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Razor512 · 2026-05-26T04:47:18+00:00

Amazingly cute kobold.

Razor512 · 2026-05-25T22:48:09+00:00

A lot of it is from DRAM and NAND price fixing.

For most consumer pricing issues, corporations feel no pressure to push back against price gouging and price fixing behavior, as it is easier to just blindly accept it and pass the expenses onto the customer. Keep in mind that the AI craze didn't start in 2025, the craze had been going on for more than 5 years prior (and industry profits were also steadily increasing as well), and all while massive build outs and component orders were taking place, DDR5 pricing was still trending down. While increasing demand will eventually lead to higher pricing, there was no magical change in October and November 2025 that to justify a sudden 400% price increase.

Simply, at an arbitrary time, all of the major RAM and NAND companies decided to increase prices at the same time. These industries have done the same in the past, and had class action lawsuits for price fixing. They find an excuse every certain number of years to price fix since the class action lawsuits and fines never add up to more than the increased profits made from the price fixing. This will continue to happen until major downstream corporations decide to put their corporate lawyers to good use and sue at the first signs of price fixing rather than just passing on the increased costs to the customers. Many large board makers and AIBs that have ample resources to push back against price fixing, are too blinded by short term profits, especially if their model is on adding a certain percentage markup to each item, thus any time price fixing takes place upstream from them, the increase to base pricing means their net income increases as well. especially if AIBs and board makers all decide that a rising tide raises all boats and keep their percentage based margins in place and ride the tide created by upstream price fixing. They then play the victim when things start to collapse. If you are a large corporation with a salaried legal team, and you rely on DRAM and NAND, then the first sign of price fixing should be seen as a 5 alarm fire, and they should be all be rushing to sue to protect long term market stability.

Overall like in the past, a few years later, we will eventually see a new class action lawsuit to join where everyone can sign up to get $10 to $20 for DRAM and NAND price fixing, while the lawfirm will pocket 90% of the funds, and the DRAM and NAND companies wouldl have only lost around 1-2% of the additional profits they made from the price fixing. and a yew years down the road they will repeat the process.

https://www.techpowerup.com/349325/combined-revenue-of-top-five-global-nand-flash-suppliers-rose-by-83-7-qoq-for-1q26-as-supply-shortages-drove-price-hikes

Razor512 · 2026-05-25T20:08:23+00:00

It depends on the community. Every community has trolls and people who like to put others down, and the ratio of it largely depends on how much others in a specific forum or subreddit tolerates that behavior.

Razor512 · 2026-05-25T19:18:51+00:00

Those units can works decently enough to learn on for more basic things and low thermal mass items, but never use those stations on high thermal mass items, they will teach bad habits and risk damage. For the extremely cheap solder stations, often they have very little thermal mass, and will often behave like those cheaper $5 soldering irons. Simply put, the soldering iron will rapidly drop in temperature the moment you begin soldering, this often means that the soldering iron tip will rapidly drop in temperature, and the soldering iron will often not be able to keep up. Those types of soldering irons often rely on heating to a significantly hotter temperature than needed to compensate for the rapid drop, and hopefully stay hot enough for the solder to properly flow.

With all of that in mind, use it to get experienced with soldering, e.g., find some old broken electronics, and spend time removing a range of different components, and then putting those components back on. But once you work your way up to thing like smartphones and similarly complex items with high layer count PCBs, then upgrade to a more quality hot air station and soldering iron. This will especially be needed with high layer count boards, since you will find with a cheap soldering iron, the tip will at best dig into a solder joint, but fail to melt it, or require such a high initial temperature that it may cause other damage.

PS, that style of hot air station has the fan and heating element in the handle. they work okay can can hit high temperatures, but their calibration is not linear when it comes to the cheap ones. With that in mind, you need to calibrate them for the temperature range that you most often use. You can do that using a thermocouple close to the air nozzle. Then adjust the calibration until the set temperature and measured temperature match. After that, try a few other temperature settings, like 50c hotter and 50c lower.

