What's that smell ... LANGuard - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: TomS_
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 24, 2018, 09:42:29 pm
content: Just gonna leave this here.They must have hired the finest audiophool marketing wanks to come up with this...https://rog.asus.com/articles/maximus-motherboards/what-is-rog-languard/#

author: Cyberdragon
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 24, 2018, 09:53:38 pm
content: No idea about their no loss touting, but at least it's surge protected.

author: BrianHG
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 24, 2018, 10:38:30 pm
content: Their eye diagram scope shots have been doctored. Take a look at theirs VS the original. How is it possible that the rear scope grid on their is so faint VS the original being around 4x darker. They are hiding the faint specks and noise on their eye diagram scope shot. In fact, lighten up the competitors scope shot and it's eye diagram, yet having that notch, has far less time blurriness to it, like it's better focused. Their would look crappy and fuzzy overall compared to the sharp thin line of the eye diagram of their competitors if they didn't do the doctoring.ALSO, WTF?, their acceptable eye reject regions, triangles/diamonds, are set to a smaller area compared to their competitors scope shot. Maybe that's why their competitors are receiving dropped error packets while their isn't.Who in the hell did this test? Weren't there any type of consistency controls?Why is it so many manipulate fine shit like this??Even duralcell quantum VS duracell original regular coppertop battery spec sheets. The battery impedance graph is using a different scale compare to the data sheets for every other duracell battery type. Under close inspection and scrutiny, the double priced duracell quantums are identical to the half priced regular duracell coppertop batteries. The curve on the mah scale is also ever so slightly modified, clearly a hand drawn too smooth line paint edit ontop of their old spec adding about 1% more life.

author: BradC
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 25, 2018, 01:55:15 am
content: Quote from: Cyberdragon on June 24, 2018, 09:53:38 pmUntil you plug it into a PoE switch and toast the NIC. I made the mistake of selecting some X370-Prime boards for my stuff. They were great until I plugged one into a TP-Link PoE switch. The switch shut down. I tried this a couple of times and each time I plugged the board in the switch died. So cleverly I replaced that switch with an old Linksys/Cisco SRW-2008P that i had lying around. The switch stayed up but there was a cute little "phut" and tiny puff of smoke from the motherboard.1 RMA later and a cheap GigE switch in-between the motherboard and the PoE edge and we're back up and running.More non-compliant shit ricer crap.

author: Cyberdragon
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 25, 2018, 02:21:19 am
content: Quote from: BradC on June 25, 2018, 01:55:15 amIt shouldn't. They say theirs has protection diodes and stuff, which (although probably not) if designed properly would clamp anything over standard ethernet data voltage.EDIT: Wait a minute...PoE should be using the spare non-data pairs in the line which should be unconnected in standard devices...or at least that's what we learned in school.

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 25, 2018, 02:55:24 am
content: Quote from: Cyberdragon on June 25, 2018, 02:21:19 amThere are no spare pairs in gigabit operation. School was a while ago?

author: Cyberdragon
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 25, 2018, 03:05:45 am
content: Quote from: Monkeh on June 25, 2018, 02:55:24 am2014 (and earlier). We never went into detail with gig-ethernet stuff though. Didn't know gig stuff had PoE.

author: Halcyon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: June 25, 2018, 07:04:34 am
content: Quote from: Monkeh on June 25, 2018, 02:55:24 amYep. Also, which is why there are no "gigabit cross-over" cables, they don't exist. Crossing over two of the pairs like you would on a 10/100 connection for devices with no auto MDI-X doesn't work on gigabit devices.

author: BBBbbb
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: June 25, 2018, 10:53:45 am
content: A bit off topic, but I had many issues with Asus ROG GameFirst SW mentioned in the link, that I had to shut it down. It does not play nice with Firefox and some other apps and just erratically halts page loading.

author: wraper
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: June 25, 2018, 11:03:19 am
content: Quote from: BrianHG on June 24, 2018, 10:38:30 pmNope, they have exactly the same size.

author: bd139
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 25, 2018, 11:09:23 am
content: Quote from: Halcyon on June 25, 2018, 07:04:34 amI'm seriously considering selling Gbit crossover cables as a business idea. £15 each. Take patch, stick label on saying "crossover", sell for 10x markup

author: CJay
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 25, 2018, 12:54:22 pm
content: " Well it turns out there's plenty of antiquated tech inside, like old, circular filters "Umm, toroidal transformers?Nice to see they've such a firm grasp of the details...

