Building a DIY Music Server

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On 2/5/2020 at 8:45 PM, Nenon said:

 

Thank you. That makes sense, because these are also the two steel enforced PCIe slots.

In that case, the plan is:

- PinkFaun Bridge in PCIEX16/X8_1

- JCAT Net Femto in PCIEX8/X4_2

- Optane in M.2_1.

- Leave M.2_2 unused.

 

Actually I need to check how M.2_1 connects. Hopefully not through the chipset. I may end up using M.2_2 instead. 

 

How does optane work on this motherboard? Still low latency for os?

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5 minutes ago, Nenon said:

 

It works as a regular NVME storage for the OS. The OS loads to RAM on boot. So there is very little / almost no I/O after the OS is loaded. The common believe why this particular Optane card sounds so good is because it consumes very little power while idle... and most likely that generates less noise.

Thanks!

 

I think you have also used the pink faun i2s bridge in some of your builds. I may use an AMD CPU to be able to use the i2s bridge, but prefer the intel i9-9900k with the maximus gene XI mobo... pink faun says some intel CPUs work with their bridge, some don't. Do you know first hand if these play well together? Anyone else care to chime in?

Thank you again

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1 hour ago, Nenon said:

 

I do. the PinkFaun I2S bridge would NOT work on the i9-9900k with the maximus gene XI mobo. That's one of the reasons I went the AMD route some time ago. 

Ok that solves that issue! Any idea if the PF i2s bridge would work with xeon 4210 and a supermicro microATX mobo (I know, pretty specific). 

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24 minutes ago, Nenon said:

two Xeon CPUs

Interesting.  You doubled up the hdplex heat sink cpu mounts and seem to have added some generic heat sinks to the uncovered edges of each cpu. How do you attach the heat sink cpu mounts to the socket?  2 screws each? 

 

I was just told the case was incompatible with the socket! This looks great!

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On 5/3/2020 at 8:10 PM, Nenon said:

I took a LGA3647 fan mounting kit and modified it. 

Which fan did you use? Have you tried the pink faun i2s bridge yet?

 

I'm excited to see more of your pics!

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3 hours ago, Hauser said:

Supermicro's mATX  X11 SPM TPF has several ethernet variants and 3 PCIE slots, 1 x M.2.  This with a 4214 CPU will probably be my choice

Biggist issue with this approach seems to be cooling the cpu. There are no off the shelf fanless cooling options for this big cpu. I see that nenon was able to solve that problem, but not yet sure how. 

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3 hours ago, OAudio said:

The C621 server development has taken a long time because the decision was taken to research and develop key components from scratch where I wasn't happy with the design / sound quality performance purchased components.

Are you selling something, or planning to? 

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2 hours ago, OAudio said:

As mentioned earlier at the moment the c621 architecture is in my opinion, by a large margin, the best available 

 

Have you compared the c621 to the c622 for audio quality?

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16 minutes ago, Peter Avgeris said:

It is so simple.

you have a customer!!! I'll buy one you make to replace the DIY I am also trying. I think multiple people on this forum would be interested, and could help recoup development cost!!   

 

Looks like Taiko made their own - they didn't respond to a purchase request though. 

 

Nenon used epoxy to join the H5 heat sink to the dynatron vapor chamber, rather than to a simple copper base it seems. I think it is an elegant solution, short of making a new heat sink assembly for the socket.

 

I think soldering the h5 heats sinks to the dynatron vapor chamber base would work, but one would need to be careful not to overheat the vapor chamber - this seems to take some experience and skill, different than the surgical skill I posses. 

 

I am trying to adapt a narrow ILM 3647 socket to the H5 case, it is rotated 90 degrees in orientation to the case as compared to the ASUS Sage motherboard. Peter, please keep that in mind when designing your new heat sink assembly!!! 😉

 

 

 

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Same here! I'd have to abandon the approach I am using for a single 36637 socket mobo though if this is only made for the socket like the Asus Sage. All mobos I see that use a single narrow socket will look like this.

 

Peter do you think you could do the drawings for this general case set up as well?

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21 hours ago, Nenon said:

getting four HDPlex H5 chassis

Btw Nenon, Larry agreed to sell me an extra cooling heatsink kit with my case. 

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That is pretty cool Peter. 

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3 hours ago, Nenon said:

Perhaps one of the people who are interested here can take case of this? If there is no volunteer, I can do it later this week.

 

I'll try to get this done tonight. 

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Just a head's up, looks like Apacer ECC RAM deliveries are delayed. Here is a quote from Matt at FullySilentPCs: 

 

"I want to let you know, this PO was delayed. We apologize. This was due to Samsung had changed ETD on our orders and we were not able to fulfill this order by the 25th. As of right now, we don’t have an ETD. Samsung will let us know on the 28th about our orders. We will provide you an ETD then."

