Category Archives: Networking

Insider stuff, Networking, Recent Activity, WED Blog

CATegorizing Ethernet LAN Cables

September 25, 2024 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

I was flipping through X this morning, and came across a mind-boggling reminder that Ethernet networking has come a long way. You can see the chart from Dan Nanni (@xmodulo) as the lead-in graphic here. We’ve been planning our next move recently, and visiting a lot of new homes, so I can attest most builders are laying CAT 7 cable in such dwellings. But we’ve gone past 7 in categorizing Ethernet LAN cables, as a quick look at the chart will reveal. In fact, CAT 8.2 catches up with current top speeds for USB4 (but 80 Gbps is coming, probably next year).

Categorizing Ethernet LAN Cables Is Only Part

…of a more complicated picture. As I look around at PCs, switches, and so forth, I’m seeing a long tail of networking capabilities. When I see new PCs with RJ-45 ports, for example, I seldom see more than 2.5 Gbps interfaces. 10 Gbps is common on servers, but not on end-user gear.

We’re planning to move in 2026 or 2027, once son Gregory puts his university days behind him (planning on a 2-year Master’s to follow his BA). When we do that I’ll upgrade the infrastructure to support 2.5 Gbps. I see that 8-port 2.5 Gbps switches cost from US$60-100 nowadays. I’ll need to buy a bunch of CAT 7 cables, though: the higest-rated ones I see around here are CAT 6 (though it’s possible I’ve got some 6A shorties here or there).

Copilot puts the CAT timeline out as follows:

CAT 6: early 2000s [max: 1 Gbps]
CAT 6a: 2008 [max: 10 Gbps]
CAT 7 & 7a: 2010 [max: 10/40 Gbps]
CAT 8.1 & 8.2: 2016 [max: 25/40 Gbps]

Methinks there may some some limited need for 10 Gbps home networking, but not much above that speed. Speeds over 10 Gbps are generally limited to 30 m runs on TP cable, so they’re of limited utility in home spaces as well. Wonder how long it will take for these limits to evaporate? I hope to live long enough to find out.

Copilot+ PCs, Device drivers, Insider stuff, Networking, Recent Activity, WED Blog, Windows 11

T14s Mystery Ethernet Controller

August 9, 2024 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

As part of my usual shakedown for new PCs here at Chez Tittel, I went poking around inside Device Manager on the newly-arrived ThinkPad T14s. As it is a Snapdragon X Elite (Copilot+ PC) its networking interfaces come from Qualcomm. The laptop has no RJ-45 port (nor really, any room for one). And yet, a device named “Ethernet Controller” shows up in DevMgr in the always-puzzling “Other devices” category (see lead-in graphic). This has me chasing down this T14s mystery Ethernet controller.

Where’s the T14s Mystery Ethernet Controller?

Nowhere, as far as I can tell. I tried to find a driver for it, and couldn’t. I checked the chip and laptop documentation. I finally “got clue” when I looked in the User Manual under the heading “Connect to the wired Ethernet,” which reads as follows (helpful diagram included):

To connect your computer to a local network, you need a Lenovo USB-C to Ethernet Adapter. Lenovo USBC to Ethernet Adapter is available as an option and shipped with some computer models. You can purchase one from Lenovo at https://www.lenovo.com/accessories.

Shoot, Lenovo’s available model handles up to 2.5 GbE but requires separate purchase for an eminently reasonable US$32 or so. What I still don’t know is if the T14s chassis does include built-in wired Ethernet capability, albeit bereft of an actual link-up (which the illustrated item above nicely remedies). I’ve seen this on other Lenovo laptops (including the X380 Yoga which uses a proprietary laptop port rather than USB-C) so I’m still wondering…

Just Because I Can, Doesn’t Mean I Will

My local wired Ethernet still runs Gbe (1.0 speed, in other words). I’m not yet ready to upgrade my infrastructure to the higher speed. I can use my Starlink GbE dongle (USB 3.0 to RJ-45) instead if I must. That said, the Wi-Fi 7 interface on the T14s runs like a champ on my 802.11ac (Wi-Fi 6) network, so it’s all good right now.