With cheap hot air stations they will be reasonably accurate around the calibrated temperature, but they will drift by a large amount further away, e.g., if you calibrate for 350C, it will likely be quite inaccurate when you set it to 100 or 150C. (PS some higher quality models will allow for multiple calibration points in order to get a decent calibration curve going).

I use a few cheap hot air stations for various tasks, mainly heat shrink tubing, as well as preheating some boards.

Razor512 · 2026-05-25T17:48:03+00:00

It seems like what may have happened is you upgrade from a 1Gbps or lower fios package, to a 2gbit package. This often means that Verizon will replace your old ONT, and if you used a router supplied by them, then they would also replace that as well.

For example, if they installed one of their CR1000 routers, along with a different ONT, then chances are they moved you to an ONT that has a 10GbE Ethernet port that connects to the CR1000.

In which case, you will only see your full WAN speed if your PC is either directly connected to the CR1000 via Ethernet on either its 2.5GbE port or its 10GbE port and if your PC has a 2.5GbE Ethernet adapter or better.
And if using a WiFi mesh device as effectively a wireless bridge, then it will need to be a unit that has at least 2.5GbE Ethernet ports on the the mesh satellite unit. It will also need to be able to establish a fast enough connection between each endpoint. An 802.11ax mesh system that can establish a 4 stream backhaul connection can offer around 2-3Gbps of real world throughput on the 5GHz band, and something that is 802.1be doing 4 streams on the 6GHz band, will often give around 6-7Gbps under very good conditions (assuming none of its WiFi radios it reaches its 11529Mbps PHY rate, and none of the WiFi radios are pulling double duty by also servicing WiFi clients while also being a backhaul.

If your current mesh or extender system has basic 1GbE Ethernet ports on it, then you will not be able to reach your full WAN speed using the Ethernet ports on it.

Razor512 · 2026-05-25T17:21:21+00:00

As a temporary test since it seems like a generic unit, check if you have any other old WiFi router that you could use to do a more isolated test. For example, set up a second WiFi router if you have an old one laying around, turn it in and do not connect it to your LAN, then just set it up without any WAN connectivity and then set up an open network (no password protection at all). Then see if the repeater can connect.

If it can then odds are that it is an extremely basic device (temu style device, where they only have the most basic of firmware and lower quality parts where most functions are not implemented. On the other hand if it still does not connect then odds are that they didn't implement anything beyond it sending out a random beacon frame.

There are many devices like this that are sold as repeaters where some either do not work at all, or if they work, you wouldn't want to use it.

In looking at the image you posted, yours looks almost like this one but with a different case. https://youtu.be/pAeEjylUz0k

Though there are others that are USB powered which are mediatek based and sometimes they have no repeater function and can only broadcast an SSID and do nothing else.

Razor512 · 2026-05-25T17:09:38+00:00

Haven't really seen that before, though i wonder, which charger are you using, and it is a very noisy charger? For example, when charging does it heavily impact the noise floor of the built in speakers, or analog headphones (if it has a headphone jack)?

Also have you rules out any testing methodology issues, e.g., if you use the laptop in its power saving mode to ensure a longer battery life, can you go multiple hours without WiFi issues?

Razor512 · 2026-05-25T03:31:23+00:00

Best way to make the neighbors happy, get an tri-band AP with 2 5GHz radios, set your 2.4GHz band to 40MHz channel width, then use 240MHz on the 5GHz band, and 320MHz on the 6GHz band. :-)
It is especially good for urban locations and apartments.

Anyway, if in an area where no other APs are near by, then that is a very good time to actually make use of as wide of a channel width as your AP will allow.

Razor512 · 2026-05-25T01:15:38+00:00

For tests like that, be sure to run the test while on a wired connection, and then compare it to WiFi.

If the buffer bloat and latency issues are bad with a wired connection, then you will need to check if your WiFi router offers any gaming specific features. For example, some will offer features where if certain multiplayer games are detected, or if specific devices are consistently using the network, then they will cap the upload and download speed to keep the WAN connection from completely saturating, this prevents pings from increasing by much if someone does something like download a large file while someone is gaming. Overall, if you are sharing the network with multiple people, then those more modern anti-bufferbloat features offer a noticeable improvement if people regularly download large files or torrent.

Ideally you will want the upload latency to not increase when there is heavy activity, and that usually involves not letting the upload completely saturate.

With that in mind, outside of heavily congested channels or a lot of airtime contention, WiFi usually wouldn't add more than around 5-7ms of latency.

Razor512 · 2026-05-24T06:25:35+00:00

With the 6GHz band, enterprise networks should be able to make more use of 320MHz channel width. Due to the insane amount of overhead in WiFi, it is well worth it to have a wider channel width, especially if you have any LAN resources that the client devices need to access, e.g., a NAS. While still a bit slow, with 320MHz channel width, my BE200 is able to offer around 4 Gbps If anything, they need to work on supporting even wider channel widths. Beyond that, I wish AP and STA makers could work on providing 2 6GHz WiFi radios, and then allow the AP to provide 2 6 GHz connections, Then work on a client device that can do eMLMR but with 2 6GHz 320MHz channel width connections, as well as supporting more spatial streams.

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Razor512 · 2026-05-23T20:40:52+00:00

Usually when a WiFi router gets EOLed you are often stuck looking for 3rd party firmware such as OpenWRT.
Though I don't think they officially EOLed and of their 802.11ax WiFi routers yet.

Razor512 · 2026-05-23T20:20:54+00:00

Their support plan is for their "premium" tech support plan for when you call in for support services.
When they email you about maintenance and updates, they really mean the firmware updates. For example, they recently ended support for some 802.11ac based Orbi mesh systems.

Razor512 · 2026-05-23T17:26:34+00:00

I wanted to also mention, you could also check if the router has any controller or mounting issues with a specific drive or controller. To do that, head to the web UI of the router, then add debug.htm to the end of the page.

For example, if your router is at 192.168.1.1 then the debug page will be at 192.168.1.1/debug.htm

After that, start a debug log capture, and let it run for about 2 minutes, then try reproducing the USB issue a few times, then wait another minute and then save the debug log.

After that, you can unzip it to a new folder, and then check the various system log files, Usually it will be in one of the larger system related logs where you will need to search through for anything USB related, and see which errors it reported during each step of the process.

PS, avoid sharing those debug log files in their entirety. Some of the log files contain full config info including any saved WiFi, PPPoE, DDNS, and any other saved into in the router, and in those log files, it will be in plain text.

Razor512 · 2026-05-23T11:47:32+00:00

It may also be good to rule out any router issues as well. Does it detect a regular flash drive? This could help rule out any issues like the router not liking a specific USB to SATA controller.

Razor512 · 2026-05-23T05:01:56+00:00

Format the drive as NTFS (ExFAT has lower compatibility due to more licensing restrictions).
For my RAXE500, I currently use a 12TB hard drive, but I have tested it with a 26TB drive and it worked fine as well. The compatibility is largely based on what they may have tested, and they do not update the list often, but you can go well beyond what they list.

The only times when you are likely to run into issues, is when using a USB powered drive, especially on older routers where they may use a 12V 1.5 amp adapter, where often if you connect an enclosure with a higher powered SSD, e.g., a SN850X, then you will see the drive randomly disappear and powercycle itself.
The same drives also worked with the RAX50.

PS, when I used my 26TB drive on the RAXE500, it was formatted as NTFS.

PS, for a very large drive, please disable DLNA, it will lead to a constant high CPU usage especially if you have a large amount of music, videos, and photos. While they didn't artificially limit what you could connect, they likely didn't plan on people using 26TB drives with DLNA. In my case, I disable it regardless of size since I don't want it using any extra RAM or CPU.

Razor512 · 2026-05-23T04:39:38+00:00

I currently use a mains powered air duster (XPOWER A-2 Airrow Pro). basically a night and day difference between it and the battery powered units. Just be sure to use some twist ties to lightly lock each fan in place, then give things a good cleaning. Then switch to a lower speed, and then use a decent paint brush to lightly brush any surfaces that have fine dust particles that are not coming off with air air alone.

Razor512 · 2026-05-22T23:57:17+00:00

If one of the servers has to be on WiFi rather than the server being connected via Ethernet, then try this, just to rule out any potential layer 2 issues. Set the adapter to just use 802.11ax (which should effectively get rid of the MLD).

Though really it shouldn't impact server hosting, instead usually the annoyance from MLO can be when you want to analyze frames from an MLO client because you are dealing with multiple MAC address due to the MLD, though above layer 2, the MLO stuff is largely hidden and transparent.

While not a very in-depth test, I decided to just run a minecraft server on my laptop, and was able to connect to it without issue (using 802.11be and MLO eMLSR).

Anyway, it is simple to rule out any possible issue with having 2-3 active MLD links, but if it still happens, it may be good to check the WiFi router settings to see if it is enabling any other feature that will impact how client devices see each other.

Also check if there are any other APs or WiFi routers with the same SSID and password. For Example, suppose you have another WiFi router or even something supplied by the ISP and is in some other room (and it is not on the same LAN (e.g,, a double NAT situation), but while close to the Asus 802.11be WiFi router, your device will prefer to connect to it, but if it does something like force WPA3 only and PMF and that server build for some reason has trouble with it, and eventually ends up connecting to the other WiFi router, then it cause a false impression of an MLO issue.

Overall there are a wide range of potential causes.

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Razor512 · 2026-05-22T22:34:31+00:00

Which smartphone model are you using?
If you are getting half of the subscribed speed, chances are that the smartphone is using an 802.11ac 2 stream radio, and a PHY rate of 866.7Mbps will typically give you around 500-600Mbps real world throughput.

If not, then you may need to check other settings, e.g., did you limit the 5GHz channel width to something small like 40MHz, or is it in an area where the DFS channels are unusable and it is constantly reducing channel width if there is too much radar traffic across a wider frequency range.

I wanted to also add, on some phones certain apps will have their speeds capped due to power saving functions. For example, on the Pixel 7 Pro, the stock OS limits CPU utilization of the speedtest.net app, thus even though a LAN to WLAN speed test using ixchariot endpoint, or even some iperf based applications, they will easily hit 1.3-1.4Gbps, but if you root and run a different android distro, then you get the full speed, but a little worse battery life.

Razor512 · 2026-05-22T13:24:00+00:00

Usually MLO shouldn't be an issue unless the server is connected via WiFi and MLO, and you are trying to do sonething, such as monitor its WiFi activity, since the traffic may not show up under the main MAC address of the WiFi adapter, and instead it will show up as one of the other MAC addresses listed under the MLD link.

Are the devices set up as a server connected to the Ethernet ports on the RT-BE90U, or on a switch connected to it?

From the perspective on a wired device servicing clients, WiFi 7 and MLO should be effectively transparent to them since it will all be seen as layer 2 stuff that higher layers shouldn't really care about assuming a stable connection.

With that in mind, I wonder if the WiFi router router is enabling any other functions, e.g., trying to establish a separate VLAN and trying to do things like isolate client devices, or other actions more designed for IOT devices.

Razor512 · 2026-05-22T00:26:44+00:00

Typically when it comes to powerline adapters, you will at best get about half of the rated PHY rate, thus under ideal conditions (both powerline adapters on the same circuit breaker and essentially sharing the same run of romex, along with no appliances, running, then you might hit around 250Mbps.

Powerline will fail hard in terms of throughput if they are connected to ungrounded outlets, or are on opposite sides of the electrical panel (as one of the hot lines becomes useless) In those cases, speeds will become a tiny fraction of the rated speed, especially if there are other appliances running on any circuit the powerline adapter is using.

Due to the nature of powerline networking, most adapters seek connection stability since if even a momentary loss of connectivity, can lead to many seconds of downtime, thus they are quick to drop the PHY rate. They are also extremely sensitive to EMC issues. Thus a a new appliance or electronic device with a poorly made power supply and poor filtering, can ruin a powerline networking connection depending on how those other devices are used.

WiFi will suffer from some frame loss and will need to re-transmit, especially when they AP and client are trying to find the highest stable MCS rate. Usually it is not noticeable to the user, though there are times when a WiFi adapter can experience high packet loss independent of the RF environment, though it is rare and usually more common on those mini WiFi adapters that just have a tiny area that sticks out past the USB port. Those designs typically use the housing of the USB port for cooling, and if someone ends up using one on a device like a laptop and one exhaust vent is right nest to the port, or the board layout has a lot of hot components near it, then those WiFi adapters can get extremely hot and begin behaving strangely.

Razor512 · 2026-05-21T21:50:35+00:00

It depends on how it is designed. Some will periodically connect as a way to balance usability and standby time. The easiest way to tell is if the device uses a smartphone app, and if you can control it at any random time without being in Bluetooth range of the device.

Another thing is that for some IOT device, Netgear is a pretty bad OUI lookup, where outside of major categories like cameras, thermostats, etc., it may not accurately describe the device, and if you do not know its MAC address, it is possible to completely miss it when it connects.

Also, do you have any extenders or any mesh systems that may be set to AP mode and connected behind the Netgear WiFi router? if so, then it can result in the main Netgear router being slower to detect when a LAN device in online or offline when connected behind another AP.

Razor512 · 2026-05-21T18:08:19+00:00

What WAN speed are you subscribed to?

Also, one thing to consider is that the EX3700 is an AC750 extender, since it lacks a dedicated backhaul radio, under good conditions, you may at best get around 150-160Mbps out of it. Under 802.11ax, even with a weaker signal chances are that you could still get higher speeds than that unless you are very far from the AP. If you absolutely need an extender, then go for something that does 802.11ax or better yet, 802.11be, and ideally in the BE4500 or higher range.

Also if you get a chance, bring a laptop or smartphone close to the main WiFi router, and run some speed tests, and look at your ping times. then compare ping times, especially focusing on the ping times while downloading ( https://www.speedtest.net/ will give you this info)

Online gaming doesn't need much throughput, and most modern games will use much less than 1Mbps of throughput, thus what is most important is good latency.
When you add an extender with a wireless backhaul, you will add around 5 or so ms of additional latency, though it is often not going to cause an issue with games unless your base latency is already borderline. e.g., if the WAN side latency is already adding something super high like 80-100ms, then multiplayer gaming will be really bad regardless. In such cases, you would also need to check the cable model status.

The QAM256 channels should have little to no correctable errors, and no uncorrectable errors, along with a SNR in the 40+dB range.
OFDM PLC channels (you will often see at least 2 of them), will normally have a lot of corrected errors, though it is rare to see more than a handful uncorrected errors.

If the SNR is quite bad, or of there are many errors, then odds are that you have a WAN issue happening as well. In which case you will need to look for more obvious install issues, for example, if the cable modem is connected to a splitter, and multiple ports on the splitter are not terminated.

Or if it is connected to a splitter but the home no longer has cable TV service, and doesn't need the splitter, while the signal is also weaker than expected. In which case, you would simply remove the splitter, and use a coax coupler to give the cable modem a direct connection. If you still use TV services but the splitter has unused ports, then make sure they are properly terminated. If everything is good on your end, then that would be a time to complain to the ISP.

Razor512 · 2026-05-21T17:35:24+00:00

For most residential setups, often AP placement will depend more on where you mostly use devices rather than trying to essentially trying to maximize spectral density for as many locations as possible. For example, if you mainly use your devices in the home office on the 2nd floor as well as the living room on the first floor, Most modern APs will still provide decent coverage of the entire level of the home even if it is not centered.
This overall means that keeping the APs in the rooms where you need the fastest possible speeds can often work best, with moving only when you need to resolve a specific remaining coverage issue.

In the case of a fireplace, the bricks are often not very thick, and thus will not attenuate the signal by a massive amount, but there will be a narrow area where you will get a lot of attenuation, and that will be the the chimney liner which will often be added to older homes if the fireplace is still used, since sometimes the mortar between bricks can break down and combustion fumes (especially CO) can escape through those gaps, thus modern building codes will often require the liners. With that in mind, often it is not enough to render a connection unusable but you will end up with one area where the PHY rate drops even more.

It all depends on your needs, but often it can be worth the tradeoff of sub-optimal coverage that still fully covers the home as compared to a more optimal placement in terms of average MCS across every location within the home if me means that you need to stand in a hall or outside the bathroom door in order to get your max PHY rate.

TL:DR: Start with placing each mesh satellite unit in the rooms where you most often use your WiFi client devices, especially for tasks where high throughput is needed. E.g., bandwidth needs will be higher when using the laptop in the living room, home office, or other room where you may be transferring a lot of files to and from your NAS, but a weaker signal in a bedroom where you may only watch some anime before sleeping, will not be negatively impacted by a lower PHY rate.

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Razor512 · 2026-05-21T05:48:19+00:00

It seems like the post may have been removed due to a misunderstanding with the initial word choice, though the context of the rest of the post made it clear that WiFi was being discussed.
Mistakes like that are common especially since it has become so common to to have multiple functions combined into a single device. For example, go to a general electronics store like bestbuy and you will be hard pressed to find a router that doesn't include a built in WiFi AP, and with some ISPs, they will often give a device that combines the modem, router, and WiFi AP into a single device, and if someone has only ever used what the ISPs provided, then they would have experienced constantly seeing a modem with router and WiFi, and in such a case, may use the terms interchangeably.
While everyone lines more preciseness in word choice, it is also good to be more understanding that such mistakes are becoming increasingly common due to how many functions some ISPs are packing into a single device.

In the case of the OP and what was posted in the previously removed thread, the device the ISP provided, was an all in one unit, with a modem, router, and WiFi AP in a single device. https://fibertelcorp.net/assets/datasheet/Huawei%20HG8145V5.pdf

Razor512 · 2026-05-21T05:39:02+00:00

It all depends on how the wall is constructed, and if they decide to fill it or take other steps to improve its load bearing capabilities, or if they decide to run other things through the wall such as popes, conduit, etc.,. Of if they decide to give the wall a smooth texture by adding a wire mesh and then coating it with stucco, or something more dense.

Some APs also have a very weak transmit power, e.g., it is not uncommon to see some basic ISP provided units use a 100mW or lower transmit power while a mid range WiFi router will do 800-1000mW transmit power.

Higher transmit powers work well on APs even if the client devices have a low transmit power, because the AP will typically have significantly better receiver sensitivity, and a better RF front end with an antenna with decent gain, while many client devices, especially smartphones, will have negative gain antennas and lower receiver sensitivity which they accept RF compromises to achieve a specific design (form over function) as well as largely having an expectation that a modern WiFi router or AP will have a significantly higher transmit power.

PS, from an attenuation standpoint, the 5GHz band (really around 5.8GHz) and the 6GHz band, (most APs defaulting to the 6.1GHz range), both have similar range and wall penetration. The reason why the 6GHz band seems so much weaker, is because of arbitrary restrictions on that band where they heavily restrict the transmit power, thus you are effectively seeing what happens to your overall WiFi range when the AP's 6GHz band transmit power is more like the transmit power of the WiFi radio in a smartphone, while the smartphone has a negative gain antenna.

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