Bobcat 300 Diagnoser Tool / Utility Guide (Helium Mining)

Published: / Last Modified: September 11, 2021 / 66 Comments /
Bobcat 300 Diagnoser Utility

The Bobcat 300 Helium Miner finally has an interface you can use to be able to tell what it’s doing! Better yet, it lets you do a few things like conduct an internet speed test. You can even get a detailed breakdown of which block your miner is on!

In this guide I’ll break down how to access the web interface (easy) and run through some of the features that are available at launch (1.0). The utility started installing on Bobcat 300’s via OTA updates on August 3rd 2021. Let’s begin!

PCIe 1x NVMe on Raspberry Pi?! Compute Module 4 Guide

Published: / Last Modified: August 31, 2021 / 6 Comments / , , , ,
CableCC Vertical Adapter in Compute Module 4 IO Board

I recently covered all the pieces you need for a complete setup to work with the Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4. Today I want to cover the whole reason I wanted to investigate the Compute Module 4: The PCI express capabilities!

In this guide I’ll cover a couple of 1x PCIe to NVMe adapters I picked up to try doing this with as well as full configuration and setup instructions. Let us begin!

Full Compute Module 4 (Raspberry Pi) Setup / Imaging Guide

Published: / Last Modified: August 31, 2021 / 6 Comments / , , ,
Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 mounted in IO Board

The Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 is primarily meant for embedded projects and didn’t catch my interest at first. That was until people started absolutely smashing previous records on my Pi storage benchmarking site pibenchmarks.com.

Upon further investigation it turns out that people are breaking these records using the Compute Module 4 since it allows running a NVMe drive through PCI express instead of having to use a USB adapter (the current bottleneck in other Pis).

Wanting to investigate these new capabilities for myself I got a hold of some gear and wanted to write a setup and configuration guide on everything you need for a full CM4 (Compute Module 4) setup and how to get it imaged and configured. Let’s get started!

Review: ViaBTC Mining Pool (Negative)

Published: / Last Modified: September 5, 2021 / Leave a Comment /
Goldshell LB1 and Goldshell HS1 Plus ASIC Miners

In my last series of cryptocurrency related products/services reviews I gave a positive review to the ApeSwap Exchange on the Binance Smart Chain which has continued to be a great exchange and live up to that review.

Today we will be reviewing the ViaBTC mining pool (for multiple cryptocurrencies and not just Bitcoin, lots of harder-to-find alts and that is why I’m using it) and they will not be so fortunate. Let’s jump right into it!

Speed Up Helium Miner Hotspot Sync / Fixing “Relayed” Status

Published: / Last Modified: September 5, 2021 / 74 Comments / ,
Bobcat Miner

I recently received my Bobcat 300 miner after months of waiting. Much of the advice I’d read/seen on the subject suggested to leave the hotspot alone and that it takes a very long time to sync.

This is true but it assumes you configured your network correctly first and have the correct port opened to the outside world. If it’s not it will take even longer to sync the blockchain and your hotspot will have a yellow “Relayed” status. This is slowing down your sync and will harm your rewards even when it finishes since your responses to challenges will be “relayed” and will often time out before they are relayed through other hotspots.

In this guide I’ll show you how to get your network configured correctly for your hotspot to sync as fast as possible and remove the “Relayed” status!

Fixing Storage Adapters for Raspberry Pi via Firmware Updates

Published: / Last Modified: August 31, 2021 / 2 Comments / ,
StarTech USB312SAT3CB

I’ve covered how to get the right type of storage adapter for your Raspberry Pi for years on this site and cataloged storage adapters that both work and don’t work with the Raspberry Pi. Over the years we’ve learned that many of these adapters can be “fixed” with a firmware update to work with the Raspberry Pi.

In this article I’ll put together an evolving list of firmware adapters that can be fixed with these updates from my own experience as well as comments people have left over the years!

Using Multiple M.2 NGFF 2280 SATA Drives Simultaneously

Published: / Last Modified: August 31, 2021 / Leave a Comment / , ,
IOCREST NGFF 2230/2242/2260/2280/22110 SATA PCIe Enclosure

I’ve been running pibenchmarks.com for several years now so I’ve held on to any spare storage devices I can get my hands on for benchmarking/testing/cataloging purposes. This led to a big surplus of drives and no easy way to utilize them. That was before getting some new tools to be able to utilize lots of drives at once.

Last time I covered a monster 16 bay hot swappable 2.5″ SATA cage (as well as a more reasonable 8 bay option) in this “extreme storage” series of articles and in this article we’re going to cover M.2 SATA NGFF / M.2 NVMe drives. It’s also possible to do RAID!

Minecraft 1.17 Caves and Cliffs Paper Server Update Available

Published: / Last Modified: August 31, 2021 / 32 Comments / , ,
Minecraft 1.17 - Caves and Cliffs Update

The 1.17 Caves and Cliffs Part 1 version of Minecraft came out for vanilla very recently but until now the Paper Minecraft server was not available for it. This means that my Raspberry Pi Minecraft script was unable to run this version until now.

Today I checked https://papermc.io/api/v1/paper and sure enough 1.17 was finally in the version list so I updated the Raspberry Pi Minecraft server scripts and they are now available! Raspberry Pi not required, the script will work on most versions of Linux that have apt available.

