Reviews - Page 29 of 119 - CNX Software

February 4, 2022 by Ian W MORRISON (Linuxium) - 5 Comments

Beelink GTi11 modding – PCIe Gen 4.0 M.2 slot, tweaking power limits, and eGPU

Previously I reviewed Beelink’s new GTi11 Intel Tiger Lake mini PC running Windows 11 and Ubuntu 20.04, so in this final part of the review, I’ll cover in more detail some of the features only briefly highlighted before. Specifically, I’m going to look at the PCIe Gen 4.0 M.2 slot, dabble in ‘overclocking’ and explore eGPU options. Hardware Recap The GTi11 is a 168 x 120 x 39mm (6.61 x 4.72 x 1.54 inches) actively cooled mini PC and the review model has an i5-1135G7 Intel Tiger Lake quad-core 8-thread 2.50 GHz Core processor boosting to 4.20 GHz with Intel’s Xe Graphics. The review model also included a 500GB M.2 2280 NVMe PCIe Gen 3.0 SSD drive with Windows 10 Pro installed, two sticks of 8GB DDR4 3200 MHz memory, a soldered WiFi 6 (or 802.11ax) Intel AX201 chip, and dual 2.5Gb Ethernet ports. Interestingly there are another two key […]

January 31, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

Maker Nano RP2040 offers Arduino Nano, Grove and Qwiic modules compatibility

Cytron Maker Nano RP2040 is board similar to Raspberry Pi Pico but with Arduino Nano form factor, a proper reset button, two RGB LEDs, single color LEDs for some GPIOs, a buzzer, as well as two Qwicc/STEMMA QT connectors that can also be used to connect Seeed Studio Grove modules using provided conversion cables. While the board mostly aims to be an Arduino Nano/Maker Nano upgrade, there are some notable differences with the I/O voltage being limited to 3.3V without 5V tolerance, and there are only four ADC inputs (A0 – A3) instead of eight on the Arduino Nano. Maker Nano RP2040 specifications: MCU – Raspberry Pi RP2040 dual-core Arm Cortex-M0+ microcontroller @ 125 MHz with 264KB internal RAM Storage – 2MB flash Audio – Piezo buzzer with mute switch Expansion 2x 15-pin headers with 22x GPIOs, 14x of which with LEDs,2x I2C, 2x UART, 2x SPI, 14x PWM, 4x […]

January 24, 2022January 25, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 20 Comments

Building a NanoPi M4V2 based All-in-One Linux PC running Armbian (Ubuntu/Debian)

At the end of my review of “RPI All-in-One” PC with Raspberry Pi 4, I noted the system also appeared to be compatible with NanoPi M4V2 single board computer. I’ve now tried it out, and assembling the board inside the 10.1-inch display is even easier than I initially thought. That means I now have a NanoPi M4V2 All-in-One PC running Ubuntu Hirsute or Debian Buster with XFCE desktop environment from Armbian, and most features work including the display and wireless connectivity, but I still have an issue with the touchscreen function. Here are the steps I followed initially: Download Armbian Buster XFCE image from Armbian and flash it to a microSD card with tools like USBimager. Insert the microSD card in the board Install the USB Type-C and HDMI-A adapters in the display. Insert the USB Type-C and HDMI port of the NanoPi M4V2 SBC into the adapters Install the […]

January 22, 2022January 23, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 14 Comments

Radxa E25 carrier board, 2.5GbE switch, and WiFi 6 router

Radxa E25 2.5GbE switch-Xiaomi AX6000 WiFi 6 router

I’ve just received an early sample of Radxa E25 dual 2.5 GbE carrier board for Radxa CM3 Plus (RK3568) system-on-module, a 2.5GbE TP-Link switch, and Xiaomi AX6000 WiFi 6 + 2.5GbE router. Here’s the back story before looking into the devices. I’ll soon have to review UP Xtreme i11 mini PC with a 2.5GbE port, and after writing about the upcoming ROCK5 Model B SBC with both 2.5GbE and WiFI 6/6E, I realized I should really get some hardware to test 2.5GHz and WiFi 6. So I started to ask what could be the best options for a $200 budget. While thinking about it, I remember Radxa was working on the Radxa E23 board with 2.5GbE, and adding a WiFi 6 USB dongle might be an option. But they told me Radxa E25 would be a better option with two 2.5GbE ports and support for WiFi 6, although that one […]

January 19, 2022February 18, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 13 Comments