It’s interesting that an Ethernet device shows up at all in DevMgr. I’ve never seen this before on Wi-Fi only laptops. But then, I’m still learning the ins and outs of Snapdragon X ARM-based Windows PCs. Good fun!

Device drivers, Networking, Recent Activity, Troubleshooting, WED Blog, Windows 10

Disappearing Printer Gets IP-based Fix

July 22, 2024 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

This weekend, we went out looking at new housing developments. To prepare for our quest, I went to print street addresses for model homes in Liberty Hill and Georgetown (two small towns north of here). But when I tried to fire off a print job to the Samsung networked printer next to my desk, Devices and Printers told me it was offline. I’ve learned to recognize it as a sign of driver corruption, so my disappearing printer gets IP-based fix. Let me explain…

Why Say: Disappearing Printer Gets IP-based Fix?

My Samsung ML 2850 is old enough that it does not support the Microsoft Universal Print drivers. I have to load a bespoke device driver to make it work. In turn, that means automated discovery of this network attached printer doesn’t work right, either. That’s why you see the IP address info for the device below in the lead-in graphic (courtesy of Advanced IP Scanner). I use the Add a Printer option that depends on its IP address instead.

The drill is familiar and runs something like this:

1. Notice the Printer is offline
2. Basic troubleshooting doesn’t help
3. Right click the icon in Devices and printers, select delete
4. Use the Add a printer dialog to start the process going
5. Click the “Printer I want isn’t found” option
6. Click the use IP address or hostname on the next pane
7. Use the printer’s IP address to install the current driver

This actually takes longer to explain than it does to execute. But it does work, and it seems I have to do this once every three months or so. I guess that’s the outcome of using a 10-year-old printer (that still works like a champ, BTW). Windows has left it behind, but it still keeps chugging along. Kind of like your humble author, I guess…

Windows 11 Proves More Friendly

Just for grins, I tried discovering the Samsung ML 2850 from a Windows 11 host on the same network. At first, it couldn’t see that device, either. But when I clicked the radio button labeled “My printer is a little older. Help me find it.” the Samsung device did turn up. I had to know enough to select the Microsoft PCL6 Class driver (which handles the interface between the Samsung and the Universal Printing stuff). But once I did that, everything worked as it should. Seems like MS has made Windows 11 rather more printer friendly than I expected (and friendlier even, in this case, than Windows 10). A pleasant surprise indeed!

Networking, Recent Activity, Thoughts & concerns, Troubleshooting, WED Blog

Pondering Post-Hurricane Internet Outages

July 11, 2024 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

The old saying in my home state of Texas is “If you don’t like the weather, wait 5 minutes. It’ll change.” Things took a turn for the worse on Monday and Tuesday, when Hurricane Beryl tore through the Gulf cost then Houston. At one point, over 2M locations (households or businesses) had no electricity. That number is still about 1.2M as I write this screed according to PowerOutage.us. One unexpected effect caused most Internet Service in Austin, Dallas, Houston and San Antonio to fail from about noon Tuesday until after 7PM that day. As a member of an affected household, it has me pondering post-hurricane Internet outages.

Fortunately, our 5G service stayed up and continued to provide Internet access. So I was able to limp along during the outage, using my iPhone 12 as a hotspot for minimal connectivity. Failing over from a nominal GbE link to something that delivers 5 MBps if we’re lucky stings, though.

If Pondering Post-Hurricane Internet Outages, Think Failover

Until last year, I had a Inseego MiFi M2100 mobile hotspot through my Verizon account. I kept it around as a fallback when the pandemic hit, because we had to have Internet access, guaranteed, while my son was attending high school remotely. He’s off to college now, and we’re doing our best to cut recurring expenses — like most American families nowadays. So we dropped the hotspot when we switched over from Verizon to Spectrum for cellphone service last year. The iPhone isn’t quite as robust as the MiFi device, but it does the job in a pinch.

Looking at news coverage of Tuesday’s Internet outage, Spectrum is quoted as saying it arose from “a third-party infrastructure issue caused by the impact of Hurricane Beryl.” My guess is that an Internet POP/peering location got flooded, or lost power, and backup generators couldn’t or didn’t pick up the slack. The afore-linked story also tells me that the affected area also included Laredo, San Antonio, the Rio Grande Valley, and Corpus Christi.

