[ale] Meet the Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+

[Alex Carver]

On 2018-03-14 08:38, Solomon Peachy via Ale wrote:
> On Wed, Mar 14, 2018 at 11:18:12AM -0400, Scott M. Jones via Ale wrote:
>> The new gigabit network chip makes it almost plausible for router,
>> firewall, and access point applications.
> 
> Great, so the nice shiny new gigabit ethernet controller is still 
> attached to the same busted-ass, flaky-as-all-hell USB OTG controller 
> that falls over more than Frodo Baggins.
> 
> But all in all, a nice set of improvements.
>

Define flaky?  The LAN9514 (in the older Pi) is not an OTG controller to
start.  It's just the USB hub with an Ethernet PHY attached to one
internal port.  The newer controller has six downstream ports.  The
datasheet isn't available yet from Microchip.

Both controllers are heat sensitive so I would suspect any issues people
have might actually be thermal in nature.  The Pi boards did not do much
to control heat (though the new Pi 3 apparently improves it a bit).  If
you put a good sized heat sink on the LAN9514 (and also on the Broadcomm
SoC) everything is quite stable.