Monster 16 Bay Hot-Swappable 2.5″ SATA Cage – ICY DOCK

Published: / Last Modified: August 31, 2021 / Leave a Comment / , ,
ICY DOCK 16 Bay SAS/SATA Backplane Cage

I have a *lot* of 2.5″ SATA drives around the house that have collected from over the years from various devices. Often these drives have useful data on them or aren’t big enough to justify using on their own. The absolutely monstrous ICY DOCK 16 bay 2.5″ SAS/SATA backplane cage solves all of these problems and lets you hot swap (change out the drives while the OS is running) drives live in your OS!

In this guide I’ll cover how what I needed to actually set up something like this and my advice for people who are interested in these same type of hot swappable / RAID capabilities. I’ll also share the “sweet spot” recommendation to get the most bays for the least money if you’re on a tight budget. Let’s get started!

Ubertooth One Kali Linux Latest Tools / Firmware Setup Guide

Published: / Last Modified: August 31, 2021 / 8 Comments / , , , ,
Kismet Ubertooth One BTLE Capture

The world is full of devices communicating with Bluetooth even if (or maybe especially if) you don’t realize it. Most “smart” devices are advertising some Bluetooth services (some of them even publicly writable without a password!). Even my treadmill is advertising writeable Bluetooth endpoints!

The Ubertooth One is a bluetooth and bluetooth low-energy (BTLE) capture device intended for developers and security researchers/auditors. It has an external antenna and is able to communicate at much further distances than most BTLE devices by both transmitting more powerfully and having a more sensitive antenna to listen to the response. To find out what is nearby and happening over the air this is the device you want to have.

In this guide I’ll show you how to get the latest Ubertooth tools on Kali Linux as well as update the firmware for the Ubertooth device and actually use the device!

Revisiting Fixing Valheim Lag – Modifying Send/Receive Limits

Published: / Last Modified: August 31, 2021 / 95 Comments / ,
My Valheim Dedicated Server Castle

I’ve previously covered fixing Valheim’s dedicated server lag by modifying the dedicated server’s send receive limits. Since I wrote that article not long after launch though the game has been updated that the old method no longer applies. I had theorized in the comments of that article how to address this and today Sam R. confirmed that this method did indeed alleviate most congestion on the server in the places that the send/receive limits are known to bottleneck.

This updated guide will show some updated methods you can use to help reduce lag on your Valheim dedicated server!

Bunnies, Pepes, Apes, Oh My? NFTs on Binance Smart Chain

Published: / Last Modified: September 5, 2021 / Leave a Comment /
Non-Fungible Ape #0406 - Beautiful Ape

You’ve likely heard in the news of someone paying a ridiculously large amount of money for something called a NFT (non-fungible token) such as $387,000 for a LeBron James NBA Top Shot moment, artwork from the hottest artists in the world who have been adopting NFT technology on a massive scale, and many more uses/offerings popping up every day. It’s definitely going to continue to be a huge driving force in the cryptocurrency market and there’s no way to put the genie back in the bottle.

You don’t have to have 400 grand to start playing with non-fungible tokens and learning more about them though. Today I’ll cover where to find (relatively) cheap NFTs on the Binance Smart Chain that I have picked up to learn more about them and exactly what they do!

Upgrade Java Past apt’s OpenJDK 11 on Raspberry Pi OS

Published: / Last Modified: August 31, 2021 / 4 Comments / , ,
OpenJDK 16 on Raspberry Pi OS

The OpenJDK 11 version that comes in Raspberry Pi OS’s apt repositories is ancient. It’s so old that recently people using my Minecraft Java Server for Raspberry Pi script have started getting a warning that Minecraft 1.17 will *not* support anything below OpenJDK 16.

In this article I’m going to share a sneaky trick to update your Java to a newer version than is available in apt using snapd. Let’s begin!

Hardware Technician Tool Gems: Precision Electric Screwdriver

Published: / Last Modified: August 31, 2021 / 2 Comments / ,
wowStick w/ included accessories

This is the second in a series of articles about tools I’ve found during my IT hardware technician career that made my life much easier. These are all tools I have used for years that a lot of people have likely never seen or been exposed to before. Last time we covered a replacement for canned air / duster and this time we’re going to cover the wowStick fully electric precision screwdriver!

If you’ve ever opened a laptop or cell phone you know there are dozens of screws you have to remove. One of the best purchases I’ve ever made was an electric screwdriver. Let’s take a look at why!

My 2021 Aircooled Open Frame AMD Ryzen Threadripper Build

Published: / Last Modified: August 31, 2021 / 2 Comments /
P5 Open Frame Threadripper Build

This year I’ve been doing more with technology than ever and I wanted to build a workstation. As most of you probably know building a computer is an absolute nightmare right now. After navigating the process I figured I would share what I ended up building as it may give some people some ideas on how to complete their build. I also think the open frame builds turn out really cool and have some benefits I wanted to talk about as well.

This is a workstation grade build so it is not going to be cheap. Everything in the build (except for the GPU and you probably won’t want to pick that one anyway, but more on that later) is generally attainable at reasonable prices. Here’s what I ended up going with!