10.1-inch RPI All-in-One PC review with Raspberry Pi 4

A couple of months ago I received “RPI All-in-One”, a 10.1-inch touchscreen display for Raspberry Pi boards, listed the specifications, checked out the package content, installed a Raspberry Pi 4 inside the display before booting my new all-in-one (AiO) PC successfully. I’ve now had time to spend more time with the PC/display and see how it performs under various conditions. I also tested HDMI and USB-C input features with a laptop and mini PC. Fan or fanless operation? After updating Raspberry Pi OS, I ran sbc-bench.sh script together with rpi-monitor to see how the Raspberry Pi 4 with 1GB RAM would perform under load with the (noisy) fan enabled.

sbc-bench v0.9.1

Installing needed tools. This may take some time. Done.
Checking cpufreq OPP. Done (results will be available in 11-15 minutes).
Executing tinymembench. Done.
Executing OpenSSL benchmark. Done.
Executing 7-zip benchmark. Done.
Checking cpufreq OPP. Done (17 minutes elapsed).

perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
	LANGUAGE = (unset),
	LC_ALL = (unset),
	LC_ADDRESS = "en_GB.UTF-8",
	LC_NAME = "en_GB.UTF-8",
	LC_MONETARY = "en_GB.UTF-8",
	LC_PAPER = "en_GB.UTF-8",
	LC_IDENTIFICATION = "en_GB.UTF-8",
	LC_TELEPHONE = "en_GB.UTF-8",
	LC_MEASUREMENT = "en_GB.UTF-8",
	LC_TIME = "en_GB.UTF-8",
	LC_NUMERIC = "en_GB.UTF-8",
	LANG = (unset)
    are supported and installed on your system.
perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
It seems neither throttling nor frequency capping has occured.

Memory performance:
memcpy: 2595.9 MB/s (0.8%)
memset: 3398.3 MB/s (2.7%)

7-zip total scores (3 consecutive runs): 5556,5650,5565

OpenSSL results:
type             16 bytes     64 bytes    256 bytes   1024 bytes   8192 bytes  16384 bytes
aes-128-cbc      61981.49k    76335.40k    82773.25k    84199.42k    84355.75k    84393.98k
aes-128-cbc      62224.25k    76254.36k    82779.39k    84461.91k    84757.16k    84825.43k
aes-192-cbc      55900.34k    67052.89k    71500.80k    73121.11k    73362.09k    73203.71k
aes-192-cbc      55869.41k    66963.52k    71835.14k    72934.74k    73471.32k    73465.86k
aes-256-cbc      50541.63k    59834.26k    63387.14k    64413.70k    64634.88k    64760.49k
aes-256-cbc      50646.47k    59735.02k    63384.92k    64461.14k    64648.53k    64629.42k

Full results uploaded to http://ix.io/3MfY. 

In case this device is not already represented in official sbc-bench results list then please
consider submitting it at https://github.com/ThomasKaiser/sbc-bench/issues with this line:
| RPi 4 Model B Rev 1.1 / BCM2711 rev B0 | 1500 MHz | 5.10 | Bullseye armhf | 5590 | 62100 | 64690 | 2600 | 3400 | - | [http://ix.io/3MfY](http://ix.io/3MfY) |

sbc-bench v0.9.1

Installing needed tools. This may take some time. Done.

Checking cpufreq OPP. Done (results will be available in 11-15 minutes).

Executing tinymembench. Done.

Executing OpenSSL benchmark. Done.

Executing 7-zip benchmark. Done.

Checking cpufreq OPP. Done (17 minutes elapsed).

perl: warning: Setting locale failed.

perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:

LANGUAGE = (unset),

LC_ALL = (unset),

LC_ADDRESS = "en_GB.UTF-8",

LC_NAME = "en_GB.UTF-8",

LC_MONETARY = "en_GB.UTF-8",

LC_PAPER = "en_GB.UTF-8",

LC_IDENTIFICATION = "en_GB.UTF-8",

LC_TELEPHONE = "en_GB.UTF-8",

LC_MEASUREMENT = "en_GB.UTF-8",

LC_TIME = "en_GB.UTF-8",

LC_NUMERIC = "en_GB.UTF-8",

LANG = (unset)

are supported and installed on your system.

perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").

It seems neither throttling nor frequency capping has occured.

