AudioLinux and NUC Troubleshooting and Tuning

[MrUnderhill]

8 hours ago, BigAlMc said:

I'm up and running on AL on my NUC.

 

BBB was indeed the issue and as soon as I tried with the headless $49 version it worked like a dream.

 

Sitting listening now and its amazing.

 

 

Alan

Hi Alan,

 

Are you still using your SE as your server or have you booted that with AL too?

 

Got to say that I just find AL stupidly good whether on the NUC or your old Prestige 2. All the hard work I have done on my system has snapped into place ...find myself listening for hours ...and absolutely no trace of upgradeitus.

 

M

[MrUnderhill]

11 hours ago, BigAlMc said:

 

Hi Martin,

 

Still impressed that you took the Prestige to such heights!

 

Cheers,

Alan

 

 

Hi Alan,

 

TBH it was a zero risk play. By disconnecting the SSD from the power I reverse the change in about five minutes.

 

When I first got the box it had Vortexbox's newest version of the OS ....but, I could only connect to one USB at a time, and I have 4x512GB. I ended up loading up their latest open source version, which is years old. This allowed to me mount the four USB sticks, but also degraded the sound quality very slightly; still a LOT better than vanilla Ubuntu which I tried first.

 

AL more than recovered that lost quality, and saved me buying a second NUC.

 

M

[MrUnderhill]

I am running headless Extreme for:

 

1. Squeezelite - my NUC is barely warm. CPU temp = 43 C

2. LMS - Server is warmer to the touch. CPU temp = 80 C

 

The former is still in its supplied case with the fan.

[MrUnderhill]

25 minutes ago, davide256 said:

....

....and ramroot & remove the boot USB.

 

M

[MrUnderhill]

1 hour ago, davide256 said:

started from there..

Hi David,

 

Thought you had, but if you assume .......etc.

 

M

[MrUnderhill]

On 12/6/2018 at 12:48 AM, greenleo said:

@Middy,

"connectors protrudes" are the HDMI ports, LAN ports, ..., correct?

 

How do you do the pushing?  Do you hold the USB ports on the front side or insert something between the metal and the mono as a lever?

 

This is the front side, the side that has a power button?

 

Only 3 sets of connectors, wide black, small 4-pin white and two point form connector for the WiFi attenna?  Correct?

 

Only two screws needed to be unscrewed from the mother board, correct?

 

There are lots of soft paddings sticked on the ports, should I keep them or take them apart?

Sorry, cannot understand the meaning of the sentence above.

 

Thank you for your help.

 

Hi GL,

 

Did you get the motherboard out OK?

Any thoughts or comments?

 

I will be doing this as soon as my isopropanol arrives - next week. I have also bought the Master Gel recommended on the vid posted by Rajiv.

 

Last week I watched another vid which dealt with the same box as I have bought, the chap had trouble getting the mobo out and so the cut the film and returned with it extracted ....without showing them doing it - so I am guessing it took a reasonable amount of carefully applied force.

 

Thx,

 

M

 

P.S. Middy, thanks for your observations to GL.

[MrUnderhill]

7 minutes ago, davide256 said:

I've reached the end of my playing around with NUC7PJYH as endpoint . The  way to resolve the issues with it was to use ISO Regen/LPS 1.2 at which point no more glare

or mid range suck out. Using ISO Regen/LPS 1.2 with  RPI3 remained better than NUC7PJYH.

Hi Dave,

 

Shame you live in Virginia and not London! Interesting findings. I have a couple of RPi3s lying around, I may well try one in place of my NUC7PJYH; although I must say it is doing sterling work for me.

 

ATB,

 

M

[MrUnderhill]

4 hours ago, BigAlMc said:

 

The Paul Hynes SR4 is also highly regarded but I think there is still a wait of a couple months. Relatively much faster than the SR7 but not ideal for impatient audiophiles.

 

?

[MrUnderhill]

On 12/8/2018 at 12:44 AM, greenleo said:

Thank you.  I have the JC, just haven't switched the case yet.  I always switch the headless back to standard mode when not playing music for "green" reason?

Hi GL,

 

I have now switched to the Akasa Newton JC Fanless Low Profile Case. I did NOT video it, as I was concerned it would be an exercise in hubris! I did take some photos.

 

The process was painless. Having grounded myself I:

• Opened the Akasa case and took off the front;
• Opened the NUC case and photographed the interior;
• Carefully removed all the cables;
• Removed the two retaining motherboard screws;
• Flexed the case away from the connectors;
• The motherboard came loose easily;
• I placed the mobo onto the upturned NUC base using the screw heads as a platform;
• I undid the two screws securing the fan and removed it;
• This revealed a further screw retaining the black housing;
• In the centre of the housing is a hole through which is a further screw;
• Removing the three screws allows you to remove the black housing;
• This reveals the paste covered CPU;
• I cleaned off the paste from the CPU;
• I took the mobo and lined it up to the new case to practice putting it on;
• I used Mastergel thermal paste, rather than the supplied white liquid;
• I squirted a small lump of thermal paste onto the centre of the small cleaned CPU;
• I placed the mobo onto the four screw pillars, NOT sliding the mobo around;
• I now used the four new screws and copper washers to carefully secure the mobo;
• As we are not using an HDD I attached none of the replacement cables;
• I now did up the new case and tested the NUC - success!

 

Using advice on the thread I altered my BIOS settings:

BIOS Settings - tapatrick

 

On powerup the temperature built to 41C. I left the unit running overnight and it is currently 35C. I suspect this may be due to my valve pre-amp being off, it lives under the NUC.

 

 

The black and silver wires just pull off, and are not re-attached.

 

The extracted mobo sitting on the NUC base for fan removal.

 

Fan & housing removed.

 

Need to clean off the old paste.

 

Clean and shiny.

 

New paste dollop on CPU, placed into the new case and screwed back up. Tested on my desk and then placed back in situ:

 

As it's Christmas!

 

Welcome to the jungle.

 

Shaky Cam 2.

[MrUnderhill]

19 hours ago, greenleo said:

Thank you M, especially for the photos.  Flexed means bending, correct?  Which side did you do the flexing, the front side or the back side?

 

L.

Hi L,

 

Sorry, missed this = Yes.

I was looking at the pads and connectors and checking that nothing was fixed to the case, which it isn't. I bent the casing away from both sides which have the USB/RJ45/Power switch before I then removed the mobo.

[MrUnderhill]

1 minute ago, greenleo said:

very happy now!

Excellent, glad it all worked out well.

 

What do you think of the sound quality change?

[MrUnderhill]

2 hours ago, greenleo said:

Not yet.  Did you take out the silver cloth/padding inside the JC chassis?

No, I decided to leave it alone.

[MrUnderhill]

9 hours ago, ray-dude said:

 

My apologies to all who speak English vs Teenager American (or even Texan  

 

 

Hi Ray,

 

I have to say I have gone in the opposite direction, I am building barricades around my vocab and am retreating more into Dickens and Trollope!

 

I was talking to a youth group at the weekend who were discussing how many 'fleshy' friends they have, I said that ALL my friends are fleshy ....then started to think about various blogs I post into. Damn, the lines are getting blurred.

 

♄€↳ρ ♔€ ☈€☂ꍏ♗♫ ♔☿ ⓢꍏ♫♗☂☿!

 

M

[MrUnderhill]

17 minutes ago, BigAlMc said:

 

Great to know I bought the hardest to configure tho! Am sure the SQ will reward my efforts.

Hope so.

 

We could do a NUC bakeoff!

 

M