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 25, 2018, 12:57:36 pm
content: Quote from: CJay on June 25, 2018, 12:54:22 pmWhich they now have in nice flat surface mount types! ... which are just the same thing with epoxy.

author: rrinker
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 25, 2018, 02:22:11 pm
content: Quote from: Monkeh on June 25, 2018, 12:57:36 pmWell, they do say "at least it will satisfy your OCD"Which is probably ALL it will do.

author: BrianHG
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 25, 2018, 03:21:14 pm
content: Quote from: wraper on June 25, 2018, 11:03:19 amOh really, here is one eye shot negative blended on top of the other:Eye1.jpg - timing x axis(time) and amplitude of source signal corrected, best possible centering of eyes and source signal.Eye2.jpg - same as eye1, but centered on source signal.Eye3.jpg - no adjustment of both signals, best centering of first eye.I can match the X&Y scale of the source signal almost exactly, but then, the diamond windows wont be the same size.If I match the diamond window sizes, then the waveform timing and amplitude are way off. The photos I made I tried to align the best of both situations.I don't think they even used the same hardware, or bit rate since everything is way off kilter. Even the scope center line is in the wrong place from 1 shot to the next. Without controlled matched measurements and hardware setup, I cannot confirm anything else they say is true, or different instrument settings. If they did this one test correctly and posted those results, I would not be able to say anything at all here...

author: TomS_
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 27, 2018, 08:57:11 am
content: This may be the cynic in me, but it seems like you can sell anything to gamers who are looking for that next little bragging right.Just dont mention that theres a hell of a lot of networks out there that dont use this so called "technology" but still work juuuust fine, like the entire internet...

author: BradC
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 27, 2018, 10:16:41 am
content: Quote from: TomS_ on June 27, 2018, 08:57:11 amActually, they work better as they don't go up in smoke when you plug them into a PoE switch. Amusing using "smell" in the thread title, as that is exactly what it does when it lets out the magic smoke.

author: wraper
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: June 27, 2018, 04:35:35 pm
content: Quote from: BradC on June 27, 2018, 10:16:41 amExcept nothing will go up in smoke, and if it does, not because of ESD protection. POE supply must detect if there is POE compatible device on the other end and only then apply power. If it does not follow this, then it all comes down to how transformer center taps are connected to GND. Through one common capacitor for all transformers (termination resistors go poof) or individual capacitor for each (they do not).

author: Howardlong
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 27, 2018, 06:30:21 pm
content: Doctored? I might have misunderstood, but that’s neither an eye diagram of 1000base-T nor even 100base-TX. 10base-T maybe, but there’s not many folks using that these days, and certainly not the target market.

author: bCreative
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: June 29, 2018, 04:06:50 pm
content: Am I the only one bothered by the poor grammar on that page?

author: Halcyon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: July 01, 2018, 04:13:01 am
content: Quote from: bd139 on June 25, 2018, 11:09:23 amNot a bad idea.They would work with 99% of devices** Provided they have auto crossover. ;-)

author: CJay
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 01, 2018, 09:36:49 am
content: Quote from: Halcyon on July 01, 2018, 04:13:01 amNot a bad idea.They would work with 99% of devices** Provided they have auto crossover. ;-)Yeah, but it only takes one device to have auto crossover to make the cable work

author: bd139
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 01, 2018, 10:37:03 am
content: I've never actually seen one without, yet. Which is interesting as it's actually an optional part of the spec. I think no one is going to buy your chipset combo if it doesn't do that so no one bothered to not implement it.I'd expect at least Realtek to have cheaped out with their shitty NICs but no, works too.

