The Wiert Corner – irregular stream of stuff

Jeroen W. Pluimers on .NET, C#, Delphi, databases, and personal interests

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Archive for the ‘Hardware’ Category

LAN/WAN network building: test and know how to locate your cabling

Posted by jpluimers on 2025/09/04

I have seen too many sites where cabling was laid en never tested before actual use, which meant locating the cabling and faults was a nightmare.

Be sure to have good (which can be very simple, but more complex when Power over Ethernet is involved) testing hardware and use it during installation. You will thank yourself later.

A few videos that can be helpful:

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Development, Ethernet, fiber, Hardware, Hardware Development, Internet, Network-and-equipment, PoE - Power over Ethernet, Power User | Tagged: , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

4-digit Dell Optiplex models – Difference between model-series – Dell Community

Posted by jpluimers on 2025/08/18

A while ago I bumped into the below post but forgot which Google Search query brought me to it. Very to the point info at [Wayback/Archive] Optiplex models – Difference between model-series – Dell Community (thanks [Wayback/Archive] Philip_Yip – Dell Community!) Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Dell Optiplex 3060/5060/7060 Micro, Hardware, Power User | Leave a Comment »

If I have not found pfSense hardware by now: Gowin R86S mini PC offers 2.5GbE and 10GbE networking for $310 and up – CNX Software

Posted by jpluimers on 2025/08/15

I have been contemplating on pfSense hardware as there has been a large shortage on that market especially for having more than 2 ports (similar to for instance Mikrotik PoE router unavailability).

If by now I have not found any, I might want to revisit [Wayback/Archive] Gowin R86S mini PC offers 2.5GbE and 10GbE networking for $310 and up – CNX Software has 3 RJ45 ports and 2 SFP+ cages.

They found it via this 4 page review:

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Ethernet, Hardware, MikroTik, Network-and-equipment, pfSense, Power User, routers | Leave a Comment »

In case I need a small 5-port managed switch that can do port-mirroring: GS305E | Easy Smart Managed Essentials Switch | NETGEAR Support

Posted by jpluimers on 2025/08/13

[Wayback/Archive] GS305E | Easy Smart Managed Essentials Switch | NETGEAR Support which can do many-to-one port mirroring.

This is a newer and cheaper hardware revision than the:

  • GS105Ev2 (which is managed and can do port-mirroring, and is confusingly sold as GS105E-200) which in Germany already is end-of-life
  • GS105Ev1 (which is unmanaged and cannot do port-mirroring and is confusingly sold as GS105E-100) which is end-of-life but still sold

Via [Wayback/Archive] Everyone Should Have One of These – EASY Packet Capture! – YouTube who explains very well why you need a switch that can do port-mirroring, then recommends the GS105E but forgets to mention:

  • there are different revisions of the GS105E with the above drawbacks
  • there is GS305E

Related:

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Blue team, Communications Development, Development, Ethernet, Hardware, Internet protocol suite, Network-and-equipment, Power User, Red team, Security, Software Development, TCP, UDP | Leave a Comment »

Dennard scaling – Wikipedia: finally learned why since 20 years, maximum CPU frequency stagnated at about 4 Ghz

Posted by jpluimers on 2025/07/29

Dennard scaling – Wikipedia

Since around 2005–2007 Dennard scaling appears to have broken down. As of 2016, transistor counts in integrated circuits are still growing, but the resulting improvements in performance are more gradual than the speed-ups resulting from significant frequency increases.[1][10] The primary reason cited for the breakdown is that at small sizes, current leakage poses greater challenges and also causes the chip to heat up, which creates a threat of thermal runaway and therefore further increases energy costs.[1][10] Since 2005, the clock frequency has stagnated at 4 GHz, and the power consumption per CPU at 100 W TDP.

