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by XelNika 1740 days ago
While the project is super interesting, this seems like network horror to me. Not only is something "wrong" with the network (guessing dns.msftncsi.com is blackholed), the author is setting DNS servers statically on his clients instead of using DHCP. If I'm right that the domain is simply blocked, I think it counts as yet another horror that the author did not realise that before buying a replacement WiFi card. It pains me that the blog post never explains the root cause of the issue nor whether it was intentional.
3 comments
unraveller 1739 days ago
There are also plenty of other wifi connection test domains [1][2] around that he didn't have to buy one.

Apple returns "success" 200, opensuse returns 304 (no-content) and may close the browser tab instantly so you have to fiddle in console to see it working.

  await fetch('http://conncheck.opensuse.org',{mode:'no-cors'})
[1] http://conncheck.opensuse.org

[2] http://captive.apple.com/hotspot-detect.html

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nanis 1739 days ago
> There are also plenty of other wifi connection test domains [1][2] around that he didn't have to buy one.

Strictly speaking, I have enough garbage domains that I could have used any one of them, but when I found a cute short name I grabbed it. ... Hosting it myself means my computer doesn't tell someone additional where I am all the time ... Although since the requests are plain http, that doesn't really mean much.

Also note:

    C:\> curl http://captive.apple.com/hotspot-detect.html | xxd
      % Total    % Received % Xferd  Average Speed   Time    Time     Time  Current
                                     Dload  Upload   Total   Spent    Left  Speed
    100    69  100    69    0     0     69      0  0:00:01 --:--:--  0:00:01   489
    00000000: 3c48 544d 4c3e 3c48 4541 443e 3c54 4954  <HTML><HEAD><TIT
    00000010: 4c45 3e53 7563 6365 7373 3c2f 5449 544c  LE>Success</TITL
    00000020: 453e 3c2f 4845 4144 3e3c 424f 4459 3e53  E></HEAD><BODY>S
    00000030: 7563 6365 7373 3c2f 424f 4459 3e3c 2f48  uccess</BODY></H
    00000040: 544d 4c3e 0a                             TML>.
That LF at the end means now I need to figure out how to get that into the registry (maybe it's trivial but it takes an additional ΔT and ΔW.

As for the opensuse one, I am not sure if the check works with empty content. Again, not hard to figure out, but additional ΔT and ΔW.

Plus, these sites can change whatever they do at any time and if I customize to match them, then I am at their beck and call as opposed to controlling both sides of the equation.

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zamadatix 1740 days ago
The Wi-Fi upgrade story linked in the beginning is also a slightly weird solution. Rather than buy an mPCIe to m.2 adapter and 1st party Intel (or any modern) card he bought a half mini adapter and rebranded half mini Intel card for twice the price.

Not to say there is anything wrong with a stream of consciousness blog about what one has had fun doing doing lately rather a heads up since this is being shared these fixes are just that, not high effort recommendations or whatnot normally posted on HN.

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nanis 1740 days ago
> for twice the price.

Prices vary over time. Upon seeing this, I checked the current price and it is almost twice as much as I paid at the time and the item is listed as out of stock by this seller.

Indeed, there is a 8265 listed at $21[1] and a converter listed at $8[2]. At the time, I did not know such converters existed.

[1]: https://www.amazon.com/Intel-Dual-Band-Wireless-Ac-8265/dp/B...

[2]: https://www.amazon.com/M-2-PCIe-Converter-Bluetooth-2010-201...

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zamadatix 1740 days ago
Fair point, maybe some differences due to location as well as it shows in stock for me.

FWIW the mpe-AX3000H is a repackaged ax200 not an 8265 (ac only chip). Doesn't change the price just noting it's a different chip than the 7260/mpe-AH3000H https://www.amazon.com/Compatible-AX200NGW-9260NGW-Upgrade-W...

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nanis 1740 days ago
> setting DNS servers statically on his clients instead of using DHCP.

Yes, because these personal laptops end up being used in coffee shops or hotels on occasion. So, whatever I do just on my home router doesn't help.

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fragmede 1740 days ago
"On his clients" meaning his eg laptop. Personally my laptop uses its own preconfigured DNS servers, even (especially!) at coffee shops/etc because the coffee shop's DNS isn't to be trusted but more than that, they are frequently extremely slow. (It does take some fussing if there's a captive portal, but that's easy enough to handle.)
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nanis 1740 days ago
> some fussing if there's a captive portal

`example.com` comes in handy.

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XelNika 1739 days ago
That is fair, I suppose, but why use a different DNS server than the default for your home network? I still think there's something fundamentally wrong with a DNS configuration that breaks Windows connectivity tests.

I do hope you're using something encrypted. Plain DNS can be redirected and manipulated quite trivially.

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