20E M.2 10GbE module The first RTL8127 device that came to our attention last month was the Auvidea M20E M.2 10GbE module. Auvidea M20E specifications: Chipset- Realtek RTL8127 Ethernet – 10-pin PicoBlade connector for RJ45 or M12 Xcode adapter Host interface – M.2 Key-E (PCIe Gen4 x1) edge connector Compatible with NVIDIA Jetson Orin NX/AGX and others Power Supply Via edge connector Optional PoE via 4-pin JST-GH Power Consumption – < 1.5W Dimensions – 22 x 42mm; suitable for 2242 or […]