AX8872B USBNET dongle

In view of my previous post on a USBNET dongle with an Asix AX88772B chipset, I finally managed to secure a free unit from a friend who bought it from here. Unlike shown on the pictures in the ad, it has 2 LEDs situated on the side without the blue logo. So, it does not look like the one in the ad. However, when I plugged it into my computer and/or PogoPlug Pro 02, it gets detected as the Asix AX88772 USB 2.0 Ethernet adapter with a weird SerialNumber 001A1E and MAC address of 00:00:00:00:0f:07. According to the Anatomy of a cheap USB to Ethernet adapter, it is a rather clone USBNET adapter. However, when I tested on my AMD64 Phenom II X3 Linux desktop computer by downloading the linux-4.4.tar.xz source from ftp.kernel.org site, most of the time it showed the download speed was about 10.8 MBps. OTOH, when I tested the same thing on my PogoPlug Pro 02, the download throughput was about 3 MBps. I checked the CPU usage on my PogoPlug Pro 02 while the download was in progress and did not see any spike is CPU usage. I don't know why there is a huge discrepancy in download throughput. I did this test more than 10x on each device. Regardless, this is much better than the cheap one (based on a Davicom DM96xx based USB 10/100 ethernet chipset) I have which could only attain an average download throughput of 512 KBps.

I hope this will open up your eyes on many different cheap/inexpensive USBNet dongles out there. If I were you, I would certainly get the one using an Asix AX88772 chipset.

[1390551.423831] asix 1-2:1.0: eth3: unregister 'asix' usb-0000:00:12.2-2, ASIX AX88772 USB 2.0 Ethernet
[1390557.404040] usb 1-2: new high-speed USB device number 83 using ehci_hcd
[1390557.549191] usb 1-2: New USB device found, idVendor=0b95, idProduct=772b
[1390557.549197] usb 1-2: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
[1390557.549201] usb 1-2: Product: AX88772B
[1390557.549204] usb 1-2: Manufacturer: ASIX Elec. Corp.
[1390557.549206] usb 1-2: SerialNumber: 001A1E
[1390558.347581] asix 1-2:1.0: eth1: register 'asix' at usb-0000:00:12.2-2, ASIX AX88772 USB 2.0 Ethernet, 00:00:00:00:0f:07
[1390558.480552] udevd[10164]: renamed network interface eth1 to eth3
[1390558.497536] asix 1-2:1.0: eth3: link down
[1390558.499550] ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): eth3: link is not ready
[1390560.109308] ADDRCONF(NETDEV_CHANGE): eth3: link becomes ready
[1390560.111837] asix 1-2:1.0: eth3: link up, 100Mbps, full-duplex, lpa 0xCDE1

That's awesome testing you did, and otherwise a real fascinating read.

The parts I understand are the shielding and jitter. I even wonder if Apple's shielding is iron-based (EMI), copper-based (RFI) or both: mu metal.
Mu Metal is anther topic, but I'd buy it like aluminum foil if it were cheap; two birds with one stone every time.

That would be nice to find a list of first and 2nd place chipsets to use for popular situations, like USB 3.0 cards, wireless (RA Link was it? PogoDebian likes) that kind of thing. I say that because I'm starting to use external hard drives for Pogo, but for the initial part to copy a terrabyte up front I may as well use a larger computer with robust USB 3.0. I doubt the one I ordered is any good, but had to try something. Should be here in a few days.

Seriously useful stuff habibie

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-= Cloud 9 =-

Hello Joey,

I believe the one I have is a clone version and does NOT have any metallic sheet shields. However, after connecting it to a USB2 port on either my Linux Desktop Computer or PogoPlug Pro 02 for about 2 minutes, this AX88772B USB dongle gets and remains warm even though it is on idle. The other cheap one always remains cold even on a heavy usage.

For a USB3, Asix also makes AX88179 -- USB3.0 to 10/100/1000M Gigabit Ethernet Controller. I don't know what USB/Net controller is used on this one. If it employs the Asix AX88179 USB/Net controller, it certainly would not be a bad choice compared to this expensive one that uses the Asix AX88179 controller.

Hi, just landed in this thread while looking for something else.

I have a similar adaptor ordered from the another aliexpress seller and I found that the EEPROM have to be initialised by pluging it in on a Windows machine (the one I used was Windows 7). It then gets a 'proper' random MAC address.

Hope this helps

Jinx

JinxJim Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Hi, just landed in this thread while looking for
> something else.
>
> I have a similar adaptor ordered from the another
> aliexpress seller and I found that the EEPROM have
> to be initialised by pluging it in on a Windows
> machine (the one I used was Windows 7). It then
> gets a 'proper' random MAC address.
>
> Hope this helps
>
> Jinx

Do you have the link to the product?