AudioLinux and NUC Troubleshooting and Tuning

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I like pictures too so I hope this might help with setting up BIOS. Unused USB ports can be disabled too, I just have to find out which is which.

 

If those more knowledgeable could add to this, it would be much appreciated. 

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18 minutes ago, greenleo said:

Hi Patrick,

 

Thank you for the images!  The 3rd one that shows the secure boot was not clear and this could be crucial for the newbies.  Any possibility to show it clearly?

 

Regards.

Not sure why this one is not clear @greenleo  The secure boot box is off/unticked

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27 minutes ago, Narcissus said:

Guys, did any of you’ll use a grounding strap or anti static gloves while fiddling with the NUC? Is it ok to not use either and just make sure you’re touching some metal and not working on a carpet, would that suffice?

 

In the endpoint NUC, would it matter where you install the 4gb ram, upper or lower slot?

 

Is your NUC compatible with a smart TV or do we need to connect a Computer monitor? Larry had concerns about making it work on a regular Home TV.

I have been strict about using a strap and gloves, with RAM especially ,to make sure nothing goes wrong as has happened in the past when I wasn't careful.

 

Not sure which slot is best. I used bottom one, maybe Larry can clarify.

 

Yes both NUC7CJYH and NUC7PJYH work with TV monitor for me, except the left edge is cut off slightly. I didn't find this a problem. I think Larry did mention that a TV monitor might not work in some cases.

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9 minutes ago, rickca said:

Is anyone using wireless on their NUC?  My wireless card in my MBP supports both 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz SSIDs just fine when running MacOS.  When I boot AL headless 0.5 the 5 GHz SSID doesn't show up in the list of network names.  Can anyone assist with troubleshooting?

when you booted in EFI did you see the option to input wireless password. It doesn't last long and needs to be input otherwise AL won't see it..

Also there is a guide to setting up wireless somewhere but I can't locate it... as far as I remember you need to add something (code) to AL

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6 minutes ago, rickca said:

No I never saw such an option. The 2.4 GHz wireless works fine, it's just that I can't see my 5 GHz SSID.  I'd prefer to use 5 GHz.

I see, so you have the 2.4 GHz wireless working in AL okay?

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Just now, rickca said:

Correct.

Cool. I must have a different model/OS combo. You can probably ignore what I suggest then.. 

 

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48 minutes ago, MrUnderhill said:

Welcome to the jungle.

Thanks M!

that looks really tidy compared to my mess ?

 

Like your core set up,  mine is also is running around 37 degrees too with music playing in extreme mode after an hour. The only thing I did differently from your breakdown is I did wiggle the board in order to spread the thermal paste, carefully not to allow it to go on any circuits, only the heat sink. 

 

Interesting that my NUC endpoint runs at same temperature 36-37 degrees. I thought the core might run hotter as it’s doing more. 

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9 hours ago, austinpop said:

Just FYI for folks who have been using AL headless since 0.3 and earlier...

 

Please be aware that Extreme mode in 0.3 is the equivalent of Extreme2 in more recent versions like 0.7.

 

As you will recall, Piero had suggested a while ago that folks who were finding the Extreme mode too thermally stressful could tame it down by removing the flag idle=poll from the audiolinuxEXTREME.conf file. Well, this tamer version on 0.7 is now Extreme.

 

So in short:

• on ≤ 0.3: Extreme includes idle=poll 
• on 0.7:
  • Extreme  excludes idle=poll
  • Extreme2 includes idle=poll

So: Extreme on 0.3 ≈ Extreme2 on 0.7.

Thanks @austinpop!

can anyone report if there is an improvement in SQ by moving to 0.7 from 0.3? or is the difference just in menu functionality? 

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5 hours ago, darkfrank said:

 

 

Thanks, I installed ethtool and managed to change those configs. If need to apply these configs permanently, the only way is to add a customized service to systemd to run a script on boot? 

You probably saw it but here is a section "making ethanol settings permanent" in that link.

Did you add all the configs listed there?

 

Interesting resource

However I noticed this warning on the intro page: https://cromwell-intl.com/open-source/performance-tuning/

Be careful: The network tuning suggestions are for a data center with at least 1 Gbps bandwidth and very low round-trip latency. If you apply them to your home computer, they are likely to make your Internet connection worse instead of better. See the BufferBloat discussion on the Ethernet page for why this is the case.

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7 minutes ago, seeteeyou said:

 

Was AutoCorrect getting drunk or what?

yep, all part of a (budget) Christmas spirit...

 

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7 hours ago, darkfrank said:

 

Yea but there is no /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-enxxx in archlinux, no /etc/rc.d/rc.local as well.

The configure file of the network interface is located at /etc/systemd/network/en.network, I doubt adding those ethtool commands into it would works.

Okay, I see. Maybe Piero can help...

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5 hours ago, bobfa said:

anyone else seeing these messages when enabling ramroot?

 

==> WARNING: Possibly missing firmware for module: wd719x

==> WARNING: Possibly missing firmware for module: aic94xx

yep got those too..

 

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Mkinitcpio#Possibly_missing_firmware_for_module_XXXX

"These appear to any Arch Linux users, especially those who have not installed these firmware modules. If you do not use hardware which uses these firmwares you can safely ignore this message."

