AudioLinux and NUC Troubleshooting and Tuning

[BigAlMc]

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. 

 

Thanks again for the help @tapatrick, @greenleo and @LTG2010

 

Just waiting on Scan delivering the Alaska JC case and then next trick will be trying to get it running low enough power to use my LPS1.2

 

I tried already but the LPS1.2 didn't like it. Presumably drawing too much power.

 

Cheers,

Alan

[BigAlMc]

1 hour ago, clipper said:

Which NUC model?

 

I have a NUC7PJYH1 working well with an LPS 1.2 (set at 12 volts).

 

I'm waiting for an Akasa case too, so right now it's running in the stock case.  I have 8 gigs of ram (2 4 gig sticks).

 

Here are my changed Bios settings:

USB Configuration - Portable Device Charging Mode - OFF

Chipset SATA Controller Configuration - SATA Port - UNCHECKED

Onboard Device Configuration - Audio - UNCHECKED

Onboard Device Configuration - HD-Audio DSP - DISABLED

Onboard Device Configuration - Digital Microphone - DISABLED

Onboard Device Configuration - WLAN - UNCHECKED

Onboard Device Configuration - Bluetooth - UNCHECKED

Legacy Device Configuration - Enhanced Consumer IR - UNCHECKED

Primary Power Settings - Enhanced Intel Speedstep Technology - UNCHECKED

 

 

 

It's the NUC7CJYH

 

Interesting. I tried powerimg it with the LPS1.2 at 12v but the LPS1.2 light kept flashing red whenever connected to the NUC (even tho the NUC was off). I wondered if even in standby the NUC draws too much power?

 

Haven't disabled as much as you in the BIOS so might try that.

 

Cheers,

Alan

[BigAlMc]

1 minute ago, lmitche said:

Alan,

 

What did you have connected to the NUC when the lps1.2 blinked red? How much memory do you have?

 

Hey Larry,

 

The NUC was off but I'm wondering if that's really standby?

 

Was connected to a USB that connected to my DAC and a LAN cable to my switch. 8 GB of memory.

 

I've disabled Bluetooth and WLAN and SD card in the BIOS but that's it.

 

Am wondering about disabling the other USB ports too but don't want to go fully headless until I bed it down and get SSH working etc.

 

Any immediate thoughts?

 

Cards on the table I'm delighted I got this far! ?

[BigAlMc]

1 minute ago, lmitche said:

The nuc will power anything plugged into an USB port while it is powered off.

 

I'd go into bios and disable everything you don't need. Also disconnect any monitor or keyboard. All but the boot device. 4gb of ram should be all you need. That should do it.

 

Don't touch the video settings!

 

Thanks Larry,

 

Will give it a go.

 

Cheers,

Alan

[BigAlMc]

1 hour ago, MrUnderhill said:

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

 

Hi Martin,

 

Yup, I got the NUC running as endpoint but with my SE still running as Core. So whilst it sounded amazing its hard to tell how much is the AL ramboot NUC versus how much is the SE and just using Roon in its supposedly optimal config of separating server and player duties.

 

But it's early days and I intend to find out ?

 

I did play around a little comparing SE direct to DAC, SE to NUC to DAC, and both via my TX-USBultra and the results were very promising.

 

Need to get the NUC working on my LPS1.2 next. And also need to listen with Core duties elsewhere in order to better compare the NUC to the SE.

 

Plenty fun ahead.

 

Still impressed that you took the Prestige to such heights!

 

Cheers,

Alan

 

[BigAlMc]

Apologies if I've missed this either here or on the mothership as Rajiv put it ?

 

I have the parts arriving today and tomz to attempt building an AL NUC server over the weekend. Occurred to me when walking into work this morning that there are a couple items I don't have a clue about. [Ok there are many, many items I don't have a clue about ?, but these are specific items].

 

I know how to install and format an SSD in a windows environment where it would detect the new drive and prompt you to take actions from there.

 

Q1. What is the story on AL? Will it recognise the drive and prompt me? Or (gulp!) do I need to use Linux commands to install and format it? And if the latter can anyone point to simple instructions for this?