Via [Wayback/Archive] What Happened to the Capacitors in 2002? – YouTube

--jeroen

Posted in Development, Electronics Development, Hardware, Hardware Development, Power User | Leave a Comment »

Overlay of commands / shortcuts / keys pressed – Screencast Mode · Issue #981 · microsoft/PowerToys · GitHub

Posted by jpluimers on 2025/07/23

This is a reminder to check if this below late 2019 proposal inspired by Visual Studio Code Screencast mode¹ already made it: [Wayback/Archive] Overlay of commands / shortcuts / keys pressed – Screencast Mode · Issue #981 · microsoft/PowerToys · GitHub which mentions some tools that can already do this

Here is a list of FOSS apps that currently do this (sorted by stars):

To add to this list (unsorted):

In the meantime, I am using Key-n-Stroke as it is the only still supported one I found that is easily turned off/on when typing sensitive content like passwords:

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in .NET, Development, Keyboards and Keyboard Shortcuts, KVM keyboard/video/mouse, Power User, PowerToys, Software Development, vscode Visual Studio Code, Windows | Tagged: , | Leave a Comment »

The queste on figuring out why iqvw64e.sys is considered unsafe in Windows 11 22H2 after upgrading from Windows 10 on a Dell Optiplex 3060 Micro system

Posted by jpluimers on 2025/07/18

It started with this tweet [Wayback/Archive] Jeroen Wiert Pluimers @wiert@mastodon.social on Twitter: “Does anyone know why this iqvw64e.sys file from @Dell is considered unsafe? It is signed by @IntelSoftware and resides in C:\Program Files\Dell\SupportAssistAgent\PCDr\SupportAssist\6.0.7033.2285\iqvw64e.sys iqvw64e.inf in the same directory: 04/06/2018,1.3.2.17 @IntelSupport? “

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Dell Optiplex 3060/5060/7060 Micro, Hardware, Power User, Windows, Windows 10, Windows 11 | Leave a Comment »

How to change the ringtone on your doorbell – The Verge

Posted by jpluimers on 2025/07/14

[Wayback/Archive] How to change the ringtone on your doorbell – The Verge (quote for my Ring camera as I always forget their link):

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Hardware, IoT Internet of Things, LifeHacker, Network-and-equipment, Power User, Ring Doorbell/Chime (Amazon) | Leave a Comment »

[OpenWrt Wiki] MikroTik

Posted by jpluimers on 2025/07/09

I wasn’t aware that [Wayback/Archive] [OpenWrt Wiki] MikroTik was available. Many devices are incomplete in support, but it is good to know there is an alternative to the buggy scripting interface of RouterOS.

For the hEX series, support seems good enough to give it a try this summer, but I need to figure out of the hEX PoE RB960PGS is supported. I have good hopes as other models of the RB9* series are.

A few warnings from the below links:

  • First Things First: Don’t Lose Your RouterOS License
  • OpenWrt is not compatible with the bootloader of RouterOS v7. Do NOT upgrade the firmware on your device to RouterOS v7 or, if you did, downgrade to RouterOS Firmware v6 before installing OpenWrt. RouterOS doesn’t allow to downgrade below factory firmware version, but OpenWrt boots and works fine with versions up to 6.49.10 or beyond. Confirmed working: 6.47.10 (tested on SXTsq 5 ac), 6.49.10 (tested on SXTsq 2nD).
  • If the installation fails, you might need to upgrade/downgrade to RouterOS 6.49.2
  • Warning: Don’t upgrade RouterOS packages & bootloader to 7.2.1 otherwise ‘sysupgrade image’ install will fail!
  • If latested release of RouterOS does not work, try an older version. 6.45 is reportet to work as a first debrick, you can upgrade later with the Winbox Software to latest release

These hEX related models are supported on the web-site (which also explains major differences with Fast Ethernet (100 Mbit/s) and Gigabit Ethernet (1 Gbit/s) models:

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Development, Hardware, MikroTik, Network-and-equipment, Power User, routers, Scripting, Software Development | Leave a Comment »

HackErOpUit – agenda with hacker/maker/security related conferences and meetings in or near The Netherlands; add your own event through a pull request

Posted by jpluimers on 2025/07/08

[Wayback/Archive] HackErOpUit

Pull-requests via [Wayback/Archive] GitHub – revspace/hackeropuit: HackErOpUit.nl website

An overview of hacker-events in and around the Netherlands

Patches welcome ;) (Both in the code as with new events)

The different kinds of events are at [Wayback/Archive] hackeropuit/events at master · revspace/hackeropuit · GitHub.

Via: [Wayback/Archive] Angry Nerds – de privacy en security podcast. ->  [Wayback/ArchiveDiscord | #houd-toch-je-feedback | Angrynerds Podcast

--jeroen

Posted in Development, Hardware, Power User, Security, Software Development | Tagged: | Leave a Comment »