author: Halcyon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: July 05, 2018, 07:34:58 am
content: Quote from: bd139 on July 01, 2018, 10:37:03 amI have only ever seen one device in the last 20 years or so without auto MDI-X, I'm trying to think of what it was now...

author: bob225
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 05, 2018, 09:00:02 am
content: iirc there where chips out there in the mid to late 2000's that didn't have MDI-X some of infrastructure grade cisco stuff never had it or it was just on the uplink ports onlyah the days of 10 base 2 (thin net) and 10 base 5 (thicker net) where 1 nic or machine fails the whole network falls flat on its face, or the game of lets find the doggy terminator

author: rrinker
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 05, 2018, 03:10:08 pm
content: You have to admit though, at least in the thinnet days we had cool t-connector and terminator sculptures on our desks...

author: JimS
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: July 06, 2018, 07:55:50 am
content: It looks like on the standard RJ-45 socket.The upper right 2 pins have a PCB via attached to them.Or something copper looking.As for the eye pictures.No way to tell what the setup was when the picture was taken.Could have been anything.Marketing...gotta love it.

author: CJay
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 09, 2018, 10:18:00 am
content: Quote from: rrinker on July 05, 2018, 03:10:08 pm'had'?I've still got a box full of 10B2 stuff, it's handy for quick lashups for HF radios.

author: bd139
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 09, 2018, 10:36:23 am
content: I've seen 10base2 still in service in the last year. What's worrying is that it was connected to an AUI box hanging off the back of something that should have been chucked in a skip 20 years ago made by DEC. Insurance sector scares the fuck out of me.

author: ebastler
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 09, 2018, 10:47:37 am
content: Quote from: bCreative on June 29, 2018, 04:06:50 pmIf you are bothered by (or even aware of) grammar, you are probably not in the target audience.

author: CJay
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 09, 2018, 12:41:27 pm
content: Quote from: bd139 on July 09, 2018, 10:36:23 amInsurance, Banking, Doorstep Loan companies, all still using DEC stuff and DEC terminals hanging off DECServers, loads of warehouses and factories too, the DEC is short for DECRepit...There's good reasons why banking IT lags, it costs a *lot* to upgrade and their hands are tied by some arcane rules concerning their IT but it's still scary to work in the data centres of major banks that rely on >20 year old equipment for core business.

author: rrinker
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 09, 2018, 04:12:54 pm
content: Since we have a lot of banks as clients - it's almost funny how so many of them have very up to date IT - until you get to the core banking app. Then it's old, hosted stuff running on antique mainframes. Just when you thought you saw the last 3270 terminal emulator - then you see what runs on the teller workstations.One of my clients has a division that buys and sells loans. All the funds transfers involved are wire transactions. Until a couple of years ago when I wrote an application for them, they were doing all these wire transfers manually - can be hundreds per day. Crazy. The file format for an automated wire transfer is quite archaic, but is not difficult to create and it is very well documented. Even worse were the incoming ones - someone had to read through the transfer report and then manually update the information in their primary application. Not only was it slow and time consuming, the potential for error was rather high. Now it's all automated, both ways, and they handle many more transactions per day.Hmm, I did find some T connectors in the back room, wonder if I have enough to make a desktop pet. I don't do any RF stuff so I never thought to keep that stuff around once everywhere I worked switched to UTP cabling. I think there's a spool of coax in the back too. Never forget the one time a client called us out for a problem with a workstation connecting to the network. Go to the server/wiring room, and coming out of one of their UTP hubs was this run of flat phone cable. Two of us just looked at each other, and then said to the client "I assume this is the cable going to the workstation with a problem?" Not only was it the wrong type of cable, even if it WAS proper Cat 3 cable, it was far longer than the distance limit with UTP at the time, because it went up some 20 feet to the ceiling, and came down at the workstation end, in addition to being about as far away as you could get in this huge warehouse/manufacturing plant. And freely strung across whatever else was up in the rafters - everything from 120V to 48V power lines, fluorescent lighting fixtures, etc.

