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January 24, 2025January 24, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

WL-AC1000 AP controller can manage large fleets of wireless routers and access points

Wallys Tech WL-AC1000 is an access point (AP) controller designed to manage and optimize the operation of multiple access points (APs) within large-scale wireless networks that you may find in factories, airports, hotels, train stations, etc… The WL-AC1000 is powered by a quad-core Arm processor coupled with 1GB RAM, 8MB NOR flash, and 256MB NAND flash. It is equipped with four GbE ports and one 2.5GbE port to connect the access points through switches. It’s available as a desktop version and a 1U enclosure to mount in a rack. Wallys Tech WL-AC1000 specifications: SoC – Quad-core ARM 64-bit A53 @ 1 .8 GHz processor (likely some Qualcomm QCS part) System Memory – 1GB (2x 512MB) DDR3L Storage 8MB NOR flash 256MB NAND Flash Networking Gigabit Ethernet RJ45 port with PoE 3x Gigabit Ethernet RJ45 ports 2.5Gbps Ethernet RJ45 port Power Supply – 24V DC Dimensions WL-AC1000-E – 192 x 122 […]

January 22, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

Queclink WR310 – A compact 5G and WiFi 6 industrial cellular router with four GbE ports, GNSS, and RS232 and RS485 interfaces

Queclink WR310 5G industrial cellular gateway

Queclink WR310 5G and WiFi 6 industrial cellular router features four gigabit Ethernet ports, a USB Type-A port, a terminal block with RS232 and RS485, and a wide 8 to 32V DC input suitable for smart manufacturing, industrial IoT (IIoT), and edge computing applications. It looks to be a more compact and cost-optimized version of the Queclink WR300 5G industrial router introduced in 2023 with global 5G coverage. The WR310 has many of the same features, but comes with less memory and storage, one less gigabit Ethernet port, and is available in three models depending on the region of operation: WR310FEU for EMEA, AP, and Brazil regions WR310FAU for LATAM markets WR310FNA for North America Queclink WR310 specifications: SoC – Unspecified Qualcomm dual-core Arm 64-bit Cortex-A53 @ 1.0GHz; likely the Qualcomm IPQ5018 or similar (Note the Qualcomm IPQ8072 quad-core Arm Cortex-A53 @ 2.2 GHz was used in the WR300 5G […]

December 18, 2024December 18, 2024 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

Orange Pi CM5 “Tablet” Base Board drops Ethernet for WiFi 5, adds battery support, M.2 socket, 26-pin GPIO header…

The Orange Pi CM5 was launched as an alternative to Raspberry Pi CM4/CM5 last July with a Rockchip RK3588S octa-core Cortex-A76/A55 SoC, up to 16GB LPDDR4x, 256GB eMMC flash, and three board-to-board connectors maintaining partially compatibility with the Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4. At the time, Orange Pi also introduced the Orange Pi CM5 Base Board with HDMI 2.1, one Gigabit Ethernet port, two 2.5GbE ports, USB 3.0/2.0 ports, four camera connectors, and more. The company has now launched the Orange Pi CM5 “Tablet” Base Board without Ethernet ports, making use of WiFi 5 and Bluetooth 5.0 for networking instead. It keeps many of the same features but adds a 26-pin GPIO header, an M.2 Key-M socket for SSD storage, DP 1.4 and MIPI DSI display interfaces, and various audio interfaces. However, it does with “only” three camera interfaces. It’s quite thick to be used in a typical tablet, but […]

December 17, 2024December 18, 2024 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

iKOOLCORE R2 Max review – Part 2: 10GbE on an Intel N100 mini PC with OpenWrt (QWRT), Proxmox VE, Ubuntu 24.04 and pfSense 2.7.2

iKOOLCORE R2 Max Review Proxmox VE Ubuntu 22.04

I’ve already checked out iKOOLCORE R2 Max hardware in the first part of the review with an unboxing and a teardown of the Intel N100 system with two 10GbE ports and two 2.5GbE ports. I’ve now had more time to test it with an OpenWrt fork, Proxmox VE, Ubuntu 24.04, and pfSense, so I’ll report my experience in the second and final part of the review. As a reminder, since I didn’t have any 10GbE gear so far, iKOOLCORE sent me two R2 Max devices, a fanless model and an actively-cooled model. I was told the fanless one was based on Intel N100 SoC, and the actively-cooled one was powered by an Intel Core i3-N305 CPU, but I ended up with two Intel N100 devices. The fanless model will be an OpenWrt 23.05 (QWRT) server, and the actively cooled variant be the device under test/client with Proxmox VE 8.3 server […]

December 14, 2024December 14, 2024 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

How to use iperf3 in multi-thread mode for 10Gps+ Ethernet testing

With 10GbE becoming more widespread and often found in entry-level hardware, the CPU may become the bottleneck, so I’ll explain how to use iperf3 in multi-thread mode to fully saturate the 10GbE bandwidth even with a system based on a relatively low-end multi-core processor.

