[Nexus 10 Accessories] 3DSammy:
This is a review of the Plugable USB 2.0 to 10/100/1000 Gigabit Ethernet LAN Network Adapter (ASIX AX88178 Chipset) with a Nexus 10.

Purpose: To reliably stream to a Nexus 10 HD (720p, 1080i and 1080p) videos from a gigabit connected LAN server with no playback stutter.

Issue: The bed room location is unreliable for WiFi video streaming even with low bit rate transcoded videos. The signal strength fluctuates day-to-day and hour-to-hour. A WiFi repeater could help with low bit rate transcoded videos but not with HD content. This issue is not specific to the Nexus 10 but is consistent for various laptops and other WiFi enabled devices connecting to various WiFi routers.

Solution: Gigabit connected NAS-->ASUS RT-N16 Gigabit router--> D-Link PowerLine AV DHP-501AV Adapters-->Plugable Gigabit Ethernet LAN Network Adapter-->microUSB OTG cable-->Nexus 10.

Note: 128-bit AES Data Encryption is performed between the two PowerLine adapters

Product Plus:

1) The Plugable Gigabit Ethernet LAN Network Adapter provides consistent throughput 446.5% faster than a single band 2.4GHz WiFi router connection.

2) The Ethernet adapter worked out-of-the-box with Stock JB (4.2.2). The manufacturer claims that compatible drivers have been included with Android kernel 3.3.x and higher. I have no reason to doubt that claim.

3) All NAS videos HD 720p (5,380 Kbps), 1080i (9,643 Kbps), 1080p (11.2 Mbps) and transcoded 640x360 (1,173 Kbps) videos played back without any stutter or audio sync problems. Players used were MXPlayer Pro with Arm v7 with Neon Support, DTS codec set to HW+ and the Feb 19th build of XBMC 13.0-ALPHA1 with ARM7 HW acceleration.

Product Minus:

1) The adapter is slightly bulky (see Pictures)

2) 3% more battery drain than WiFi over an hour with the Nexus 10 idle and screen off (see Pictures)

NOTE: Mobility is not considered a minus in this evaluation given the nature of wired technology.

Test descriptions:

Throughput:

Average throughput was measured by downloading five consecutive times, over http, a 363.4MB file and averaging the download times. Then the average throughput was calculated.

NOTE: This is a USB 2.0 adapter that has a threshold of 480Mbps so the throughput results can never reach Gigabit speeds.

NOTE2: If I could get native CIFS shares working I would have done network share throughput testing as well. Still working on that.

The download and time capture was performed via the terminal commandline:

> date && wget "http://192.168.0.102/testmedia.mkv" && date && rm testmedia.mkv

E.g. test run:

Tue Apr 16 11:10:47 EDT 2013

Connecting to 192.168.0.102 (192.168.0.102:80)

testvideo.mkv 100% |*************************************************| 346M 0:00:00 ETA

Tue Apr 16 11:11:41 EDT 2013

Throughput test results:

1) WiFi with Nexus 10 only 10 feet from the ASUS RT-N16 router. Settings displayed a WiFi 117Kbps connection:

363,432,085 byte file / 167 secs average for 5 test runs = 2,176,240 bytes/sec or 2.08 MB/s

2) Plugable Gigabit Ethernet Adapter connected directly to the ASUS RT-N16 router

363,432,085 byte file / 37.4 secs average for 5 test runs = 9,717,435 bytes/sec or 9.27 MB/s

3) WiFi Vs USB 2.0 Gigabyte Ethernet Adapter connected directly to the ASUS RT-N16 router

9717435.427807487 * 100 / 2176240.02994012 = Ethernet was 446.5% faster

4) Plugable Gigabit Ethernet Adapter connected to the PowerLine Adapter:

363,432,085 byte file / 51 secs average for 5 test runs = 7,126,119 bytes/sec or 6.80 MB/s

5) WiFi Vs USB 2.0 Gigabyte Ethernet Adapter over PowerLine Adapters:

7126119.31372549 * 100 / 2176240.02994012 = Ethernet was 327.5% faster

6) Distance from the router, power adapter inefficiencies and the 128bit encryption overhead between the power adapters results in an 26.6% decrease in throughput Vs a direct router connection:

100 − 6.80 × 100 / 9.27 = 26.6%

Battery consumption:

Battery consumption is an important measurement due to the current inability to charge at the same time that the microUSB port is used for the OTG connection. This is true even when a pogo plug was connected. The notification bar showed that the Nexus 10 was charging but that is a false indicator. Currently even a microUSB OTG Y cable needs a custom ROM to enable concurrent charging and OTG functionality. At the time this review was written no Nexus 10 custom ROM has this capability.