author: CJay
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 09, 2018, 05:34:28 pm
content: Quote from: rrinker on July 09, 2018, 04:12:54 pmUntil recently we had a contract that involved BRUSYS tapes and 20MB disk drives, PDP11s running the core day to day business of a household name organisation in the UK who's annual turnover is in the billions.Some of the nuclear stuff runs on computers that are very nearly as old as I am and I'm 50 this year.

author: dmills
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 09, 2018, 06:08:03 pm
content: Quote from: CJay on July 09, 2018, 05:34:28 pmI knew a guy who made good money off that market, apparently he had a stock of original carbon comp resistors for the bus termination cards, and as they were original spec they could be used without having to touch the safety case paperwork (After all there are no well known issues with 40 year old carbon comp resistors, right?)....Putting modern metal film in instead would have solved the reliability problem but might have forced redoing several tons of safety paperwork!Regards, Dan.

author: bd139
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 09, 2018, 06:43:17 pm
content: I love how these threads descend into lamenting the state of realityAs for carbon comp resistors I was talking to someone I know locally the other week who doesn’t do the internet and he’s got a lot of old components floating around. We’re talking tens of thousands of carbon comp resistors in neat little drawers. All in his damp uninsulated 1950s cheap build with 1970s gas central heating. You can see the mould. He’s probably sitting on a fortune to be honest but he’s mostly interested in keeping it out of the hands of “guitar peons” and using it for “real ham radio” which he doesn’t do past being racist on SSB...

author: CJay
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 09, 2018, 07:06:30 pm
content: Chuck a laptop with a copy of WSJTx at him and see him explode

author: bd139
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 09, 2018, 07:18:42 pm
content: Hahaha. I’m just going to buy him a ladder

author: Howardlong
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 09, 2018, 09:19:04 pm
content: If you’ve not suffered 10base5 or Type 1 token ring cabling, you’ve not lived ;-)

author: bd139
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 09, 2018, 10:23:56 pm
content: I have once. When I was younger and stupider I tried to pull some CAT5 through with a section of 10base5 (RG8 but worse). It didn’t move.

author: CJay
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 10, 2018, 05:24:46 am
content: Oh I've done Token Ring too, spent many hours pulling that cable, resetting MAUs and making a hash of fitting those godawful plugs.Have also done Twinax.

author: rrinker
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 10, 2018, 08:46:33 pm
content: Yup, way back when, I worked in a token ring shop. In the one building, they decided to make the server/wiring room a show place, with a big glass wall on one side. Trying to neatly route and attach type 1 TR cables to a rack full of MAUs was NOT fun. I think the building used to be owned by IBM, and it was set up that way as a demo room. Which is fine - but we used it for production networking. Fun fun, NOT.During that time I was also sent to a token ring course at an IBM office in New York City. Union rules in the city were such that for some of the exercises, the instructor was making statements like "imagine if this cable was removed from the MAU" since no one but a union electrician was allowed to change ANY wiring.

author: Howardlong
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 10, 2018, 09:37:51 pm
content: That was the main problem with Type 1, keeping the wiring closets and patch panels neat. Token ring was flaky anyway, one bad node and your whole LAN segment died. DOS and Windows 3.1 just didn’t behave well. Finding a bad machine causing beaconing was a crap shoot. Try to repatch something, your whole LAN segment often died, which in itself was why patch panels became so messy, no one dared move anything for fear of taking down a whole floor!Around 1992 or so, IBM persuaded us to move from MAUs to CAUs and LAMs, which had such crappy firmware we had an even worse network. Of course, no body ever got fired for buying IBM.This was around the time IBM lost its way in my experience.We also nad a problem with their PS/2 server RAID configs and drives. First, you’d lose multiple drives simultaneously on an array, especially after a power down. The IBM tech arrived, hammer in hand, tapped the offending drives with the right force, unsticking the heads. The drives were replaced, server boots fine.Second RAID cock up was to put the config on battery back RAM on the controller card with no means of config backup... which then became a single point of failure.We switched to Compaq.

