Nexcom NViS 14162 NVR device

[Greg_E]

Mine made it today, probably work on it tonight for a bit. Too many projects going at once but I want to get cameras off of the black box NVR that came with my system and on to something I control. I may also need a tech. demonstration at work to solve an issue there.

if anyone sees a cheap USB Coral TPU, let me know (by PM so it doesn't get snagged), the current $100+ retail is just a hard no right now.

 

[Greg_E]

Installing Debian 13 right now. Fans are louder than I want, but a big part of this is the super tight grill work with sharp edges. Long ago I had to cut out the stamped grills and use a round wire cover to help quiet down some computers for a radio station. This was after installing quieter fans. So I think the case over the PS fan needs to be cut, and the side intake vents will need to be cut.

 

[Bbolt]

Windows 11 works. The POE Utility download on the NEXCOM page functions on Win 11, shows wattage draw per port and allows you to turn POE on or off.

 

[Greg_E]

Anyone know if all these function can be used on Linux? I only have the base Debian loaded and haven't tried to configure the 16 ports yet. I did see 4 ports when installing the OS, one of which is listed as 2.5g, but I was having some issues with that port and my router at home, needs additional investigation. The gigabit port next to it seems to be working fine and I didn't try to use the internet through the 100mb ports yet to see if they can work like "normal" ports.

Reading up on options for dnsmasq or maybe going to Bind or one of the other dhcp servers (ISC or Kea) to serve up the IP for those 100mb ports. Probably going to work on this more today.

I will say one thing, if you connect this to a 4k monitor, the text is REALLY small, I can barely read the ctrl+r to get into the raid set up. But raid 0 with a pair of old 250gb Constelation.2 drives works (brought home the wrong drives).

 

[Bbolt]

The POEUtility manual includes instructions for a Linux version, but I haven't found any Linux code. From the manual it looks like the switch power is controlled via a serial port and the Windows app opens a command prompt window that shows diag information for each operation performed on the dialog that may possibly be used to decode the serial strings.

 

[Greg_E]

Thanks, I need to get the manuals printed out. I have some cheapo USB serial to bare wire devices around here somewhere, maybe I should tap that line and dump everything. It's roughly indicated in the board layout, shouldn't be too hard to find the pins.

 

[Greg_E]

In asking for help in another forum, someone mentioned webmin which had a module for dnsmasq, this is now orphaned. But it looks like ISC dhcp server and Bind dns server are supported. I think webmin is the direction I may go, as long as it won't interfere with Frigate's web interface.

I also installed xrdp so I can rdp into this device when needed.

I'll also get minicom installed for serial port work for controlling the POE and any other stuff needed on those switch chips.

 

[WANg]

Well, I got mine on Wednesday afternoon - started messing with it but was out of the office today. My initial setup of using 16GB DDR4 SODIMM units pulled from a Dell Latitude 7270 seemed to have made it...cranky, but 8GB units pulled from 7480s seemed to have worked...although I got a command line based EFI boot menu. Probably need to do some reading up before proceeding further.

 

[Greg_E]

I had to set boot order in the bios before mine stopped beeping and would boot to the USB to install Debian.

Is this processor capable of more than 8gb of ram? a single 4 or double to get to 8 is all I have so I just stuck 8 in there and after going to BIOS it was "happy". I turned secure boot off but left uefi on and used a Debian 13 net installer. Haven't had the energy to work on this since, but it's one of the things I hope to work on this weekend.

I was mashing esc and del alternately to get into BIOS, so not sure which key it really wants.

 

[Bbolt]

I have 1 16GB SODIMM in mine and it works fine. I think I read 32GB is supported, but haven't tried it.
Delete is the key to access the BIOS. The BIOS looks functional, but nothing fancy. I haven't found anything in there regarding the 16 ports or POE.
Running Debian in mine and has been solid. I loaded Windows 11 to test and play with the POE ports and it also was stable.

 

[Bbolt]

Tested 32Gb - 2 16gb SODIMMs, no issues.

 

[Greg_E]

Good to know, let me go sell a kidney for more ram I think I saw other products with this processor claiming 32gb, but I'm not certain. I just wish I had a few 8gb modules right now, a pair for my NVS and a pair for a new lab machine for Harvester/Rancher (too many projects).

Even the little single board stuff like Mele Quieter 3q (not even the newer 4) has doubled from where it was 6 months ago (and I should have bought a couple!)

I did luck out, my latest T740 for my lab arrived and had 2x4 DDR4 sodimm installed, so now I have even more of those modules (eight sets), wishing more stuff had 4 sockets right now.

 

[Greg_E]

Haven't worked on this for a while, but rethinking my OS choice... Anyone using openSUSE LEAP Micro? Seems like one of these micro OS that is steered towards containers might be just the ticket.

 

[Glock24]

Well, I got mine on Wednesday afternoon - started messing with it but was out of the office today. My initial setup of using 16GB DDR4 SODIMM units pulled from a Dell Latitude 7270 seemed to have made it...cranky, but 8GB units pulled from 7480s seemed to have worked...although I got a command line based EFI boot menu. Probably need to do some reading up before proceeding further.

I got one of these to play with. Some 16GB modules don't work at all or sometimes with just one module it boots but takes a lot to turn on.
With some other 16GB modules it works as it should and worka with both modules installed.

BTW I think the memory compatibility could be a BIOS issue, but I could not find a BIOS update. Does anyone know if there's an updated BIOS for this board?

 

[hlyi]

I just bought one as well and installed debian. Has anyone get held of linux version of POEUtility or figured out the protocol? Thanks

 

[Greg_E]

Grab the user documents, pretty sure I remember that you can use a serial connection through a connected comm port to send commands to the POE controller. After that, I haven't worked on mine in a while and I'm rethinking my OS choice to be opensuse LEAP Micro since everything I plan to run is a container and it gives "immutable" OS.

 

[hlyi]

Grab the user documents, pretty sure I remember that you can use a serial connection through a connected comm port to send commands to the POE controller. After that, I haven't worked on mine in a while and I'm rethinking my OS choice to be opensuse LEAP Micro since everything I plan to run is a container and it gives "immutable" OS.

Thanks for the feedback. Were you referring to "PoE Utility User Guide"? It has installation guild and mentions linux. However, I could not find linux downloadable, nor the communication protocol.

 

[Greg_E]

I just looked through all of the downloads for all of their nvr, none had a Linux utility. It appears that Windows saw it as com2, so I'm guessing that Linux is the same (ttyS2). Guessing it is either 9600 8n1 or 115200 8n1 and minicom or putty should be able to connect. Then hoping that something like ? or -h or help or maybe even just an empty return will give a help screen with commands. There are some clues in the screenshots in the Poe user guide, but nothing really concrete. Based on those screen shots, I'd say help is probably the most likely to spit out some commands.

If none of that works, might have to install win10 or 11 and log the terminal window that pops up behind the gui.

[edit, I just sent them an email asking for any Linux help they might be able to offer]

 

[hlyi]

[edit, I just sent them an email asking for any Linux help they might be able to offer]

Thanks!

I already tried ttyS2 with gtkterm. unfortunately, it didn't work, based upon the screen shot, my guess is that some sync pattern (0xaa..) may be required. I am not familiar with windows, do you know any serial port logger program?

 

[Greg_E]

It looks like it just spawns a "Terminal" window, not sure if you can save a session from it. Wish I had time to fiddle with this, but just not in the cards right now.