Resilience Matters

As somebody who makes his living at least partly thanks to Internet access — I use it for research and learning, for business communications, to obtain and deliver work assignments, and a whole lot more — ongoing access is essential. I’m glad I could use the iPhone as a failover device, but it definitely battered my productivity.

It’s enough to get me thinking about doubling up on fiber-optic coverage, and bringing in the AT&T Uverse fiber service alongside Spectrum’s CATV-based GbE service for redundancy’s sake. The question then becomes: it it worth the extra expense? I’ll have to think on that…

Insider stuff, Networking, Recent Activity, WED Blog, Windows 10, Windows 11

Checking Wi-Fi Signal Strength

March 12, 2024 Ed Tittel 2 Comments

Here at Chez Tittel, most PCs use wired Ethernet for their network connections. That is: of the 10 PCs on various LAN segments here, 7 use GbE connections; the other 3 use Wi-Fi. But our cellphones, iPad, and other devices — including 3 thermostats — are all on Wi-Fi. It’s a mixed bag. I like to check Wi-Fi quality from time to time, so I have to thank Mauro Huculak at Windows Central. He just reminded me about what’s up with checking Wi-Fi signal strength. See his story “How to check Wi-Fi signal strength…” for a raft of potential ways in Windows 11.

Checking Wi-Fi Signal Strength: Command Line

I’m a command line junkie, so I’ll skip the various UI-based methods he describes. There’s a single command in the network shell (netsh) that will tell you what you (or I, in this case) want to know:

netsh wlan show interfaces

Mr. Huculak also provides a tasty one-liner version in his article that’s worth sharing and keeping around (cut’n’paste into a text editor like Notepad, and remove all but one space between the text on the 1st & 2nd lines, please, so it will run in Command Prompt or PowerShell):

(netsh wlan show interfaces)
-Match '^\s+Signal' -Replace '^\s+Signal\s+:\s+',''

You can see both of these at work in PowerShell on one of my Windows 11 test PCs in the lead-in graphic above. The short version produces all of the interface info for the one and only Wi-Fi interface on that machine; the long version simply shows the signal strength as a percentage (i.e. the “99%” at lower left above). You can go either way. Works the same on Windows 10, too. Very handy!

Thanks again, Mauro. Made my morning…

Device drivers, Insider stuff, Networking, Recent Activity, USB devices, WED Blog

Windows 11 Wi-Fi 7 & USB4v2: What’s Up?

February 26, 2024 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

On January 8, 2024 Wi-Fi 7 went public. That’s the same day the Wi-Fi Alliance introduced its Wi-Fi Certified 7 program. USB4 version 2.0 goes all the way back to October 18, 2022. But only with the release of Insider Preview Canary Channel Build 26063 in February 2022 did MS start testing support for related Wi-Fi 7 drivers. (USB4 version 2.0 has been baked in since Build 23615 in the Dev Channel, released January 11, 2024.) Neither has appeared in a production version of the OS. Thus, a valid question for Windows 11 Wi-Fi 7 & USB4v2 has to be: What’s going on? TLDR answer right now is “Not much just yet.” There are lots of good reasons why so please let me explain…

What’s Afoot with Windows 11 Wi-Fi 7 & USB4v2?

One way to look at this is from a market availability standpoint. Precious few devices for sale right now support either or both of these standards. As I write this item, I see exactly 2 network adapters (one USB, the other PCIe x4) that support Wi-Fi 7.Ditto for Wi-Fi 7 routers. I can’t find any laptops that offer built-in support for either standard just yet. Many new models are promised later in 2024, and could change that.

Though it’s being proclaimed as something of an oversight it’s really just a function of supply and demand. (See this Tom’s Hardware news item by way of illustration.) Basic economics and recent history with Wi-Fi 6 and USB4 version 1.0 show that it takes about two years for these new standards to make their way from introduction and into more general adoption. I don’t see this latest iteration as terribly different.

Shoot! I didn’t lay hands on my first PC with built-in USB4 capability until the Panasonic Toughbook FZ-55 showed up here at Chez Tittel late last year. Just before Christmas, in fact. If it takes that long to hit my hot little hands again, I’m looking into late 2025 before a personal encounter might happen.

