Legacy device setup: Sonore Music Server with Vortexbox engine

[EnCee]

Is anyone here still using a Sonore Music Server? I have some questions ...

 

Background: in late 2011 I bought a Sonore Music Server and the upgraded power supply, but I am embarrassed to say I did not get around to setting it up until now! Inside the server chassis there is an Intel D945GSEJT motherboard (with an embedded Intel Atom N270 processor - thus 32 bit support only), a 2 GB RAM module, a 2 TB hard disk, a Teac DVD drive and an SOtM tx-USB PCI card.

 

Setup: the server appears to power up correctly, the small blue LED is lit up on the front panel and I can hear the disk spinning. I have a Cat 5e ethernet cable running from the LAN port at the back of the server to a LAN port at the back of my router. The two LEDs on the LAN port at the back of the server are illuminated -- the LED on the left is blinking green (indicating LAN activity is occurring) and the LED on the right is solid green (indicating 100 Mb/s data rate). There is a DHCP server configured on my router, and I have verified that it correctly assigns IP addresses to other devices on my LAN.

 

The issue: I am unable to access the Vortexbox GUI because for some reason I cannot get an IP address for the Sonore Music Server. I have tried using different ethernet cables, different LAN ports on the router, even using an entirely different router. On my router's log, I can see it is transmitting some packets through the relevant LAN port, but it is not receiving any packets. I have tried connecting a monitor (via DVI-D cable) and keyboard to the server to see if I can get into it the system that way (e.g. in order to access the BIOS or console or to potentially upgrade to Vortexbox version 2.3?), but the monitor screen is blank.

 

I'm a bit lost at this stage. Does anyone have any suggestions for what I can do next to get up and running?

[firedog]

2 hours ago, EnCee said:

Is anyone here still using a Sonore Music Server? I have some questions ...

 

Background: in late 2011 I bought a Sonore Music Server and the upgraded power supply, but I am embarrassed to say I did not get around to setting it up until now! Inside the server chassis there is an Intel D945GSEJT motherboard (with an embedded Intel Atom N270 processor - thus 32 bit support only), a 2 GB RAM module, a 2 TB hard disk, a Teac DVD drive and an SOtM tx-USB PCI card.

 

Setup: the server appears to power up correctly, the small blue LED is lit up on the front panel and I can hear the disk spinning. I have a Cat 5e ethernet cable running from the LAN port at the back of the server to a LAN port at the back of my router. The two LEDs on the LAN port at the back of the server are illuminated -- the LED on the left is blinking green (indicating LAN activity is occurring) and the LED on the right is solid green (indicating 100 Mb/s data rate). There is a DHCP server configured on my router, and I have verified that it correctly assigns IP addresses to other devices on my LAN.

 

The issue: I am unable to access the Vortexbox GUI because for some reason I cannot get an IP address for the Sonore Music Server. I have tried using different ethernet cables, different LAN ports on the router, even using an entirely different router. On my router's log, I can see it is transmitting some packets through the relevant LAN port, but it is not receiving any packets. I have tried connecting a monitor (via DVI-D cable) and keyboard to the server to see if I can get into it the system that way (e.g. in order to access the BIOS or console or to potentially upgrade to Vortexbox version 2.3?), but the monitor screen is blank.

 

I'm a bit lost at this stage. Does anyone have any suggestions for what I can do next to get up and running?

Email Jesus at Sonore. There’s no reason they shouldn’t help.

[vortecjr]

3 hours ago, EnCee said:

Is anyone here still using a Sonore Music Server? I have some questions ...

 

Background: in late 2011 I bought a Sonore Music Server and the upgraded power supply, but I am embarrassed to say I did not get around to setting it up until now! Inside the server chassis there is an Intel D945GSEJT motherboard (with an embedded Intel Atom N270 processor - thus 32 bit support only), a 2 GB RAM module, a 2 TB hard disk, a Teac DVD drive and an SOtM tx-USB PCI card.

 

Setup: the server appears to power up correctly, the small blue LED is lit up on the front panel and I can hear the disk spinning. I have a Cat 5e ethernet cable running from the LAN port at the back of the server to a LAN port at the back of my router. The two LEDs on the LAN port at the back of the server are illuminated -- the LED on the left is blinking green (indicating LAN activity is occurring) and the LED on the right is solid green (indicating 100 Mb/s data rate). There is a DHCP server configured on my router, and I have verified that it correctly assigns IP addresses to other devices on my LAN.

 

The issue: I am unable to access the Vortexbox GUI because for some reason I cannot get an IP address for the Sonore Music Server. I have tried using different ethernet cables, different LAN ports on the router, even using an entirely different router. On my router's log, I can see it is transmitting some packets through the relevant LAN port, but it is not receiving any packets. I have tried connecting a monitor (via DVI-D cable) and keyboard to the server to see if I can get into it the system that way (e.g. in order to access the BIOS or console or to potentially upgrade to Vortexbox version 2.3?), but the monitor screen is blank.

 

I'm a bit lost at this stage. Does anyone have any suggestions for what I can do next to get up and running?

You should be able to see information on the video output. Try turning off the TV then turn it on and with the unit already connected boot it up. 

[EnCee]

Thank you for this suggestion. The server unit has two graphics ports: VGA and DVI-D. I have tried using a DVI-D cable to a monitor with DVI-D input but the screen is still blank. I don't have a device with VGA input, but I have just ordered a VGA-to-HDMI adapter so that I can use a different monitor, maybe I'll have more success that way. I will report back after I've received the adapter.

[EnCee]

Update:

 

I have not been able get any video output from the motherboard using DVI-D or VGA (via a VGA-to-HDMI adapter) so I cannot really diagnose the situation further at this stage. I have ordered a cheap VGA cable so that I can try to connect the Sonore server to my TV. I have also ordered a new CMOS battery on the off-chance that replacing this will help (unlikely, but it's cheap to replace so there's no harm trying). In the meantime, I'm researching potential alternative motherboards which satisfy the following criteria:

 

* mini-ITX or thin mini-ITX form factor

* legacy "conventional" 32 bit PCI slot (for the SOtM tx-USB card)

* at least two SATA II slots

* 12v DC input (so that I can use the external Sonore / Daitron HFS150A-12 150W switching power supply unit); I might also have to get something like a pico-PSU DC-to-DC converter if I want to use a more modern motherboard

* ideally embedded low-TDP 64-bit CPU (so that I can upgrade beyond Vortexbox 2.3)

 

I have verified that Vortexbox is installed on the hard disk (I plugged the disk into a different PC) and I have managed to update it to Vortexbox 2.3 (this was not straightforward - after many hours of messing around the only thing that eventually worked was the vortexbox-2.3.iso file said to be for "very old hardware").

 

I'm fairly confident I can get this up and running (looking forward to it!) but it will take a bit more time.

 

 

[vortecjr]

The CMOS battery might be a good idea. There might be a settings in the BIOS to toggle which allows the unit to boot. This is from memory...look for ACPI.  

[EnCee]

I'm up and running now. The fix was a combination of a new CMOS battery, a VGA cable so that I can see what's going on and re-seating the SO-DIMM module. I have a new motherboard on the way as well (Asus J1800I-A) - it supports 64-bit so I can upgrade to Vortexbox 2.4 and beyond.

[vortecjr]

Do you want this as a server or endpoint or both?

[EnCee]

6 hours ago, vortecjr said:

Do you want this as a server or endpoint or both?

My setup is very simple - the Sonore Music Server will feed my DAC (Antelope Zodiac Gold) via USB. The DAC doesn't have an Ethernet port.