 

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I had similar issues @bobfa (did you get yours working?) but after a few days back and forth with Piero, I got the network bridge working. It's worth the effort for the improvement in SQ. I did follow the instructions carefully but kept getting issues but eventually succeeded. When working it looks like this:

 

[audiolinux@audiolinux ~]$ networkctl

IDX LINK             TYPE               OPERATIONAL SETUP     

  1 lo               loopback           carrier     unmanaged 

  2 bridge0          bridge             routable    configured

  3 eno1             ether              degraded    configured

  7 enp0s21f0u3      ether              degraded    configured

 

I loaded the latest version of Headless V9.0 and updated the menu as per Pieros instructions but for me the menu item - create network bridge did not seem to work. The manual instructions here contain all the steps needed: https://www.audio-linux.com/html/bridge.html

 

It took me a lot of fiddling as I'm no linux expert and didn't seem to work. If it helps anyone, not an expert! these are the steps from Pieros instructions that worked for me (with my edits). You can also add static ip addresses but I didn't do that and it still works fine.

 

Its important to have all the connections in place, in slots that you know are live, remove any files in systems/network first and create the 4 new network bridge files listed below. Also the last steps, save and reboot (or 2) are essential.

 

"Now let's go to /etc/systemd/network/
cd /etc/systemd/network/
We remove the previous files, if any
rm /etc/systemd/network/*

You can check the names of network interfaces with
ip addr show
In the examples that will follow we have 2 network interfaces, enp3s0 and enp4s0. Your names will be different.
"Piero --> In my test enp4s0 is connected to the router (and internet) and enp3s0 is connected directly from pc (with a normal ethernet cable) to a BeagleBone Black NAA running archlinuxarm " 

This command will create the new files:
touch bridge0.netdev bridge0.network enp3s0.network enp4s0.network

Now you can edit the 4 files separately with nano
nano /etc/systemd/network/bridge0.netdev
nano /etc/systemd/network/bridge0.network

nano /etc/systemd/network/enp3s0.network

nano /etc/systemd/network/enp4s0.network

so that the content of each is:

1) bridge0.netdev
[NetDev]
Name=bridge0
Kind=bridge

 

2) bridge0.network

[Match]
Name=bridge0

[Network]
DHCP=yes

3) enp3s0.network (substitute values with yours)
[Match]
Name=enp3s0

[Network]
Bridge=bridge0

4) enp4s0.network (substitute values with yours)
[Match]
Name=enp4s0

[Network]
Bridge=bridge0

Finally restart systemd network:
systemctl restart systemd-networkd 

 

save system
and reboot (a couple of times if necessary)

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5 hours ago, LTG2010 said:

There was an error in the bridge scripts but Piero has fixed it in 9.5.

Thanks. My post was in addition to this, because I tried the update and it did not work for me for some reason.

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@hifi25nl 

I have set up automatic ram save every hour. How can I check it is working?

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@hifi25nl with a network bridge on roonserver what would you suggest for the best rtirq.conf?

default is on Usb which  doesn’t seem make sense as usb is not used. 

 

RTIRQ_NAME_LIST="usb"

 

audiolinux@audiolinux ~]$ networkctl

IDX LINK             TYPE               OPERATIONAL SETUP     

  1 lo               loopback           carrier     unmanaged 

  2 bridge0          bridge             routable   configured

  3 eno1             ether              degraded   configured

  7 enp0s21f0u3      ether              degraded   configured

 

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On 12/9/2018 at 12:42 PM, afrancois said:

I'm using an AL NUC7i7DNHE as a server, so I don't need any audio devices enabled on the NUC.

While I had disabled audio over HDMI in the BIOS. HQPlayer and Roon continued recognizing the audio card.

The solution was to blacklist the device. Another credit to the Intel BIOS efficiency 😞

 

I created a file /etc/modprob.d/noHDMIaudio.conf

The file contains:

blacklist snd_hda_codec_hdmi
blacklist snd_hda_intel
blacklist snd_hda_codec
 

 

thanks @afrancois! I've been catching up on tweaks and blacklisting unused functions etc.. I found that this should be /etc/modprobe.d/noHDMIaudio.conf

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3 hours ago, HeeBroG said:

...When I pull out the USB AL boot drive LMS hangs....

I'm running Roon on my NUC AL server and it also hangs when I pull out the USB stick.

I leave it in as I have an auto save on the roon database every hour because I add a lot of tracks to playlists in a listening session...

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1 hour ago, bobfa said:

Did you move the Roon database off of the USB stick into optane memory or something?

No I have database on the USB stick - no other drives attached....

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3 hours ago, bobfa said:

Tapatrick

 

I am thinking you may have a couple of problems here.  

 

1.   Trying to run Roon Server out of only 4GB of RAM. 

2.   I have not seen others run  Roon Server off of a USB stick and them loading into RAM.  

 

When I built my server I boot off of an Optane SSD and then load into RAM.  During setup, I moved the Roon Database to a separate partition on the Optane.  The music is on an external drive.

 

 

Thanks  @bobfa Maybe I should clarify as I'm not understanding what you are pointing to.  

 

See my signature below: My AL roonserver is running in Ramboot and is very stable, it has 16gb RAM. I tried pulling the USB stick out when loaded in RAM several weeks ago and it hung. I haven't tried it since as I'm happy with how it all sounds and works. I have my end point running in ram too with the usb stick out as this is where I notice the difference. 

 

As I mentioned I have my roon database on the server USB stick (64gb) and I have a regular auto save. I wasn't planning on getting any extra drives as I only stream from Tidal/Qobuz. I have a drive with local music but gave up on this some time ago as I much prefer streaming for SQ and convenience.