Insider stuff, Networking, Remote Desktop (RDP), WED Blog

RDP Absence P16 Fixed

February 22, 2024 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

It’s been weird. I had trouble accessing my Lenovo ThinkPad P16 Mobile Workstation for an attorney call last Friday. I couldn’t see it while it was hooked up on Ethernet but it worked OK in Wi-Fi. Today, i finally figure out why that was happening and RDP absence P16 fixed as a result. Deets follow…

How to Get RDP Absence P16 Fixed…

The ever typical error message that shows up when RDP can’t find a PC by desigation (computer name in this case) appears in the lead-in graphic above. Because I already fixed my P16 problem, I used “P15” as the machine name. Since there ain’t no such beast on my LAN, of course it provokes the old familiar “can’t find the computer…” error message shown. But that’s what I was seeing for the P16.

Took me a while to figure out why. If you follow this blog you know I had a Panasonic Toughbook FZ-55 on loan here for some time (unboxing post). While it was hooked up to the LAN it used the Ethernet port my P16 normally uses. On the P16 I switched to Wi-Fi.

That was the problem: with a new NIC for Wi-Fi the P16 also got a new set of IPv4 and v6 addresses. When I hooked back into Ethernet, RDP knew nothing about this. So when I accessed the P16 by name it went looking for it on its Wi-Fi associated IP address. No go!

Fixing the Mix-up

Removing info from RDP requires deleting associated keys in the Registry. I had to visit the key named

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Terminal Server Client\Default

to reset the RDP roster. With the old (and incorrect) entry removed I had to go through initial RDP connection set-up again for the P16. But that was easy (provide a password for the Windows login I use) and done. Now things are working again on the Ethernet connection. Only problem is, I’ll have to remember to do this again if I switch back to Wi-Fi (or just use the IPv4 address, which is how I got back in and ultimately how I figured things out).

And isn’t that just the way things go in Windows-World sometimes. If it ain’t one thing, it’s another!

Cool Tools, Insider stuff, Networking, Recent Activity, WED Blog, Windows 11

Windows 11 Canary Grants Wi-Fi List Refresh

November 21, 2023 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

Here’s a good, if subtle, addition to Windows 11’s bag of networking tricks. In Build 29997, Windows11 grants Wi-Fi list refresh capabilities. Let me explain, starting in pictorial form. Take a look at the lead-in graphic. There’s a refresh button (a circular arrow) at the lower right (cursor is perforce parked on it; you’ll need to right-click the image and show it in its own tab so see what I’m talking about). But the “Refresh network list” button is the real key. That means the Wi-Fi interface is forcibly scanning its locale to rebuild a current list of available Wi-Fi resources. Very handy, to get this right from the Taskbar.

When Windows 11 Canary Grants Wi-Fi List Refresh, What Then?

This is always a good thing to do when searching for networks. MajorGeeks does a good job of explaining the “old regime” — namely: “How to Reset Network Settings In Windows 10 & 11.”

That means clicking through the following sequence: Start → Settings; → Network & Internet (Win10) or Advanced network settings (Win11) → Scroll down, then select “Network reset.” I count 5 mouse clicks required.

The new ways take 3 clicks if you’re using wired Ethernet, 2 if already using Wi-Fi. For wired Ethernet, that’s Select Network icon in taskbar → Select Caret to left of Wi-Fi “Available” button in network pop-up → Click on “Refresh list” button at lower left of network list pop-up. For those using Wi-Fi, clicking the Wi-Fi icon on the taskbar skips the first wired step. Easy-peasey.

Does This Change Matter?

To those who switch Wi-Fi networks regularly, it is a nice little touch. For everybody else, it’s mostly nugatory. But hey, improving Windows is most definitely a matter of “little by little, step by step.” FWIW, I really like this change and think it makes Wi-Fi networking more usable on Windows 11. What’s your take?

Here’s a shout-out to Sergey Tkachenko at WinAero. His November 16 story brought this nice but subtle change to my attention. Spacibo, Sergey!

