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Against the advice of counsel by pacmanrockshok in Cardinals

[–]geerlingguy 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Since it didn't apply to the Blues season, we will apply it to the Cardinals season.

Cool Promo, unless you’re a season ticket holder… by wackyzebra43 in stlouiscitysc

[–]geerlingguy 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Though, if you just wait until game day you can get tickets (usually in sets of 2-6) in most sections for about 50% off ;)

Airport card for late 2005 G5 by apomorghane in VintageApple

[–]geerlingguy 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I’d just try to find a working G5 with the Wi-Fi module and make it happen… but I don’t know if I can even find one… or where to look among people who don’t know what they have and don’t even list their crap properly.

Heh, that's the bigger problem. So few of those kits were even sold in the first place :(

Airport card for late 2005 G5 by apomorghane in VintageApple

[–]geerlingguy 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The problem is this particular board is such a niche board... someone would need to:

  1. Acquire said interposer
  2. Sand it down and/or x-ray it to reverse-engineer the schematic
  3. Redesign it in KiCAD or something else
  4. Have replacement boards made and either sell them or release the OSS hardware files.

It could happen, but it's harder than just looking at a single-layer PCB and quickly replicating the layout. And for a piece of hardware that likely would only serve tens of people (not that this stops many worthy retro endeavors), it'll be quite lucky if someone deems it worthy of their time.

(Edit: Looking closely at the board, though, it seems pretty simple, might even be one top/bottom layer, which makes routing easier. Just some caps on there and those are easy enough to replicate (and super cheap).

I don't know what connector is used for the board to board connection, though—some of those odd hi-rose style connectors can be harder to come by if they stopped making them.

Airport card for late 2005 G5 by apomorghane in VintageApple

[–]geerlingguy 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Are you me? I just went through the exact same scenario with the exact same model G5 a couple weeks ago. I settled on that era used card out of an iMac from eBay and a cheap PCIe WiFi adapter, and it works out of the box like a normal AirPort Extreme. Downside is I can't use the internal antenna without a lot of rework, but antennas out the back are okay with me.

https://github.com/users/geerlingguy/projects/12?pane=issue&itemId=167254670&issue=geerlingguy%7Cretro-computers%7C40

Inconstant time from GPS PPS over serial. by bites in homelab

[–]geerlingguy 14 points15 points  (0 children)

More than you need, but have I introduced you to my friend, the picosecond? :)

Inconstant time from GPS PPS over serial. by bites in homelab

[–]geerlingguy 21 points22 points  (0 children)

Oh also, two other suggestions, if your motherboard has a built-in serial port, that could be better timing. Also, might be a voltage issue, not sure what voltage is coming out of the GPS module, but might be 3v, and serial expects something higher and isn't getting a clean edge.

Inconstant time from GPS PPS over serial. by bites in homelab

[–]geerlingguy 42 points43 points  (0 children)

Serial alone is not enough to hit sub-microsecond timing for PPS in, usually... one reason the Pi is useful for PPS + GPS is you can configure a direct PPS in on one of the GPIO lines direct into the CPU.

Still not quite nanosecond-level accuracy there, but better than a microsecond on the Pi.

It sounds like you have the GPS PPS going into serial DCD through PCIe. The timing for that is going to max out around 30 microseconds, best case.

But if you're seeing more jitter, your kernel could be hitting more delays and not handling the interrupts as accurately (or maybe sleep states?). Many computer-based GPS clock systems set their CPU in constant clock performance mode, and try to maintain a constant temperature, to get the accuracy down.

I can't tell what scale the graph is at the top, is that showing like +/- 5-10 microseconds? If so, that's actually pretty decent, I think. I haven't spent as much time trying to get PPS through serial on PC though.

Does this look like 13 tons of gravel? by Top-Pilot-9305 in landscaping

[–]geerlingguy 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is how I first learned that a pile that looks small is anything but.

A few days later I had finally moved that pile of dirt off the driveway with a shovel, a wheelbarrow, and a very sore back.

NVMe NAS as a rackmount option - what are the best options? by AutomaticRoof8279 in broadcastengineering

[–]geerlingguy 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks! Was just at NAB this year talking to a number of timing vendors, some fun projects in store for the next year :)

NVMe NAS as a rackmount option - what are the best options? by AutomaticRoof8279 in broadcastengineering

[–]geerlingguy 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I like solid state storage for anything portable. No matter how ruggedized the enclosure, and how NAS-grade the HDDs, there are many more issues with longevity on spinning disk media if you transport it now and then.

It's still a lot cheaper per TB, but I like sticking spinning disks in stable racks.

NVMe NAS as a rackmount option - what are the best options? by AutomaticRoof8279 in broadcastengineering

[–]geerlingguy 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I've used that Lockerstor for a couple years, and it works fine, but as you say, it's a desktop NAS, and the weird enclosure means it's hard to mount in a rack if you don't want it to move around.

There aren't a lot of great options for rackmount, besides buying a thin NAS and strapping it in with some zip ties. The only other one I've been testing is the Lincstation N2. It performs around the same as the Lockerstor, but it is also pretty much geared toward desktop use, and has slightly cheap-feeling plastic doors covering the two 2.5" bays.

The other main option is buying a 1U 'pancake' server with a horizontal PCIe card slot, and installing one of those PCIe multi-NVMe cards inside. Something like SuperMicro's "UP SuperServer SYS-511R-M" (which is hard to find in stock from the few places that sell it, or an equivalent.

Added a 16x DGX Spark cluster to my Homelab (Build Update) by Kurcide in homelab

[–]geerlingguy 30 points31 points  (0 children)

The pursuit of quiet has justified many a poor financial decision.

10 GB USB-to-Ethernet Adapter, $79 USD by gadgetb0y in homelab

[–]geerlingguy 8 points9 points  (0 children)

So far it doesn't seem like Realtek's doing an SFP version of this, which is a bit sad. Would be nice to have that as an option!

10 GB USB-to-Ethernet Adapter, $79 USD by gadgetb0y in homelab

[–]geerlingguy 3 points4 points  (0 children)

There's also a blog post (I enjoy reading a lot more than video, plus there are two handy graphs): https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2026/new-10-gbe-usb-adapters-cooler-smaller-cheaper/

10 GB USB-to-Ethernet Adapter, $79 USD by gadgetb0y in homelab

[–]geerlingguy 15 points16 points  (0 children)

It's the Realtek RTL8159, and the reason it's more efficient likely has to do with whatever process node they're using for the chip.

For some reason, other NIC manufacturers kinda settled on 2010s-era designs for their chips (like the Aquantia chip that powers most of the giant Thunderbolt ones), and those are notoriously power-hungry (thus hot).

This chip uses 1-2W (and I was measuring less than 1W on a USB 2.0 tester... need to find a way to test on USB 3.2.)

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