For this tutorial, I use two iKOOCORE R2 Max mini PCs with two 10GbE interfaces each and an Intel N100 quad-core processor running an OpenWrt fork (QWRT) and Proxmox VE (Debian) respectively. I will show how I can fully saturate the 10GbE interfaces using multithreading, but not with a typical iperf3 single-core test.

December 3, 2024December 28, 2024 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Orange Pi 5 Ultra SBC offers HDMI 2.1 output and HDMI 2.0 input

The Orange Pi 5 Ultra is a Rockchip RK3588 SBC that’s slightly larger than a business card and visually identical to the Orange Pi 5 Max introduced last August, but replacing one of the two HDMI 2.1 video outputs on the latter with an HDMI 2.0 input port. The new single board computer is still offered with up to 16GB LPDDR5, an eMMC flash module connector or soldered-on eMMC flash, an M.2 socket for an NVMe SSD, 2.5GbE and WiFi 6E networking, and four USB 3.0/2.0 ports. Orange Pi 5 Ultra specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3588 CPU – Octa-core processor with 4x Cortex-A76 cores @ up to 2.4 GHz, 4x Cortex-A55 cores @ up to 1.8 GHz Arm Mali-G610 MP4 GPU with support for OpenGL ES1.1/2.0/3.2, OpenCL 2.2, and Vulkan 1.2 6 TOPS AI accelerator with support for INT4/INT8/INT16/FP16 mixed operation VPU – 8Kp60 H.265/VP9/AVS2 10-bit decoder, 8Kp30 H.264 decoder, […]

November 28, 2024November 28, 2024 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments

$16 Banana Pi BPI-WiFi5 router is powered by Siflower SF19A28 dual-core MIPS SoC

Banana Pi BPI WiFi5 Low-cost WiFi 5 router

Banana Pi BPI-WiFi5 is a low-cost WiFi 5 AC1200 router with four gigabit Ethernet ports powered by a 1.2 GHz Siflower SF19A28 dual-core MIPS SoC coupled with 64MB DDR2 and an 8MB flash. It’s not the first low-cost router from the company, as the Banana Pi BPI-WiFi6 Mini was introduced this summer for $30 with Triductor TR6560 SoC, and with the Banana Pi BPI-WiFi5, they’ve now introduced a lower-end WiFi 5 router going for just about $16 plus shipping on AliExpress or $29.99 on Amazon. Banana Pi BPI-WiFi5 specifications: SoC – Siflower SF19A2890S2 dual-core MIPS processor @ 1.2GHz System Memory – 64MB DDR2 RAM Storage – 8MB flash Networking Switch – Airoha AN8855R Gigabit Ethernet switch 1x Gigabit Ethernet WAN port 3x Gigabit Ethernet LAN ports Wireless 2.4 GHz WiFi 2×2 MIMO up to 300 Mbps 5 GHz WiFi 2×2 MIMO up to 866.7 Mbps Frequency bands 2.4GHz – 2.4GHz […]

November 10, 2024November 12, 2024 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 369 Comments

Giveaway Week 2024 – iKOOLCORE R2 Core i3-N300 mini PC and quad 2.5GbE router

Let’s end CNX Software’s Giveaway Week 2024 with a bang! The last prize is an iKOOLCORE R2 mini PC and router powered by an Intel Core i3-N300 Alder Lake-N CPU, equipped with 8GB RAM and a 512GB NVMe SSD, and featuring four 2.5GbE ports. The tiny PC also comes with HDMI and USB-C ports for dual 4K video output, an M.2 E-Key socket to install a wireless module for WiFi and Bluetooth, two USB 3.1 Gen 2 (5 Gbps) Type-A ports, a USB 3.1 Gen 2 (10 Gbps) Type-C port with DisplayPort Alt. mode, and a not-so-useful USB-C audio port using Realtek ALC987 codec. My review of the iKOOLCORE R2 last year was a learning experience as it was the first time I used Proxmox VE and pfSense, and since I wanted to use the system both as a mini PC running Ubuntu 22.04 desktop and a router/firewall running pfSense […]