 

Q2. If I have my music files available on either a Windows laptop or an external USB harddrive, how do I copy them onto the SSD in the AL NUC server. I'm assuming this is definitely Linux commands. Again any guide for this sort of thing would be great.

 

Thanks in advance!

 

Alan

 

[BigAlMc]

6 hours ago, austinpop said:

 

Did you get an answer? I know how to muddle my way through it using gparted on the command line. I'm guessing there is an easier way to do it with the LXQT version that someone can elaborate.

 

Nope. No answer. Was worried I'd asked a real dumbass question ?

 

Will bump now.

 

[BigAlMc]

17 hours ago, BigAlMc said:

Apologies if I've missed this either here or on the mothership as Rajiv put it ?

 

I have the parts arriving today and tomz to attempt building an AL NUC server over the weekend. Occurred to me when walking into work this morning that there are a couple items I don't have a clue about. [Ok there are many, many items I don't have a clue about ?, but these are specific items].

 

I know how to install and format an SSD in a windows environment where it would detect the new drive and prompt you to take actions from there.

 

Q1. What is the story on AL? Will it recognise the drive and prompt me? Or (gulp!) do I need to use Linux commands to install and format it? And if the latter can anyone point to simple instructions for this?

 

Q2. If I have my music files available on either a Windows laptop or an external USB harddrive, how do I copy them onto the SSD in the AL NUC server. I'm assuming this is definitely Linux commands. Again any guide for this sort of thing would be great.

 

Thanks in advance!

 

Alan

 

 

Bump. 

[BigAlMc]

Thanks @LTG2010,

 

I'll take a look at @greenleo's guide.

 

Sounds a bit daunting tbh but I guess my education continues! ?

 

Cheers,

Alan

[BigAlMc]

34 minutes ago, greenleo said:

Hi Alan,

 

Are you using the lxqt?  If so, it's not necessary to do the mount.  Just click the hdd in the lxqt V3.0 and it will be auto mounted.  However, once the machines is off, the mount is gone.  When boot up next time, just click and mount again.  Not that troublesome.  This is what I'm doing in v3.0.  Just didn't bother to edit the file even I know the way.  Lazy, yes.

 

In my guides, I suggest the user to play around the interface of the AL 1st.  Then eventually I show the way to auto-mount a HDD using the NTFS format by adding a line in a system file..

 

If you're using lxqt, the screen editor provided is fine.  Just click the red folder in the bottom left of the screen, browse and double the file to be edited.

 

Using nano is like using the notepad in windows but in a does prompt.  The bottom of the screen will show you how to use the [Ctrl]-[key] to save, exit ,..., etc.  Not too difficult.  However, you may need to su before the editing.

 

Hope this helps.

 

Thanks Greenleo,

 

I'm using headless AL on the endpoint and was planning the same for the server.

 

Would you say its better to use lxqt for the server?

 

Cheers,

Alan

[BigAlMc]

Thanks Leo,

 

Yup. Using Roon.

 

No worries, I'll investigate as it's more of a Linux question than an AudioLinux question I guess.

 

Can always ping Piero if I hit a brick wall as his responsiveness and support is fantastic.

 

Cheers,

Alan

[BigAlMc]

15 minutes ago, afrancois said:

For those who are running headless and use a Windows machine.

I'm using Putty for remote login and WinSCP to navigate the AL filesystem.

 

WinSCP

 

I 

 

It allows you to navigate the file system of an AL headless.

 

For example, by simply double-clicking on alconf in the /usr/bin folder you get the content in a Windows

 

Brilliant @afrancois,

 

I use WINSCP at work but hadn't occurred to me to use it to SSH into the NUC.

 

Would this work for transferring music to an AL NUC server?

 

Thanks,

Alan

[BigAlMc]

4 hours ago, mourip said:

 

HDPlex now uses Linear Technology 3045 regulators. Their 200w version has 4 outputs and two are adjustable. At about $500 shipped they are a very good value and readily available. I have found their customer support to be excellent.

 

There have been a lot of posts about using the LPS1.2 but I'm personally struggling to get the power draw low enough for my LPS1.2 to be happy with the NUC. Will try again this morning but I also have an SPS-500 which should be capable of higher power output than the LPS1.2.

