AudioLinux and NUC Troubleshooting and Tuning

[rettib2001]

2 minutes ago, Middy said:

@rettib2001

@seeteeyou

All with NUCs

My basic advice..

Overheating issues for extreme mode.

I3 i5 i7 will be different on temps. 

Again CPU heatsink principles remain the same...

 

My celeron NUC With the lapped Akasa heatsink idle's at 39 oC. 

Running 100% utilisation 15 hours 51oC.

Artic MX 4 thermal paste.

 

A tip i read was to watch the individual core temps. A variation of 2 to 3 degrees may be because of placement.

IE tilted

Dust/ hair  debris 

Unflat heatsink

Air bubble in paste..

Over clockers redo the HS until they are happy. 

90+ degrees. Seems high?

Metal on metal is the key. Thermal paste should be butter on bread not cream in a cake..

Compressed air blast on both mating faces. Old material removed and clean..

Ultra sonic clean Heatsink if you are able..

 

Slightly bigger than a grain of rice central on CPU for thermal compound.

 

The Flat CPU will only touch on the highest 3 points!. The celeron Nuc CPU  is naked, no copper nickle metal cap. ( IHS ) just a silver oblong exposed.

NUCi3 i5 i7???

 

My NUC AKASA case has 4 screws  to retain the motherboard.

Try loosening all 4 then tighten 1/4 turns in opposites.

Top left them bottom right

Top right bottom left.

Work around until firm not over tighten.

Use your feel and judgement...

I hope this is best practice and helps for extreme mode.

Consider lapping if an issue!

 

Kind regards

Dave

 

 

Dave, 

 

This is a great post, thanks for taking the time to write it. 

 

I must admit 'heat' has become an issue that follows me around like a bad smell when it comes to computing, in all applications where I use high powered computers. 

I think I'm going to take a look inside the nuc tomorrow. 

 

It's new so I'd be inclined to suspect sloppy thermal paste application at factory level rather than dust build up but I agree that all variables need to considered/explored. 

 

I'd like to find a list of bios tweaks as well, I hear disabling turbo boost might help a little (but I'm clutching at straws). 

 

[rettib2001]

2 hours ago, gsquared said:

Thanks to a lot of help from Piero, I was able to get my NUC8i7BEH running headless Al with 8 GB of RAM (diskless - running Al and Roon DB in RAM). But even sitting idle, I am getting a message that reads "Core temperature above threshold, cpu clock throttled (total events = 1). Then a series of lines, then NOHZ: local_softirq_pending 80. 

 

Anyone have any suggestions of a possible mis-configuration I've made?

 

Here's a screenshot:

 

 

Type: sensors

 

This will let you monitor the cpu temps, my nuc7i7bnh has hit 92° (extreme mode dsd512 +convolution) but hasn't throttled once so I'm guessing you're cpu temps are sky high which, as suggested above, might be down to a new Roon library scan being performed in extreme mode. 

 

Type: top

 

This command gives a task manager type view of running processes and cpu usage. 

 

Type: - 1 (once you've typed top) 

 

This will list cpu usage for each core. 

 

Useful as you might see cpu usage as being over 100 %, which is misleading as in reality each core has its own '100%' allowance. 

 

I was worried because mine was at 120% but as it turns out my dual core i7 was running at about 60% on each core. 

 

Much less worrying. 

[rettib2001]

I have up until now been using an nuc7i7bnh as a combined server and endpoint.

 

Today I tried it as an endpoint using my macbook pro as a server (knowing that it isn't highly regarded as an AL server but hey, in lieu of anything better suited to the task I tried it any way). 

 

Well... The sound quality was much better than the nuci7bnh on its own. Crazy. 

 

Conclusion I need a second nuc. 

 

I'm edging towards a nuc7pjyh with a fanless case powered by a Paul Hynes SR4 (which I should receive before the end of the year) but I'd just like to know whether or not my i7 nuc, which has a tdp rating of 28, could be powered by the SR4 (2a/20a transient) 

 

In 'endpoint' mode the cpu usage is only about 3/4% and aside from one stick of 8gb ram there nothing else connected to it. 

 

If it can it opens up the option of a much more powerful server. 

[rettib2001]

6 minutes ago, rickca said:

What music software are you running ... HQPlayer, Roon, etc?

Should have mention that, sloppy on my part. 

 

Using Roon, upsampling Tidal to dsd512 as its what my Dac responds best to. I also use convolution via roon's dsp settings. 

 

When I monitor cpu usage on the i7nuc, roon Bridge total cpu usage is around 3%. 

 

 

[rettib2001]

2 minutes ago, davide256 said:

You may be disappointed... I am skeptical the NUC can match your Mac for endpoint hardware quality as Mac's have a good track record for USB to DAC SQ. 

The Mac isn't going to be used an an endpoint, or a server for that matter I was just testing the benefits of a two-point AL configuration.

 

My subjective conclusion is that the Audiolinux endpoint/server combination is a winning formula. 

 

My question is: Can 'in theory' a Paul Hynes SR4 power a 28twp rated i7nuc that is only using 5% cpu across it's two cores. 

 

I know the obvious answer is 'just try it' but I won't have it for a number of weeks and I would like to buy a second nuc (for several reasons) before then. 

 

If the above power supply can't power the i7 nuc then I'll get a low power nuc as an en point and use the i7 as a server. 

 

If it can, I'll use the i7 as an endpoint be faced with the exciting task of finding a suitable/powerful server. 

[rettib2001]

57 minutes ago, rettib2001 said:

The Mac isn't going to be used an an endpoint, or a server for that matter I was just testing the benefits of a two-point AL configuration.

