UP Squared 7100 fanless SBC Review – Part 1: Unboxing and first boot to Ubuntu Pro 24.04

UP Squared 7100 review

AAEON sent me a sample of the UP Squared 7100 fanless industrial SBC for review. The board is powered by an Intel N97 or N100 Alder Lake-N SoC (Amston Lake processors will be offered soon), and is equipped with up to 16GB LPDDR5 RAM and 128GB eMMC flash, plus two M.2 sockets for wireless and storage expansion. You’ll find the full specifications in our earlier article. I’ll start the review with an unboxing to check out the hardware, before booting it to Ubuntu Pro 24.04 LTS to check out some basic system information. In a few weeks, I’ll report my experience after in-depth testing in Ubuntu in the second part of the review which will include features testing from gigabit Ethernet to GPIO, some benchmarks, and power consumption measurements. UP Squared 7100 unboxing I received the UP Squared 7100 board in a retail package that reads “Are you UP for […]

Intel N50 fanless open-frame panel PCs features 7” and 10” PCAP touch display, HDMI 2.0a, RS-485/232

BCM OFT10W ADLN Open Frame touch LCD computer

BCM Advanced Research has recently introduced two new fanless open-frame panel PCs powered by an Intel Processor N50 CPU – the OFT07W-ADLN (7-inch) and OFT10W-ADLN (10-inch) – which are low-cost all-in-one embedded computers designed for tablet-like usability. Both modules feature 8GB LPDDR5 memory, 64GB eMMC storage, and an M.2 E-key slot for Wi-Fi/Bluetooth connectivity. These panel PCs come with PCAP touchscreens (800×1280 for 7-inch and 1200×1920 for 10-inch) with various connectivity options including USB, HDMI 2.0a, RS-232/485, and Gigabit Ethernet. With 12-24V DC input supply, fanless operation, and a durable steel frame, these compact open-frame panel PCs are meant for space-constrained applications like HMIs, self-service kiosks, gaming consoles, medical terminals, smart vending machines, digital signage, and more. BCM OFT07W-ADLN and OFT10W-ADLN specifications: SoC – Intel Processor N50 dual-core processor up to 3.4 GHz with 6MB cache, 16EU Intel UHD Graphics; TDP: 6W System Memory – Up to 8GB LPDDR5 onboard Storage – […]

Cincoze DC-1300 is a stackable embedded computer powered by Intel Processor N97 or Core i3-N305 Alder Lake-N SoC

Cincoze DC-1300 stackable embedded computer

Cincoze DC-1300 is an Intel Processor N97 or Core i3-N305 Alder Lake-N embedded computer designed for smart manufacturing that supports stackable expansion boxes (SEBs) that leverage the built-in dual M.2 B Key slots of the system to support various I/O, CAN Bus, and Fieldbus modules. The fanless rugged PC supports up to 16GB DDR5 and M.2 and 2.5-inch SATA storage (no NVMe SSD). It features DisplayPort video output, two 2.5GbE ports, four USB Type-A ports, 3.5mm microphone and line-out audio jacks, and two RS232/RS485 DB9 connectors, and additional display, networking, USB, or DIO interfaces can be added through three CMI module on the main unit and four MEC M.2 card through the optional SEB. Designed for industrial applications, the system supports a wide 9 to 48V DC input and up to -40°C to 70°C temperature range without throttling under load. Cincoze DC-1300 specifications: Alder Lake N-series SoC (one or the […]

NanoCOM-ADN – A COM Express Type 10 Module based on Intel Alder Lake-N SoC

AAEON NanoCOM-ADN COM Express module

AAEON NanoCOM-ADN is a compact (84 x 55mm) COM Express Type 10 module based on Intel Alder Lake-N SoCs, namely Processor N50/N97, Atom x7425E, or Core i3-N305 that adds another option to the SMARC, Qseven, and COM Express Type 6 modules offered by the company with the same processors. The NanoCOM-ADN computer-on-module features up to 16GB LPDDR5x soldered-on memory, up to 64GB eMMC flash, and two Intel i226-V 2.5GbE controllers. Its standard 220-pin COM Express board-to-board connector exposes two SATA interfaces, four PCIe Gen3 x1 interfaces, DDI and LVDS video outputs, eight USB interfaces, and more. AAEON explains the Alder Lale-N COM Express Type 10 CPU module is especially suited to digital signage, healthcare imaging, machine vision, industrial, robotics, and edge computing applications.   AAEON NanoCOM-ADN specifications: Alder Lake N-series SoC (one or the other) Intel Atom x7425E quad-core processor up to 3.4 GHz with 6MB cache, 24EU Intel UHD […]