 

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.

 

PS I'm going to try the SPS-500 because I have one to hand but given the consensus was that the LPS-1 was better than the SPS-500, and given how much better the LPS1.2 was to the LPS-1 I'm not sure I'd advocate buying the higher priced SPS-500 if persevering and getting the LPS1.2 to work is an option.

 

Cheers,

Alan

[BigAlMc]

14 minutes ago, davide256 said:

I have both SPS500 and LPS 1.2. The SPS500 is a beast for quality current but it can't compete with LPS 1.2 device resolution when powering sensitive source electronics.

 

Two topics and not sure if they are related.

 

Working on my new i7DNBE based Roon endpoint in the Plato X7 fanless case. Running 4GB RAM, no wifi or bluetooth as the board doesnt support them. Using AL headless in Extreme mode with Ram root enabled.

 

A. Everytime I restarted the NUC endpoint I need to reselect and enable it in Roon. Any ideas why it's not automatically recognising it?

 

B. I can't seem to get the power down low enough for either the LPS1.2 or my SPS-500 to work with it. The LPS1.2 flashes red as soon as I connect it. The SPS-500 (on 19V and I thought it handled like 3amps) doesn't provide enough juice for the NUC on button to do anything.

 

I've put the power settings down to 10w and burst of 12w. I've disabled all the USB slots apart from the two being used for the USB flash and connecting to the DAC. I've even switched off 3 or the cores so that only 1 core is running and switched off hyperthreading and performance boost.

 

The LPS1.2 I can understand but I thought the SPS-500 was a decent plan B as it has more power but my i7DNBE thinks otherwise. 

 

Unsure what else to try disabling in order to get it working on a cleaner PSU.

 

Any thoughts?

 

Also, as per the picture below. Should I be disabling all these HDMI endpoints that are showing up on the NUC?

 

Cheers,

Alan

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[BigAlMc]

3 hours ago, Dutch said:

 

Regarding your point A; configure it once in Roon in non RAM boot mode and then switch to RAM boot. This way the settings will be saved on the end-point. Perhaps the save to RAM option in alconf will work as well but I have nog tried this myself yet.

 

Re. your point B; I don’t have the i7 NUC but did you disable ‘sound’ in the NUC BIOS and any other devices you don’t use? This should then prevent the HDMI devices from showing up as audio outputs I’d say.

 

I’m not surprised the LPS1.2 can’t power the i7 NUC. Others have reported it was hit or miss with the celeron and/or Pentium ones as well. The sPS-500 though is rated to deliver a max of 3.3A at 19V you’d say that this should be enough but being a SMPS supply these are not really suited to deliver short peaks over that amperage. LPS’es are better in that regard so perhaps it peaks over that 3.3A. You could try it at 12V once.

 

Thanks @Dutch,

 

Greatly appreciated!

 

Cheers,

Alan

[BigAlMc]

48 minutes ago, lmitche said:

Hi Alan.

 

Are you using a single 4gb stick of memory? Also, lower the peak watts as much as possible. Turn off everything you can. Start in normal not extreme mode.

 

Connect only the DAC and USB stick at power up. You may have to power up twice. Sometimes the NUC will not work with the lps1.2 at first try, but then works fine in the second and subsequent attempts.

 

Likewise, thanks Larry!

 

Regards,

Alan

[BigAlMc]

@ray-dude & @austinpop,

 

Awesome work guys and great discovery.

 

At the very real risk of pushing my luck it would be great if we could have a simple 'how to' guide for the technically incompetent (like me) showing how to set buffer size for:

 

Squeezelite endpoint

Roon bridge endpoint

 

And ideally in both the 4gb and 8gb flavours that are likely most prevalent.

 

The obvious question is whether the 4gb flavour has sufficient ram spare to make a difference in SQ via this buffer setting or whether 8gb is worth the investment?

 

Either way this is terrific stuff and an excellent area of exploration. Even if I need to read it twice in order to understand half of it! ?