author: bd139
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 10, 2018, 09:50:01 pm
content: I liked Compaq. You can still get the Conpaq hardware experience with HPE now. Just avoid shitty Broadcom NICs

author: Bassman59
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 11, 2018, 04:45:01 am
content: Quote from: bd139 on July 10, 2018, 09:50:01 pmYeah, but Compaq bought DEC, so watch out!

author: CJay
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 11, 2018, 07:56:48 am
content: Quote from: Bassman59 on July 11, 2018, 04:45:01 amPfft, DEC and Compaq were and are still both great kit, it's testament to their quality that there are still many Alpha servers and older Compaq Proliant machines running some very heavy duty applications in safety critical systems.HPE gear is similarly excellent, used to love working on their SANs and servers (I think my accreditations are still valid too)

author: bd139
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 11, 2018, 08:26:43 am
content: DEC kit was always good.HPE is generally quite good. The only turd I've seen from HPE in the last decade is one of the switches they sell for the C7000 blade chassis is buggy as fuck. Inevitably we went and bought a whole stack of them so that was an expensive mistake. Also the NICs on the LOM cards in the DL580 g8 are buggy thus occasionally we have to send in the resident PFY to get felt up by the DC security guys just to replug the damn thing. We're going DAS enterprise SSD and piles of DL380 g10 and redundant Juniper EX on our refresh this year as we killed off the last monolithic monster database servers. Can't wait to inspect the cabling

author: rrinker
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 11, 2018, 01:36:30 pm
content: Yeah, we were an IBM shop (6x 3090 processor complexes, though 3 were the Amdahl clone versions) and of course the token ring - but after a few too many server issues with the PS/2 servers, we switched to the original Compaq Proliants. And yeah, those IBM acronyms - what is this, a network or a barnyard? MAUs, CAUs, LAMs... those were the days. Until they decided the entire IT department was unnecessary, at whch point they went through at least 5 different service providers before realizing that no, you will not get non-employees to some in on a Sunday afternoon and stay all night fixing a server so the business unit can function come Monday morning. It was during one of those times when I got a handle on just how much tape was actually in an 8mm cartridge - while waiting for a server load, I took a bad one and tied the loose end to a doorknob of an office int he center stack of the building, and then ran around unspooling it to see how many times I could circle the floor. It was a lot.And I had it done, AND cleaned up before the server required further input.

author: IanMacdonald
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 12, 2018, 03:38:00 pm
content: There should be NO earth on any pin of an Ethernet RJ45.If there is, it is potentiallyunsafe.There are normally four line isolating transformers (one for each pair) between the socket and the signal handling chip.The reason it's like this is because Ethernet often has to run between buildings, and there may be earth potential differences of a few volts, but with the capability to drive several hundred amps (Basically the neutral current for the entire building) through any link between them. If the earths of the computers are linked the cable may overheat, or tracks be burned off the PCB. Used to be a major issue with the earlier coax networks.Also PoE should be between pairs, not across the conductors of a pair. Provided the conductors have no short to earth, PoE should have no effect on a device which doesn't use it. I suspect the problem here is because somebody thought it would be clever to earth the conductors, or maybe to put in MOVs which can't take the PoE voltage.

author: wraper
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: July 12, 2018, 03:51:21 pm
content: Quote from: IanMacdonald on July 12, 2018, 03:38:00 pmThen go check actual schematic how transformers can be connected. Voltage between differential pairs most likely will be an issue, thus proper PoE supply should have load detection.BTW you forgot about shielded cables which are a must for outdoor use.

author: lty1993
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: September 22, 2018, 08:00:24 pm
content: If I am right, the 1000BASE-T uses PAM5. The eye diagram they showed are NRZ signal!!!