CNX Software’s 2024 Year in review, website statistics, and what to expect in 2025

CNX Software Happy New Year 2025

That’s it! 2024 is almost over, and it’s time to reflect on what happened during the year. So I’ll look at the highlights of 2024, share some CNX Software website traffic statistics, and speculate on what may be ahead of us in 2025. Looking back at 2024 Raspberry Pi was super active this year with 22 product launches that included boards and modules like the Raspberry Pi 5 with 2GB RAM,  Raspberry Pi Pico 2 and Pico 2 W, Raspberry Pi CM5, expansion modules like the Raspberry Pi AI camera, AI HAT+, and M.2 HAT+, new accessories such as the Raspberry Pi Touch Display 2 and the Raspberry Pi Monitor, and the new Raspberry Pi 500 keyboard PC among others. As usual, there was also plenty of announcement of accessories from third parties, and some boards with the new Raspberry Pi RP2350 Arm/RISC-V microcontroller. There weren’t any ground-breaking Arm processors […]

iKOOLCORE R2 Max review – Part 2: 10GbE on an Intel N100 mini PC with OpenWrt (QWRT), Proxmox VE, Ubuntu 24.04 and pfSense 2.7.2

iKOOLCORE R2 Max Review Proxmox VE Ubuntu 22.04

I’ve already checked out iKOOLCORE R2 Max hardware in the first part of the review with an unboxing and a teardown of the Intel N100 system with two 10GbE ports and two 2.5GbE ports. I’ve now had more time to test it with an OpenWrt fork, Proxmox VE, Ubuntu 24.04, and pfSense, so I’ll report my experience in the second and final part of the review. As a reminder, since I didn’t have any 10GbE gear so far, iKOOLCORE sent me two R2 Max devices, a fanless model and an actively-cooled model. I was told the fanless one was based on Intel N100 SoC, and the actively-cooled one was powered by an Intel Core i3-N305 CPU, but I ended up with two Intel N100 devices. The fanless model will be an OpenWrt 23.05 (QWRT) server, and the actively cooled variant be the device under test/client with Proxmox VE 8.3 server […]

How to use iperf3 in multi-thread mode for 10Gps+ Ethernet testing

iperf3 10GbE multi thread test

With 10GbE becoming more widespread and often found in entry-level hardware, the CPU may become the bottleneck, so I’ll explain how to use iperf3 in multi-thread mode to fully saturate the 10GbE bandwidth even with a system based on a relatively low-end multi-core processor.

For this tutorial, I use two iKOOCORE R2 Max mini PCs with two 10GbE interfaces each and an Intel N100 quad-core processor running an OpenWrt fork (QWRT) and Proxmox VE (Debian) respectively. I will show how I can fully saturate the 10GbE interfaces using multithreading, but not with a typical iperf3 single-core test.

HUNSN RJ42 and RJ43 Intel N150 fanless network appliances and mini PCs come with four 2.5GbE ports, four video outputs

HUNSN RJ42 Intel N150 Network Appliance

We’ve previously seen the new Intel N150 “Twin Lake” processor in mini PCs such as Beelink EQ14 and ASUS NUC 14 Essential among others, but the new quad-core CPU is now also found in HUNSN RJ42 and RJ43 fanless network appliances with four 2.5GbE RJ45 ports. They also double as mini PCs with multiple video outputs and USB ports. The mini PCs ship with up to 32GB RAM and 512GB of storage, support four independent displays through HDMI, DisplayPort, and USB-C interfaces, and offer five USB Type-A ports for expansion. The HUNSN RJ42 and RJ43 offer a similar set of features as previous Intel N100 network appliances with 2.5GbE ports such as the iKOOLCORE R2 and INCTEL N100, but with a slightly faster Intel N150 “Alder Lake-N Refresh” or “Twin Lake” processor thanks to higher clock speeds, and extra interfaces. HUNSN RJ42/RJ43 specifications: SoC – Intel Processor N150 quad-core “Twin […]

Youyeetoo X1 x86 SBC