Cool Tools, Insider stuff, Networking, Recent Activity, WED Blog, Windows 10, Windows 11

MS Recasts Printer Driver Requirements

September 8, 2023 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

Very interesting! There’s a September 6 update to MS Learn Windows device drivers docs. Therein, MS recasts its future printer driver requirements (End of servicing plan for third-party printer drivers on Windows.). For those who manage and use Windows printers, it’s worth a read.

Driver Standards Explain How MS Recasts Printer Driver Requirements

The change comes courtesy of the the Internet Printing Protocol (IPP). Originally developed by IBM, IPP is explained in an MS Print support app design guide. Indeed, IPP may be “[u]sed from a client device to interact with the printer to retrieve and set printing preferences and to send the document to be printed.”

Long story short: support for IPP and Mopria standards is a good thing. They make vendor-supplied printer drivers and software unnecessary — at least, for printers that support those standards. And FWIW, IPP and Mopria work on Android, while AirPrint does likewise for iDevices.

That explains the MS timetable in its “end of servicing plan”

September 2023: MS announces end of servicing for third-party printer drivers
2025: No new printer drivers from WU
2026: Printer driver ranking always prefers IPP drivers
2027: Third-party print driver updates disallowed (except for security-related fixes)

IPP Has Been There All Along…

Check out this sub-Window. It comes via Control Panel → Programs and Features → Turn Windows features on or off. It shows built-in IPP support in Windows 10 and 11. See “Internet Printing Client” (box is checked) under”Print and Document Services”

Internet Printing Client checked means IPP is active.
If not, do check it.

Using TCP/IP addresses for networked printers, I’d been unknowingly using IPP for years . Thanks to MS’s updated printer driver architecture, I needn’t use device-specific drivers and software, either. Good stuff.

Indeed, my 2014/2015 Samsung (now HP) and Dell (Brother, actually) printers already use IPP. Most printers made in 2014 or later will do likewise. Good stuff!

Here are additional resources that readers may find helpful.

OpenPrinting Driverless Printers: Vendor makes and models for IPP and/or AirPrint capable printers.
Wikipedia: Mopria Alliance: Info about this trade association. Founded by HP in 2013, it includes global print device makers backing open print initiatives and standards.

Cheers!

Cool Tools, Insider stuff, Networking, Recent Activity, WED Blog, Windows 10

Intel Fixes PROSet Problem

September 6, 2023 Ed Tittel Leave a comment

Back on August 18, I reported that version 28.2 of Intel PROSet didn’t support Windows 10 22H2 for some reason. Because I was away from my desk from August 25 through September 4, I only discovered today that Intel fixes PROset problem. According to the properties for the 64-bit executable, it dates back to August 4. That said, today’s download and install works. Indeed, it threw no “version not supported” error message as shown in the earlier post.

When Intel Fixes PROSet Problem, Then What?

This time around, the update worked as expected. The readme.txt file still omits Windows 10 22H2 as a supported version, but the exe file now works properly on my machine. Sigh.

This has me wondering: Did Intel fix something on the sly, or did I simply try to run the wrong exe file last time around? I’ll never know, but I’m glad the update now works as it should. I no longer get nagged when I check updates for something I thought I couldn’t fix on my own.

It’s Still a Mystery to Me…

Looking back at my earlier post, the error message says nothing about which version of Windows it expected to find. I suppose I could have jumped to the conclusion that 22H2 wasn’t supported because it doesn’t appear on the supported version list.

As before, readme.txt calls out Windows 10 21H2 and 1809 but does not mention 22H2. I wonder now if I mistakenly tried to run the 32-bit PROSet executable instead of its 64-bit counterpart. That could provoke the same kind of error message as before. When I try to run that version now, it tells me “Another version is already installed…”

Such surprises can be educational. They teach me that my diagnoses may not always be the correct ones, no matter how plausible the supporting evidence may seem. Indeed, that’s the way things go in Windows-World sometimes, as I know only too well.

Bottom line: I’m glad the update worked this time. Though it may actually have been a self-inflicted problem, PROSet now shows version 28.2.0.2 on my desktop. Call my Windows 10 PC updated, even if I’m not sure exactly what went wrong on August 18.

As you can see at lower left, this running PROSet instance self-describes as 28.2.02 — the latest version.