 

My subjective conclusion is that the Audiolinux endpoint/server combination is a winning formula. 

 

My question is: Can 'in theory' a Paul Hynes SR4 power a 28twp rated i7nuc that is only using 5% cpu across it's two cores. 

 

I know the obvious answer is 'just try it' but I won't have it for a number of weeks and I would like to buy a second nuc (for several reasons) before then. 

 

If the above power supply can't power the i7 nuc then I'll get a low power nuc as an en point and use the i7 as a server. 

 

If it can, I'll use the i7 as an endpoint I'll be faced with the exciting task of finding a suitable/powerful server. 

 

[rettib2001]

1 hour ago, davide256 said:

May I suggest you try running your Mac as endpoint with the NUC as server? Then share which way you liked better.

That's sound like something I should try yes, I'll give it a go tomorrow. 

 

I've also just purchased the raspberry pi image, 8ll try that as well. 

[rettib2001]

Since a couple of nuc/AL users have reported being pleased with the results of using a wifi connection I'd like to give it a go, if for nothing else than the peace of mind that I've tried all options I have immediately available (LPSU powered/ground shunted  Netgear switch and CIsco 2060 switch).

 

Is there a guide for establishing a wifi connection?

 

Piero's site just has a link to the archlinux wiki with a brief mention that some wpa_supplicant will need to be installed and configured.

 

iwconfig returns a 'command not found' error so I presume, by default, certain dependencies aren't included as standard in audiolinux?

 

 

 

[rettib2001]

9 minutes ago, greenleo said:

I tried to set up a WiFi bridge (as in the OG ) but failed in AL.  However, enentually, I managed to connect through wifi to my router with Piero's help (many thanks Piero) and the reading.

 

To setup a WiFi link is relatively straight forward but still pretty laborious for a Window guy.  Basically you need to install the driver for the WiFi adapter 1st.  Then follow the WPA_supplicant web page (which is manageable but not easy, at least I found it not too easy).  I would not go into the details.  Complications may  still arise like the adapter may not be able see all the APs, difficulty in using 802.11x, ...etc.   No intention to frighten you but as a friendly reminder/warning.

 

If money is not a concern, using a switch may provide equal or better SQ, my speculation.  I recall Larry mentioned he may try the EtherRegen which I'm eagerly waiting as well.  For great switches already available, search Roy's or Rajiv's posts may help.

 

Hope this helps.

Thanks for the reply.

 

I'm inevitably going to buy the EtherRegen too, I was just curious about wifi.

 

With all the vast-to-minute tweaking we're all doing at the moment I thought it was perhaps shortsighted not to at least try.

 

Might roll up my sleeves and give it a go anyway.

[rettib2001]

Before I place the order can I just confirm that 4gb of ram Is enough for a headless AL config that just uses roonbridge and nothing else? 

 

Cheerd

[rettib2001]

5 minutes ago, Dutch said:

 

Yes absolutely, it uses less than 2GB of memory in that config.

Brilliant, thanks for the quick reply! 

[rettib2001]

Does the option within the dsp settings "parallelize sigma delta modulator" option disappear when using a nuc server+endpoint configuration (roon server + roonbridge)?

 

I relied on it to help upsampling to dsd512 as that's what's my Dac (lks 004) responds best to.

 

[rettib2001]

A second question then I'll leave everyone alone... 

 

I can play upsampled to dsd512 tracks from tidal via the above setup when my switch is set to 1000mbps but I get the dreaded tidal 'network slow' error message and the accompanying track skips when I set the ports of the switch to 100mpbs (which I find sounds better). 

 

Same issue with a cisco 2960 8tc l switch, which obviously only has 100mbps ports so it's not a switch specific issue. 

 

As far as I understand dsd512 shouldn't put an unsustainable strain on a bandwidth of 100mbps as the data rates should be just under 50mbps.

 

Unless I'm wrong... Which happens... A lot. 

 

 

[rettib2001]

I finally got round to testing the ethernet limiting option and noticed a noticible improvement in sound quality at 100mbps. 

 

I'd done the hardware equivelant of this in the past with similar results. 

 

The problem I'm having however is that although a limit of 100mbps works perfectly for bit perfect pcm it produces stuttering/total drop off when upsampling to dsd512. The problem is present in both Roon and HQPlayer. 

 

On paper 100mbps should be enough but in practice it isn't working out so well. 

 

Has anyone else run into this problem? 

 

[rettib2001]

1 hour ago, Jud said:

 

Though I am not using Audiolinux at the moment, I am upsampling and streaming at DSD512 quite happily with the last run of Ethernet cable coming from a 100mbps port. I would look at your network setup and/or hardware as one possibility.

 

That's encouraging. Time to take a closer look at my network... I have a feeling it could take some time to figure out. 

 

Thanks for the reply 

[rettib2001]

1 hour ago, luisma said:

The content you are upsampling is it streamed, local or both? Is the source content always Redbook or hires? And do you have multihomed systems with wireless? Sometimes you think you are using a wired connection but the pc might be by means of gateway, routes, interface preference selecting wireless instead of wired. 

 

 

Very good questions. 

 

I exclusively stream from Tidal and Qobuz (at the highest bit rate they allow for). 

 

My server and endpoint point are both nucs connected via ethernet to the same Orbi (mesh WiFi) access point. 

 

This access point is connected wirelessly to my main router on another floor 

 

Dsd512 works perfectly when the two nucs have there ethernet ports set to unlimited (100mbps). 

 

Perhaps there are some advanced settings I can play around with regarding the ORBI rluter/AP that ensure optimal stability.