Memory performance:

memcpy: 2595.9 MB/s (0.8%)

memset: 3398.3 MB/s (2.7%)

7-zip total scores (3 consecutive runs): 5556,5650,5565

OpenSSL results:

type 16 bytes 64 bytes 256 bytes 1024 bytes 8192 bytes 16384 bytes

aes-128-cbc 61981.49k 76335.40k 82773.25k 84199.42k 84355.75k 84393.98k

aes-128-cbc 62224.25k 76254.36k 82779.39k 84461.91k 84757.16k 84825.43k

aes-192-cbc 55900.34k 67052.89k 71500.80k 73121.11k 73362.09k 73203.71k

aes-192-cbc 55869.41k 66963.52k 71835.14k 72934.74k 73471.32k 73465.86k

aes-256-cbc 50541.63k 59834.26k 63387.14k 64413.70k 64634.88k 64760.49k

aes-256-cbc 50646.47k 59735.02k 63384.92k 64461.14k 64648.53k 64629.42k

Full results uploaded to http://ix.io/3MfY.

In case this device is not already represented in official sbc-bench results list then please

consider submitting it at https://github.com/ThomasKaiser/sbc-bench/issues with this line:

| RPi 4 Model B Rev 1.1 / BCM2711 rev B0 | 1500 MHz | 5.10 | Bullseye armhf | 5590 | 62100 | 64690 | 2600 | 3400 | - | [http://ix.io/3MfY](http://ix.io/3MfY) |

No throttling was detected, and the temperature never exceeded 56°C in a room with an ambient temperature of 26°C. I then disconnect the fan, but it turns out the fan can also be easily disabled in the OSD menu […]

January 9, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments

Reolink Go Plus 4G review – Part 2: A Solar-powered 4G LTE security camera with person & vehicle detection

Last month, I received Reolink Go Plus 4G smart security camera with 4G LTE connectivity, vehicle/human detection support, and powered by a solar panel. In the first part of the review, I did an unboxing, added the camera to the Reolink Android app, and confirmed it worked with my DTAC SIM card. I’ve now installed the camera and had time to test more of its features, so I can report my experience with the security camera. Reolink Go Plus 4G camera and solar panel installation I wanted to use the camera near the gate that’s outside of (reliable) WiFi range. So I found a piece of hardwood to which I attached the mounts of the camera and solar panel… … and attached it to the wall. My current installation works for testing, but it’s not the most secure as the camera is quite visible and only placed a little over […]

December 26, 2021February 4, 2022 by Ian W MORRISON (Linuxium) - 4 Comments

Beelink GTi11 review – Part 2: Ubuntu 20.04 on an Intel Core i5-1135G7 mini PC

Previously I reviewed Beelink’s new GTi11 Intel Tiger Lake mini PC running Windows 11, so in this part, I will cover Ubuntu 20.04. Hardware Recap The GTi11 is a 168 x 120 x 39mm (6.61 x 4.72 x 1.54 inches) actively cooled mini PC and the review model has an i5-1135G7 Intel Tiger Lake quad-core 8-thread 2.50 GHz Core processor boosting to 4.20 GHz with Intel’s Xe Graphics. The review model also includes a 500GB M.2 2280 NVMe PCIe Gen 3.0 SSD drive initially with Windows 10 Pro installed but now successfully upgraded to Windows 11 Pro, two sticks of 8GB DDR4 3200 MHz memory, a soldered WiFi 6 (or 802.11ax) Intel AX201 chip and dual 2.5Gb Ethernet ports. The specifications list four of the USB ports as 3.0 so I retested them on Ubuntu using a Samsung 980 PRO PCle 4.0 NVMe M.2 SSD housed in an ‘USB to […]

December 24, 2021December 27, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 24 Comments

Manufacturing samples of Xassette-Asterisk open-source hardware board

We covered Xassette-Asterisk open source-hardware Allwinner D1s RISC-V Linux SBC last October. But it will most likely never be mass-manufactured since SdtElectronics, the designer, has no resources and time for production. So I thought I should give it a try, and I managed to get 10 boards manufactured and assembled. Time for a little disclaimer. While the post is not sponsored in the sense I did not get paid for it, NextPCB agreed to cover all costs, aka sponsor, and manufacture ten boards. Today, I’ll report my experience manufacturing an open-source hardware board, but I had no time to check whether any of the boards worked. Manufacturing timeline Since I did not want to go through the whole process of ordering the PCB, purchasing the components, and soldering each board individually, I opted for NextPCB’s PCB manufacturing and assembly services. Here’s the detailed timeline: November 9 – Ordered 10 boards […]