Tested with Tasker650 TX34/Trinity Ten (Performance Control: Ondemand/sio which is the default settings):

1) One hour with no network connectivity (WiFi turned off) to use as a base line. Results: 0% drain

2) One hour with WiFi turned on. Results: 1% drain (see screen shot)

3) One hour with WiFi turned off but the Ethernet Adapter/cable connected to network. Results: 3% drain (see screen shot)

NOTE: The screen was off during these tests

Observations:

To make sure the adapter was functioning it was first tested with a dual boot laptop running Ubuntu 12.10 which worked immediately while Win8 required drivers to be installed. Both had no issues with HD video playback. In fact it seemed no different than using the laptop's native Gigabit Ethernet connection.

Next the Nexus 10 with custom SentinelROM 4.10 with KTManta was tried. The adapter's LEDs never turned on. No attempts could get the Ethernet adapter to work.

A TWRP restore of a rooted stock 4.2.2 backup was performed. After a reboot, with WiFi still enabled, the adapter's green LED turned on but nothing showed in notifications. After turning off WiFi still nothing showed in either notifications or Settings but the adapter's yellow LED flashed and a DHCP IP address was acquired.

Notifications still showed "No Internet Connection" but that was false. Nothing needed to be done to the Nexus 10 or router to acquire a DHCP IP address, it just worked. YouTube (720p) played perfectly but it had done so with just a WiFi connection. Using ES File Explorer CIFS network shares could be access. All videos played back stutter free, this included HD 720p, 1080i and 1080p videos using MXPlayer Pro with the custom DTS codec installed and HW+ decoding set.

Using TWRP a new custom ROM, Tasker650 TX34 and the Trinity Ten kernel, was flashed for the first time. During the subsequent system reboot the Ethernet Adapter was left connected. After reboot and during initial device setup, the WiFi network selection was skipped and the warning message was ignored. The gmail account entry panel was displayed which indicated that a network connection via Ethernet had been established.

The rest of the dialogue continued as if a WiFi connection was available. When the Nexus 10's Google account was being synced the automatic app downloads literally blasted the Nexus 10. It was very cool to watch apps download and install so quickly. All testing was as successful as it was with the Stock ROM. Over time the Ethernet adapter did get warm but never hot.

It seems that not all custom ROM/Kernels have included the necessary drivers to support this Ethernet adapter.

Resources:

Downloads including the latest Windows drivers and Android driver source. The Android driver source seems to be actively maintained with a most recent update of "v4.6.0	2012-05-18".

Relevant FAQs:

Q0004: How can I install AX88178 Linux driver on my Android tablet PC?

A0004: Driverless operation with all Chromebooks, some Android Tablets (including ASUS Transformer Prime / Infinity tablets), and Linux 3.3+ is currently provided, but end user installs can not be done. To install the AX88178 Linux driver on your Android tablet PC, you have to recompile AX88178 Linux driver source on your target Android tablet platform and then you can install the compiled AX88178 Linux driver on your Android platform. It can only be done by the manufacturer of your Android tablet PC. Please contact the support guys of the manufacturer for further support if necessary.

Q: What do the green and amber LEDs on the Plugable Ethernet adapter indicate?

A: The green link LED is an indication that the Ethernet cable plugged into the adapter is live and it stays steady as long as the live cable is plugged in. The blinking amber activity LED is an indication that data is transferring through the adapter.

A: Both of these LEDs will not light up when:

1) The adapter is not receiving enough power because it is plugged into a port that does not provide the required 500mA of power

2) The drivers for the adapter have not installed properly or is corrupted

3) The Ethernet Cable plugged in is not live or is faulty

4) The adapter has failed

Q: I cannot use DHCP so how can I specify a static IP address, netmask and gateway?

A: In a terminal session or in a shell script:

> ifconfig eth0 <IP address> netmask <IP mask>

> route add default gw <gateway address> eth0

E.g.

> ifconfig eth0 192.168.0.103 netmask 255.255.255.0

> route add default gw 192.168.0.1 eth0

Q: How do I toggle the Ethernet connection from a command line:

A: In a terminal session or a shell script:

> ifconfig eth0 up

OR

> ifconfig eth0 down

Q: How do I find the Ethernet adapter's IP address

A: In a terminal session:

> ifconfig eth0

Pictures: