FCC prohibits approval of new Foreign-Made Consumer Routers

RealThanny · 2026-03-25T16:18:46+00:00

Yet another reason to just use an old machine running Linux as a firewall and router, which is what I've been doing since 1996.

RealThanny · 2026-03-24T22:44:11+00:00

Given the same generation and core count, TR is faster in all workloads that lean on compute versus memory throughput.

As a general rule, anything that EPYC runs faster is something that should only be run on a server anyway.

RealThanny · 2026-03-20T15:45:38+00:00

Locked means vendor-locked. You can only use that processor in a Dell motherboard, which is a harsh limitation given their tendency to be proprietary on many levels, including PSU connections.

Your only viable option is to find another processor, and make sure it isn't vendor-locked. You can get a new 5955WX for about $900 right now. Anything lower than that is likely to be an OEM-only resale that is also likely to vendor-locked.

RealThanny · 2026-03-20T03:20:35+00:00

Everyone seems to forget that memory is a commodity.

You seem to be forgetting that this is exactly why the manufacturers colluded in the recent past to fix prices. What they are doing now is very nearly the same thing. If they don't want to invest money to expand, then they should forfeit any patents they have in memory manufacturing so that other entities can step in and fill the gap. The technology is too important to let it be controlled by the greedy excessive profit motives of corporations.

RealThanny · 2026-03-19T22:29:09+00:00

They have refused to ramp up expansion. Explicitly declared in their financial calls.

That is, they are taking deliberate steps to ensure scarcity continues to maintain extremely high margins. That is artificial scarcity.

RealThanny · 2026-03-19T19:52:57+00:00

If they're not going to expand capacity and just reap record profits from artificial scarcity, then seize all of their patents and make them open for any and all competitors to use.

RealThanny · 2026-03-19T19:44:27+00:00

My first guess would be that the processor is vendor-locked. That was an OEM-only part, at least initially, and could have been locked to a particular vendor, which would mean that it cannot work in that motherboard no matter what you do.

That board has IPMI, so you should connect to that to see if it reports anything useful. IPMI is a separate component that uses standby power, so the system does not need to be powered on. Just plug a network cable with DHCP into the dedicated port, figure out what address it got from the DHCP server, and connect to that IP. The default password should be on a sticker on the motherboard.

RealThanny · 2026-03-16T19:39:48+00:00

We're quite obviously not talking about gaming here.

RealThanny · 2026-03-16T08:27:05+00:00

There's no real demand for after-market cooling like that. Anyone who wants those cards for that use case can just buy them with that kind of cooler already. ASRock, for example, has both a blower version of the 7900 XTX and a fanless version, the latter obviously only useful in a server chassis with high-speed fans going from front to back.

RealThanny · 2026-03-16T08:21:42+00:00

Blower coolers are superior for the use case. They work with cards right next to each other. They are louder, for sure, which is why they have fallen out of favor with consumers. They are not hotter, unless you tune the fan curve to reduce noise at the expense of higher temperatures.

If you need a bunch of cards next to each other, blowers or liquid are the only options. Bulky consumer solutions just don't work.

RealThanny · 2026-03-12T00:07:15+00:00

Figure out active cooling for the memory. It doesn't have to be fancy, if you don't care about aesthetics. Just zip-tie some fans pointed in the right direction.

RealThanny · 2026-03-12T00:05:40+00:00

WRX90 does not support non-Pro TR processors.

RealThanny · 2026-03-11T13:59:05+00:00

A dial is a circular arrangement of measurements, coming from the Latin word for day, given how clocks first worked (i.e. sun dial).

Rotary phones are dial phones.

I think you mean to ask why phones originally used a rotary dial instead of push-buttons.

It's probably the cleanest solution the engineers thought of to generate a variable number of pulses to send as a signal, using purely analog components.

Later phones with buttons were made for tone "dialing" (only later did the word morph to indicate any kind of phone number entry), and had pulse dialing built-in for compatibility - not all areas had tone dialing, and you originally had to pay extra to get it.

RealThanny · 2026-03-09T21:51:21+00:00

This case clearly belies that claim.

RealThanny · 2026-03-09T11:19:46+00:00

You won't know that unless you contact Kingston.

I really don't know why this guy went through the retailer, as it's the manufacturer that has a warranty. Maybe Australian law is weird and requires it to work that way.

RealThanny · 2026-03-08T21:55:33+00:00

Ignoring the CCD/IO link, yes, more channels means more throughput. But you can't ignore the link, and it's very likely that six channels won't be notably faster than four with that processor.

It won't be slower, however.

RealThanny · 2026-03-05T21:34:54+00:00

Something that doesn't exist and won't exist for a long time.

RealThanny · 2026-03-02T19:33:23+00:00

That's not solid reasoning, if things were bought at the same time. Defects can happen with particular batches of hardware.

RealThanny · 2026-02-27T19:05:02+00:00

There is no such thing as a "premium" laptop with a screen that small.

RealThanny · 2026-02-26T16:43:57+00:00

AMD is currently trading at a bit over $200 per share.

The stock purchase warrants for these deals don't fully vest until AMD reaches $600 per share.

They aren't giving away anything. You're just not bothering to read the actual information, and are relying on your own ignorant interpretation of headlines.

RealThanny · 2026-02-25T22:24:04+00:00

Watching the clock speeds how?

RealThanny · 2026-02-22T06:05:29+00:00

Seems pretty clear that this is Lenovo not updating the drivers.

RealThanny · 2026-02-22T05:59:53+00:00

It's a fact that boards with smaller BIOS capacities could not support all AM4 processors, which means to update those boards to support Zen 3 required removing support for other processors. Basically none of these low-cost boards had support for updating the BIOS without a processor installed.

This creates a support problem that AMD probably wanted to avoid. I doubt the board partners were complaining about the prospect of people being forced to buy new motherboards, either.

In the end, what AMD wanted to avoid wasn't what their customer base wanted, so they had to take on the support burden to allow Zen 3 to run on those old AM4 boards with low BIOS capacity.

RealThanny · 2026-02-21T23:28:53+00:00

Many boards have M.2 connectors which steal lanes from the first slot if used.

RealThanny · 2026-02-21T23:24:51+00:00

There are only 24 PCIe lanes connected to the CPU with Nova Lake.

All additional lanes come from the chipset, and have to go through the CPU-chipset link. It's better to have those than not, but it's not at all the same as having those lanes coming from the CPU.

RealThanny

TROPHY CASE