So I expect to receive an update tomorrow and will pass the info on to you then. Samsung supplies the dies that Apacer uses in their ECC RAM.

 

Anyone have another source?

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I wanted to give a couple small data points in my server/streamer build.  I finally got music last night, but will be dismantling the project soon until I get a new motherboard.

 

-xeon 4210 processor

-X11SPM-TPF supermicro mobo

-Advantech registered eec 8gb samsung chip ram at 2666.

-32gb optane on m.2 for OS.

-Pink faun 12s bridge to ps audio DS dac.

-etherregen from a wifi extender. Using copper to a rj45 to usb dongle as I can't get the lan adapter recognized.

 

-Power is a single keces p8 at 20v

-keces p3 for now powering the pink faun bridge, another one powering the etherregen.

- hdplex 800w DC to atx

- ghent cables dc and between 800w and mobo

- BAV power cables 

 

-OS is windows server 2016 (totally not optimized), with jplay.

 

-hdplex h5 gen 2 case

- "Nenon" cooling using dynatron B4A heat sink assembly with 2 h5 heat sinks epoxied to the B4A vapor chamber using MG Chemicals 8329tcs thermal epoxy.  

 

I found out the hard way that this mobo needs registered ram. Additionally,  it seems the mobo is not recognizing the ethernet adapter, so haven't been able to use the fiber sfp modules. Also 1 of the DIMMs is not working.... so I'm replacing the mobo with another supermicro board that uses the c621 chipset. 

 

Temperatures are running 35 degrees Celsius at idle and core temps range from 41 to 45 degrees when playing music.   

 

I have a temporary usb hdd for local music until my nvme SSD arrives... this works poorly however right now. 

 

So I am writing tonight because I am totally intoxicated. By the music. Image height increased by about 3 feet and the sound stage palpably widened. There is a delicious improvement in dynamics and realism. Notes hang. 

 

Next steps: replace mobo with supermicro x11SPL-F, add samsung evo plus 1tb ssd to a supermicro AOC-SLG3-2M2 PCIe add on card, find a fiber nic card, optimize windows as best I dare (no experience). Greatly upgrade power supplies with a Paul Hynes sr7t for EPS (need to order), use keces p3 for atx power, switch i2s bridge from p3 to farad3. 

 

I. Can't. Wait. To hear what happens with improvements in network, power and OS optimization.  

 

Listening to two albums: Gepe, Folclor Imaginario and Moriarty, Gee Whiz but This Is a Lonely Town. 

 

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28 minutes ago, Exocer said:

details of your previous build

Akasa NUC7i7DNH1E with crucial 8gb DDR4 ram, Gentooplayer, Keces 20v 8amp, matrix X SPDIF-2, Keces P3. Ghent dc cables, USB cable and HDMI cable: wireworld starlight 7

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34 minutes ago, Exocer said:

Curious as to what lead you to go the C621/Xeon Scalable CPU route

 

I wanted the ability to use the pink faun I2s bridge, this ruled out the i9 route. I then wanted ECC RAM.  Then there were reports of good sound quality with 10 core cpu in the taiko whatsbest forum. This had the lowest TDP of the 10 core processors. 

 

Lastly cuz I needed a good challenge. 

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also, I wanted an integrated GPU, the AMD CPUs don't have those.

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5 minutes ago, Exocer said:

my next build

Very cool! Let me know how I can help, especially with the cooling mods. 

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16 hours ago, Nenon said:

VROC RAID0 worked fine

Nenon, did you need to purchase a vroc key?

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6 hours ago, Nenon said:

RAID0

Of course I just received my supermicro AOC-SLG3-2M2 card and a samsung evo plus ssd.... have you listened for any improvement RAID0 brings? 

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1 hour ago, exeric2 said:

One thing I haven't been able to order is the HDPlex 800 watt dc-atx converter.

Try emailing Larry, I did when the site said no stock a few months ago, but he had some to sell. 

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2 hours ago, Tatomek7 said:

chapter 3.5 of the manual

What manual are you referring to?

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2 minutes ago, Tatomek7 said:

Manual of ASUS C621 e Sage Motherboard

Oh that manual! Thanks 👍

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6 hours ago, genvirt said:

power all from two separated rail on LPS

I am going this direction with a dual rail PH power supply (1 for atx, the other for eps). My stopgap is using a keces p8 20v/8a. This is working well.

 

You may need a graphics card unless you will do your os and player management remotely. 

 

What will you use for the operating system? Will you put it on a m2 drive?