 

Cheers,

Alan

 

[BigAlMc]

Thanks @afrancois

 

I've spent the morning pottering and am admitting defeat. The i7DNBE is not willing to boot with either the LPS1.2 or the SPS-500.

 

I've switched off everything possible and disconnected everything possible and no dice. It just doesn't seem to like either.

 

Am thinking I'm gonna need to buy a new PSU (Sean Jacobs, HD Plex etc) but that's really annoying when I have a collection of PSU's at hand!

 

Cheers,

Alan

[BigAlMc]

25 minutes ago, seeteeyou said:

Look at the bright side, Extreme 2 mode of AL won't work with LPS-1.2 (12V × 1.1A = 13.2W) even if you're able to boot it up. OTOH, Dr. Jacobs' DC3 flagship PSU could provide 32W (i.e. 24V / 1.5A) so that should be OK

 

Yeah - I guess getting the opportunity to try a Sean Jacobs PSU would be nice. The one he did for the Zenith SE is outstanding.

 

Also I was stealing the LPS1.2 from my TX-USBUltra so this way I get to do direct comparisons with different configs before deciding what items make it into Big Als garage sale ?

 

Cheers,

Alan

[BigAlMc]

5 minutes ago, austinpop said:

 

Thats weird. I used an sPS-500 set at 19v to first boot my NUC7i7DNBE before I made any BIOS changes.

 

When I get a chance, I’ll confirm it still works. 

 

What actually happens when you turn the NUC on? I’m assuming your sPS is truly on - you know that drill with the long press of the power button?

 

Hey Rajiv,

 

Interesting blend of helpful and insulting there my friend ?

 

Yes. The SPS-500 was on but thanks for that. Note to self, tone down the dumb questions a bit!

 

I was actually wondering if the DC barrel converter could be the issue. Inverting polarity or suchlike. I fished it out my box of cables and parts and am not sure of its exact provenance.

 

Because on paper the SPS-500 should defo have the power for a board that Intel specs as 15watt tdp.

 

Might try to find another DC barrel converter to rule that out before I commit to buying a PSU that costs the same as the NUC I'm pairing it with.

 

Cheers,

Alan

[BigAlMc]

25 minutes ago, austinpop said:

What actually happens when you turn the NUC on?

 

Missed answering this.

 

The LPS1.2 flashes red from the second I connect it to the NUC.

 

The power button on the NUC does absolutely nothing with the SPS-500 connected.

 

Cheers,

Alan

[BigAlMc]

7 minutes ago, LTG2010 said:

BigAl

I powered a 10W server plus a Mytek Brooklyn Dac/ headphone amp with a Y cable, with the sPS 500. On paper it's more than capable. A strange one.

 

Thanks @LTG2010,

 

Defo need to try another DC barrel connector to rule that out.

[BigAlMc]

Rajiv has kindly been helping me on PM (his 'Dad jokes' aside - barrel of laughs!) and I figured I should bring the question here as other may be trying the same thing.

 

Hoping for help from the crowd or @hifi25nl on this.

 

I am trying to create a RAM boot NUC server running AL and want to mount the SSD so that I can store my music files there.

 

I understand that I need to used 'parted' to partition the drive and 'mount' to, well, mount it. I also understand that once I've tested the mount command I need to update the nano /etc/fstab

 

What I'm struggling with is how to interpret the data from lsblk and blkid into the parameters needed for the mount command.

 

As per Audio-Linux site the generic command is:

 

mount -t ntfs-3g UUID=myuuid /media/samba -o uid=1000,gid=100,forceuid,forcegid

 

My  lsblk and blkid parameters are shown below.

 

 

So if I want to partition this drive as one partition, ext4 or ntfs (no boot partition) as just the storage for my music files and the Roon DB (might move Roon DB to ram later if that works but that's another days battle!).

 

 

 

Can someone help me configure the parted and mount commands needed here please?

 

Many Thanks,

Alan

 

[BigAlMc]

2 minutes ago, austinpop said:

 

Apologies in advance for this one...

 

A fool and his SSD are soon parted.

 

?

[BigAlMc]

Brilliant @ray-dude,

 

That was WAY more than I could have hoped for.

 

Thanks for taking the time to provide all that info.

 

Alan